""A gripping, flawlessly researched, and overdue portrait of America’s trailblazing female journalists. Kim Todd has restored these long-forgotten mavericks to their rightful place in American history."" — Abbott Kahler, author (as Karen Abbott)

of The Ghosts of Eden Park and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy

A vivid social history that brings to light the “girl stunt reporters” of the Gilded Age who went undercover to expose corruption and abuse in America, and redefined what it meant to be a woman and a journalist—pioneers whose influence continues to be felt today.

In the waning years of the nineteenth century, women journalists

across the United States risked reputation and their own safety to expose the

hazardous conditions under which many Americans lived and worked. In various

disguises, they stole into sewing factories to report on child labor, fainted

in the streets to test public hospital treatment, posed as lobbyists to reveal

corrupt politicians. Inventive writers whose in-depth narratives made headlines

for weeks at a stretch, these “girl stunt reporters” changed laws, helped

launch a labor movement, championed women’s rights, and redefined journalism

for the modern age.

The 1880s and 1890s witnessed a revolution in journalism as

publisher titans like Hearst and Pulitzer used weapons of innovation and scandal

to battle it out for market share. As they sought new ways to draw readers in,

they found their answer in young women flooding into cities to seek their

fortunes. When Nellie Bly went undercover into Blackwell’s Insane Asylum for

Women and emerged with a scathing indictment of what she found there, the

resulting sensation created opportunity for a whole new wave of writers. In a

time of few jobs and few rights for women, here was a path to lives of

excitement and meaning.

After only a decade of headlines and fame, though, these

trailblazers faced a vicious public backlash. Accused of practicing “yellow

journalism,” their popularity waned until “stunt reporter” became a badge of

shame. But their influence on the field of journalism would arc across a

century, from the Progressive Era “muckraking” of the 1900s to the personal

“New Journalism” of the 1960s and ’70s, to the “immersion journalism” and

“creative nonfiction” of today. Bold and unconventional, these writers changed

how people would tell stories forever.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.