Josephine Campbell papers

Josephine “Jo” Campbell (1927-2006) was journalist, civil rights worker, and environmental activist. She was born Josephine Anne Conrad in Evansville, Indiana on January 31, 1927, the daughter of Owen McIntyre Conrad and Josephine Anne Greene. She was raised by her mother in Daytona Beach, Florida. She attended Seabreeze High School while working as a “cub reporter” for the Daytona Beach News Journal, and after her graduation in 1945 she moved to Washington, D.C. to further her career in journalism as a copyboy for the Washington Post.

Josephine Conrad married Donald Herman Campbell on March 15, 1946. The couple had three daughters, Kathleen, Carolyn, and Deborah Campbell.

Campbell wrote fiction for magazines under her husband's name, worked in public relations, and headed the Washington bureau of a Pakistani newspaper before beginning her 30 year career with the International Press Service, part of the Department of State’s U.S. Information Agency in 1956. As a writer and editor for IPS, she travelled in the United States and Africa and wrote for Voice of America and publications in Africa, Russia, and the Middle East until her retirement in 1986.

After her husband’s death in 1988, Campbell founded Ecotopics International News Service, a news service for environmental and human rights issues. She and her partner, chemist Hyman Rudoff, wrote for Ecotopics as well as the local Willits News in California. She was also active the National Writers Union, the National Press Club, the Dog Writers Association of America, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Ukiah Gun Club.

Josephine Campbell died March 1, 2006 in Petaluma, California.