Nancy Dickerson Whitehead

Nancy Dickerson (January 19, 1927 – October 18, 1997) was an American radio and television journalist and researcher for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Famous as a celebrity and socialite (whereby she was sometimes called Nancy Dickerson Whitehead later in life) as well as her journalism, she later became an independent producer of documentaries. Early career Born Nancy Conners Hanschman in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, Nancy Dickerson first attended Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, for two years before transferring to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she earned a degree in education in 1948. She worked as a junior high school teacher in West Allis (West Allis Historical Society records) before moving to Washington, D.C., in 1951. She took courses in speech and drama at The Catholic University of America to improve the skills she would need to pursue her dream of becoming a broadcaster. It was in her next position, as a Senate Foreign Relations Committee researcher, that she would develop a passion for the inner workings of government, which would define her career of more than four decades. Pioneering newswoman Although the field of television journalism was almost entirely dominated by men at the time, Dickerson got her break in 1954, when she was hired by CBS News's Washington bureau to produce a radio show called Capital Cloakroom. She would also become an associate producer of Face the Nation. In 1960, CBS made her its first female correspondent.