Margaret Carlson Biography

Early Life and Career

Margaret Carlson was born in 1946, in Washington D.C., US. She is a daughter of James Francis Xavier Brwsbahan and Mary Catherine McCreary. She has two brothers: Jimmy and Edmund. Her birth name is Margaret Bresnahan.

She studied at Bishop McDevitt High School (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) and attend Pennsylvania State University, where she completed her studies with a degree in B.A. in 1966. Margret started working at the U.S. Department of Labor and three other agencies after she completed her degree.

During the period, she lived on Yuma Street, Anacostia with her grandmother Nellie McCreary, who worked as a maid at the Hotel Washington, Washington D.C. and was a former nurse’s aide at St. Elizabeth’s hospital. Then after, Carlson taught third grade in Watts, Los Angeles and joined Nader’s Raiders.

Later, she earned a law degree from George Washington University Law School, Washington D.C. in 1973. She then worked as a Federal Trade Commission lawyer under Michael Pertschuk, until the Carter administration ended.

In 1988, she worked as a managing editor in The New Republic, a liberal American magazine of commentary on politics and the arts. But she rose to a fame after working as a columnist at Time magazine in 1988 being the first female columnist in the magazine's history.

She joined the Time magazine in 1994. There she covered four presidential elections for TIME and left in 2005 for Bloomberg news.

Apart from this, she also worked as a Washington bureau chief for Esquire (an American men’s magazine), editor of the short lived Washington Weekly and was a reporter and member of the editorial staff for the Washington-based national weekly newspaper, Legal Times. 

Moreover, she was a commentator on a political talk show, Inside Politics and for 15 years a panelist on an American weekly political talk show, Capital Gang. She won Belva Ann Lockwood Award for her hard work in 2011.

Personal Life

Margaret married Eugene Carlson in the year 1972. The couple first met each other in late 1960’s and started dating. They decided to take their relationship further and married in a content ceremony. The guest included their close friends and family members.

The husband and wife are parents of a daughter, Courtney Anne Carlson, born in 1974. Unfortunately, the happily married pair separated citing irreconcilable difference. They filed for divorce in 1970, finalized in 1972.

Since then, she raised her daughter alone and proved herself to be a great mother. Her daughter married David Paul Yarkin in May 2001. She shares three children with her husband.

Net Worth

Margret is one of the successful female columnist in the world who has received name and fame as a columnist and has been a role model to many females. Looking at her bright career she probably has a net worth not less than the seven figures.