Biographical Note

Ruth Cornwall Woodman was born on November 26, 1894 and raised in England. She received a degree from Vassar in 1916 and was part of Phi Beta Kappa. Her first job was with the Century Company, as secretary to the editor of St. Nicholas Magazine, whose position she expected to take over within a short time. When Ruth learned that several employees who had been with the company for over thirty years expected to receive the position, she looked for other work. This search landed her in Turkey, where she worked with an American organization on a survey of Constantinople after World War I. Spending the winter of 1921-22 in Constantinople, she taught English to refugee boys and served as amanuensis to the head of the Language School for missionaries in Scutari. Ruth Woodman traveled from Constantinople to Egypt, India, and China before returning to New York City.

Woodman's first article about Turkey appeared in the New York Times Magazine Section, from which she made forty dollars. A vice president of the H. K. McCann advertising agency read it and offered her a job with the company as copywriter. She wrote magazine and newspaper copy for five years. In 1928, she began writing for radio, turning out scripts for DuPont's "Calvalcade of America" and Bob Ripley's "Believe It Or Not."

"Death Valley Days," true stories of the West, began on September 30, 1930 and Woodman was selected as its writer. The program's sponsor, Pacific Coast Borax Company, stipulated that the writer should have a first-hand knowledge of the Death Valley region and for fourteen years, as the radio program ran until July of 1945, Woodman made summer excursions to Death valley to gather material. Her first trip was in a Model A Ford, where she gathered interviews from people in Death Valley and research local newspaper files. She was accompanied by W. W. (Wash) Cahill, an employee of the company and an expert on the desert. The majority of her story material came from interviews with old-timers and from the files of mining camp newspapers.

The series was renamed "Death Valley Sheriff," airing from August 10, 1944 to June 21, 1945. The name was then changed to "The Sheriff" and aired from June 29, 1945 to September 14, 1951. After this point, the series aired in reruns under different titles, including "Call of the West," Frontier Adventure," "The Pioneers," "Trails West," and "Western Star Theatre."

In 1952, the "Death Valley Days," radio series had proved so successful that in 1952, the sponsor asked Woodman to adapt the stories for television. Woodman wrote all of the television plays for five years. When the series opened up to other writers, Woodman served as story editor, and continued to write scripts for the series. "Death Valley Days" won awards from the Governors of California, Nevada, and Utah and historical societies including the Native Daughters of the Golden West, and from the University of Washington. In 1961, Woodman received the Western Heritage Award for the best Western Documentary of the year.

During her career with "Death Valley Days," Woodman continued to write for other radio programs, including "Dr. Christian," Suspense," and "Armstrong Theatre of Today." She also continued to write for print media and sold articles to The New Yorker and Reader's Digest about people and places she was familiar with.

Ruth Cornwall married William E. Woodman and lived most of her life in Rye, New York. She had two children, William Jr. and Winthrop. The family made several trips to Europe. In October of 1961, Woodman moved away from Hollywood to Europe and lived there for a year. She kept notebooks of her travels, writing mostly about Turkey. Ruth Woodman died on April 22, 1970 at the age of 75 in Santa Monica, California.