Last Saturday, I spoke about The Dragon From Chicago to an enthusiastic audience at History Camp 2024 in Boston.* At the end, a member of the audience stopped me and asked if Sigrid Schultz reported on anything besides politics.

The short answer is yes, indeed she did.  In fact, at one point, Joseph Pierson, then managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, felt the need to remind Sigrid that “Public interest in stories involving scientific progress and adventure is much more constant and reliable than its interest in the long-winded maneuvers of international politics.”

Foreign bureaus didn’t just cover the “big news” Sigrid was expected to report on American visitors in Berlin, especially visitors from Chicago, on advances in science and technology, human interest stories, the escapades of Europe royalty, and the arts. Aviation-related stories were particularly popular, because Americans (including the Tribune’s owner Colonel McCormick) were aviation mad, even before Lindburgh’s flight across the Atlantic took over front pages everywhere in May 1927. Sigrid reported many, many aviation stories.  In fact, she almost managed to be a passenger on the first Zeppelin passenger flight from Germany to the United States.  She was thrilled with the idea, but ultimately the Tribune decided the story didn’t justify the cost of the ticket.  Schultz was not pleased.  Especially when Lady Hay Drummond-Hay had the distinction of being the only woman on the flight.

At various times Sigrid reported on the opening of direct telephone service from Berlin to Chicago,** royal marriages and misalliances, and the hunt for and status of America’s most notorious World War I draft dodger, Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, whose appearances and disappearances were a regular feature of Sigrid’s “mail stories” in the 1920s and 1930s. ***

In short, Nazis were the big story of her career, but they weren’t the only story.

*For those of you who don’t know, History Camp is a day-long extravaganza for history nerds of all kinds.  50 speakers.  350 attendees.  Lots of programs.  Many badges simply listed their wearers as history enthusiasts.  Rumor has it that they will post videos of the sessions on the website down the road.  In the meantime, if you’re interested, here’s the link to my podcast episode on History Camp Author Discussion: https://historycamp.org/pamela-d-toler-the-dragon-from-chicago-the-untold-story-of-an-american-reporter-in-nazi-germany/

**It was a big deal and the story made the front page. Previously calls had to connect through Paris.  Sigrid called in the story on February 10, 1928, as the dateline proudly noted, by trans-Atlantic telephone from the Berlin office of the Tribune.  She pointed out to her readers that in Berlin night was falling and the street lamps were lit, though she knew it was midday in Chicago:  “Science at last enables my voice to conquer time and space.”

***America’s fascination with celebrities, the wealthy, and especially wealthy celebrities, behaving badly is nothing new.  Grover Cleveland Bergdoll–wealthy playboy, early aviator, race car driver, and draft dodger–checked all the boxes.