Irene Kuhn spent more than seventy years as a journalist. She reported from 5 continents in an era when few women were foreign correspondents.
Born in 1900, she got her first newspaper reporting job at the age of 20. She worked briefly in New York, but soon moved to Paris.
Seeking an even more adventurous assignment, Kuhn relocated to Shanghai. There she developed an expertise in Chinese affairs. Kuhn then moved on to become a reporter in Honolulu.
By the age of 38, she had published a best-selling autobiography titled Assigned to Adventure. But her career was far from over. She returned to Shanghai to cover the end of World War II for NBC news. Along with her daughter, she hosted a weekly radio program in New York discussing current events. In her later years she became a syndicated columnist and travel writer.
See Irene Kuhn’s papers at UW’s American Heritage Center to learn more about her globetrotting life.