She is famous for her coverage of World War II, during which she followed the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and reported on major battles for the Associated Press.
[1] Her father was a mining prospector who died in 1911,[1] at which point Cowan's mother, Ida, bought a homestead in Florida.
[1] Ida Cowan had previously been a teacher, and felt that private schools provided a better education, so Nash completed seventh and eighth grade there.
[2] Ida Cowan disliked the cold weather in Salt Lake City, and used the money that she saved from the sale of their homestead to move to San Antonio, Texas.
[2] During her time there, however, Nash met Elva Cunningham, the president of the San Antonio Parent Teacher Association.
[1] Nash enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin in 1919, and moved out of the Cunningham home in order to do so, but they remained like a second family to her.
[1] She got the job through Mary Carter, sister of Elva Cunningham, who knew the managing editor of the paper and worked in the news room.
"[2] She also started offering her services as a free-lance journalist, and wrote for other papers, such as the Houston Chronicle, under the name Baldwin Cowan in order to disguise her gender.
She continued to work at the San Antonio Evening News until 1929, during which time she covered the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston, Texas.
[3] Impressed with her work there, which she had written under her pen name of Baldwin Cowan, United Press offered her a job in January 1929, which she accepted.
[2][4] Meanwhile, Kent Cooper at the Associated Press had begun the practice of hiring women during his tenure as general manager beginning in 1925.
"[3] Cooper promptly hired Nash, and she would go on to work for the Associated Press for the next 27 years as a reporter, writing about many important historical events,[1] although she was often pressured by her superiors to cover the news from the "woman's angle.
[2] She was later assigned to Washington D.C., where she covered social life, human interest stories, and Eleanor Roosevelt's press conferences.
[1] Shortly after, AP also approved her request,[1] and Nash left for North Africa, where she would report on WACs, hospitals, and military operations.
[1] While deployed in Algeria, beginning January 1943,[1] Nash was met with considerable resistance both from within the U.S. Army and her coworkers at the Associated Press.
[1] In April 1945, Nash was reassigned to AP's Washington Bureau, and after the war she covered the Pentagon, the House Armed Services Committee, and general military news until 1956.