The First with the Latest!: Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City

Agness Aggie Underwood never intended to become a reporter-all she really wanted was a pair of silk stockings. When her husband told her they couldn’t afford them, she threatened to get a job and buy them herself. Those silk stockings launched a career that started with Aggie at the switchboard of the Los Angeles Record newspaper in 1926, and ended more than four decades later when she retired as City Editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. As a reporter for the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express (later, Herald Examiner), Aggie not only reported on crimes throughout the city, but sometimes helped solve them. Using quick wit and intuition, Aggie helped her newspaper live up to its motto The First with the Latest. Through the Los Angeles Herald Examiner’s photo archive, now held by the Los Angeles Public Library, the cases Aggie covered are more than just faded headlines, but come to life in light and shadow. This catalog of nearly 100 images, which compliments an exhibit at the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library gives a brief overview of Agness Underwood and some of the cases she covered.