Nina Mason Pulliam (September 19, 1906 – March 26, 1997) was an American journalist, author, and newspaper executive in Arizona and Indiana, where she was also well known as a philanthropist and civic leader.
As a teen she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and traveled on her own to the Arizona desert to live in a Phoenix home near Camelback Mountain to recover from her illness.
Mason's and Pulliam's thirty-four year marriage ended with his death in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1975 at the age of eighty-six.
[8] Nina Mason began her career in journalism at Farm Life, a national magazine published in Spencer, Indiana.
[3] Pulliam's journalistic work of her travels was published in North American newspapers over a period of eleven years.
Her articles were later compiled into books:[3] Befriended Journey (1948 booklet);[9] South America, Land of the Future, Jewel of the Past (1951), coauthored with Eugene C. Pulliam; Iron Curtain Time: The Brave Bullies.
[1] In addition to her work as a journalist, Nina Pulliam was founding secretary-treasurer and a board member of Central Newspapers, Incorporated, the company her husband formed in 1934.
As a result of the affliction, she was no longer able to visit the publishing company's pressrooms and had to wait for newsprint to fully dry before touching the paper and reading its contents.
[6][12][14] The Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust was established upon her death in March 1997 to continue her philanthropic legacy.
[5][17] During her lifetime as a journalist, author, and newspaper executive and through the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, established after her death in 1997, she contributed to numerous philanthropic projects to support her interests in education, animals, nature, the outdoors, and Native American art and culture.
The Nina Mason Pulliam Legacy Scholars, established to assist students with college expenses, is a major program for her charitable foundation.