Early years Hughes was born in 1898 in
Manchester, New Hampshire, per multiple government documents. She referred to Manchester as her hometown, and wrote about growing up there with her two brothers and two sisters as the middle child. Hughes was a 1921 graduate of the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She worked as an associate editor at
Detective Story Magazine for six months.
Fashion reporting In 1928, Hughes began writing a fashion column, "A Woman's New York", for the
New York World-Telegram. Hughes, and her column, later moved to the
New York American. Writer
Ishbel Ross stated that Hughes "wrought a miraculous change in the publicity methods of the department stores", which came from Hughes' "idea for a supporting news column for shops, such as books and the theater had". Hughes also edited a weekly page of beauty news, "You Can Be Beautiful", for the
New York American starting in 1936.
International reporting Hughes traveled extensively prior to World War II, visiting and writing about Japan,
Manchuria, Italy, and Russia. one of several locations he lived in following his exile from the
Soviet Union in 1929. Hughes' account of their meeting, which appeared in various American newspapers in mid-August, noted that they spoke in French, as Trotsky said his English was rusty.
Personal life Ishbel Ross described Hughes: She is slim, dark, still in her manner. Her face is touched with melancholy. She parts her hair severely in the middle, speaks thoughtfully, surveys the world with slightly tilted eyes. But her somber air is deceptive. She is alert, ingratiating, vivid in her interests, optimistic in her outlook. She believes that good fortune comes to those who believe completely in what they are doing. She herself moves in the mystical aura of success. Hughes was a friend of French-born hat-maker
Lilly Daché, and is mentioned several times in Daché's autobiography,
Talking Through My Hats. Hughes was evidently a
teetotaler, with a "notorious" dislike of alcohol. Hughes was married twice, first immediately after she left college, which ended in divorce, it is unclear what became of him. In an August 1944 column, Hughes mentioned "Jake, my month-old foster son"; he was mentioned by Hughes numerous times, as late as 1962. Hall died in 1946 at the couple's apartment in
Manhattan, aged 50. At the time of his death, he was working on a book about dancer
Gilda Gray. Hughes died in 1977 in
White Plains, New York, aged 78. The obituary noted a brother, a sister, and her foster son as surviving immediate family. ==Notes==