Little Rock’s Helen Gurley Brown changed the face of feminism

A legendary magazine editor and book author, Helen Gurley Brown was born in the Ozarks and grew up in Little Rock. After a short stint as an escort and then ad agency secretary, she quickly vaulted into the copywriting department during the 1960s.

In 1962, her book Sex and the Single Girl hit the bestseller list, shockingly revealing that unmarried women love sex, and three years later she became editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan where she reigned for the next 32 years. Gurley, who loved fishnets and minidresses, is credited with giving women the freedom to be “self-made, sexual, and supremely ambitious .”

– Eve Lederman, The 100 Companies