User:Valereee/Ruth Gray
Ruth Gray (26 January 1922-May 27, 2008), also known as Ruth Weigand Gray and Ruth Gorrell Gray, was an American editor, restaurant critic and food writer.
Early life and education[edit]
Gray was born 26 January 1922 in Topeka, Kansas.[1][2] She earned degrees in home economics and journalism from Kansas State University.[3][2]
Career[edit]
In the early 1950s Gray was food editor at the Detroit Times.[4]: 172
Gray became food editor at the St. Petersburg Times, considered one of the South's most progressive newspapers at the time, in 1963.[3] She became the paper's restaurant critic in 1974.[3][1] She worked for Nelson Poynter.[3]
Gray's restaurant reviews included descriptions of wheelchair accessibility; this was unusual at the time, as the Americans with Disabilities Act wasn't passed until 1990.[3] She attempted to maintain anonymity by wearing hats and scarves to disguise her appearance and making notes in restaurants' women's restrooms.[3][1] Photos of her were posted on multiple kitchen walls.[3][1]
Her reviews were influential; one restaurant fired its chef after a negative review. Another renamed a dish after her after a negative review.[3][1] She never accepted free meals, and when a server, after calling her by name, told her the meal was on the house, she refused to review the restaurant.[3] In 1975 the Times had to clarify its reviewing policy because patrons sometimes claimed to be her when in a restaurant, hoping for a free meal or better service.[3] Gray was known to attempt to balance negative and positive comments and avoid completely negative reviews; a colleague once commented that if a review ended with Gray writing she'd return if she happened to be in the area, it actually meant "only if I'm starving".[1]
Gray was a member of the Association of Food Journalists.[3] She retired in 1987.[1]
Influence[edit]
Women's journalism scholar Kimberly Wilmot Voss called Gray a "pioneering" food journalist.[5]
Personal life[edit]
Gray was a lifelong Republican; colleagues teased her about working for such a progressive newspaper.[1] In 1947 she married Malcolm Gray, a WWII Navy veteran from Topeka with whom she had a son and a daughter.[2][1] They moved to St. Petersburg in 1960.[2] She was widowed in 1998.[2]
Gray died 27 May 2008 of Alzheimer's disease in Heath, Ohio.[1][2] She was 86.[1]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Hayes, Stephanie (31 May 2008). "Being critical didn't come naturally to critic". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f "Ruth Weigand Gray". Legacy.com. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Voss, Kimberly; Speere, Lance (1 May 2013). "Food Fight: Accusations of Press Agentry". Gastronomica. 13 (2): 41–50. doi:10.1525/gfc.2013.13.2.41. ISSN 1529-3262.
- ^ Voss, Kimberly Wilmot (2014). The food section: newspaper women and the culinary community. Studies in food and gastronomy. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-2720-0.
- ^ "Florida Food in the Golden Era of Women's Page Journalism". Florida Humanities. 5 January 2022. Retrieved 28 September 2023.