Dorothy Fuldheim made national history as the first female news anchor right here in Cleveland, Ohio.

She was very influential in broadcast news; as she had her very own weekly show on television. This was at a time when not a lot of women were working in the field of journalism. And she was already in her 50s when she started her broadcasting career!

Fuldheim started her career in journalism as a radio commentator when she was 54 years-old. She had a Biography Series with the ABC network for two years. She would do character voices impersonating historical figures such as Cleopatra, Rasputin, and George Washington.

In 1947, she finally made it to Television. WEWS-TV sat her in front of a camera as a nightly news anchor, making her the first woman to appear on broadcast news in the entire US.

She was also a co-host for the variety show, “The One O'Clock Club.” Fuldheim would always hit high ratings when she had one-on-one interviews. She estimated she had done 15-thousand interviews by 1974. She interviewed Helen Keller, Adolf Hitler, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Muhammad Ali, among many many others.

Her career as a news anchor ended when she was 91 years old and had suffered from two strokes. Her last interview was in 1984 with then-president Ronald Reagan. She passed away in 1989 at the age of 96.

Although her name might not be very recognizable outside of the news industry, Dorothy Fuldheim made a great impact in the way the public gets the news even to today.