Martha Gellhorn

At 22 years of age, Martha Gellhorn's first significant affair was with French economist Bertrand de Jouvenel. It lasted for four years.

She met Ernest Hemingway in 1936 in Florida and four years later they were married. She became Hemingway’s third wife. However, she disliked the fame associated with being his wife. She famously remarked that she had no intention of being a footnote in someone else's life. She divorced Hemmingway in 1940.

She had an affair with Major General James M. Gavin of U.S.A while she was still married to Hemingway.

Martha Gellhorn was born on November 8, 1908 in St. Louis, Missouri to Edna Fischel Gellhorn, a suffragist and George Gellhorn, a gynecologist. She was of Jewish origin. Her brothers, Walter Gellhorn and Alfred Gellhorn were also well-known personalities; Walter was a renowned law professor at Columbia University and Alfred was an oncologist.

She studied at John Burroughs School in St. Louis and later joined Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, in 1926. Soon, she left the graduation course to pursue a career in journalism. American magazine 'The New Republic' featured her maiden articles.

Resolute to become an international reporter, she traveled to Paris in 1930 where she worked at the United Press Bureau. During this period, she became an active participant in the pacifist movement and recorded her experiences in the book 'What Mad Pursuit' (1934).

Back in the United States, Martha Gellhorn was hired by Harry Hopkins as a field investigator for Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). She toured across the country to report on the effect of the Great Depression. Together with photographer Dorothea Lange, they documented the lives of poor and starving people. They also explored forbidden subjects in their investigation making them key contributors to American history.

She met Earnest Hemingway in 1936 in Florida. Together, they travelled to Spain to report the Spanish Civil War. At that time, she was employed by Collier's Weekly.

She reported on the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Czechoslovakia. She recounted the war from other countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, England, and Finland. She also described the activities of World War II in the novel 'A Stricken Field' (1940).

Martha Gellhorn impersonated as a stretcher carrier to witness the Normandy landings on D-Day June 6, 1944; being the only woman to land at Normandy that day.

She reported the Vietnam War and the Arab-Israel conflicts in the 1960s and 70s while working for the Atlantic Monthly. In the next decade she reported the Civil Wars in Central America.

Her first book 'The Trouble I’ve Seen' (1936) regarding the impact of the great depression on the American people had a sensational response and was hugely successful.

As a leading war correspondent, she authored several articles such as 'The Face of War' (1959) – an assortment of wartime writing and 'The View from the Ground' (1988) an assortment of peacetime essays. In between, she also authored 'Vietnam: A New Kind of War' (1966).

Her journeys, including a voyage with Hemingway are described in 'Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir' (1978).