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Sensational

The Hidden History of America's "Girl Stunt Reporters"

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"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. 

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    • Kirkus

      February 15, 2021
      A history of a group of pioneering investigative journalists. During the 1880s, notes environmental and science writer Todd, "girl stunt reporters" began going undercover to report on corruption and malfeasance in the U.S. Among these female reporters was Nellie Bly, who, in 1887, published the "Inside the Madhouse" series for the World, in which she faked insanity to expose conditions in a mental hospital in New York City. Bly's writing "shook free of the ruffles and hoop skirts of Victorian prose," and her "strong first-person point of view immersed readers in the narrator's experience." Across the country, other women took notice and entered the fray, exposing sweatshops, corrupt politicians, and other abuses of power. However, in 1888, when a young woman known only as "Girl Reporter" faked a pregnancy in order to write a series on abortion physicians for the Chicago Times, some felt she had pushed stunt reporting too far. In addition, "female writers began to wonder if assigning editors had their best interests at heart." Before long, the author contends, stunt reporters fell out of favor, and the term "yellow journalism" became a popular way to describe stories deemed outrageous or sensational. Stunt reporting eventually faded away, but its impact would remain, reflected in the new journalism work of Joan Didion, George Plimpton, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and others. "By writing these reporters back into history," Todd writes, "I aim to highlight the double standard that labels women as 'stunt reporters' while men are 'investigative journalists, ' even as they do the same work." The author succeeds in resurrecting the indispensable contributions of Bly and others, weaving together an enjoyable chronicle of a specific element of the history of journalism. Like she did for Maria Sibylla Merian in Chrysalis (2007), Todd celebrates the contributions of her subjects while placing them within the appropriate historical context. An engaging and enlightening portrait of trailblazers who "challenged...views of what a woman should be."

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Library Journal

      April 1, 2021

      In this latest book, Todd (Sparrow) focuses on the history of stunt reporting and the remarkable careers of notable women journalists. Todd details several women, such as Nellie Bly and Ida B. Wells, who investigated and exposed political corruption and working conditions in factories. While the narrative is engaging throughout, Todd's writing shines when telling the stories of women who are often overlooked, such as Victoria Earle Matthews, born into slavery to an enslaved mother; the author recounts how Matthews became a writer and activist. Consideration is also given to the legacy of author and suffragist Elizabeth Jordan, who reported on the trial of Lizzie Borden. Drawing on a range of primary sources, including newsletter articles and photographs, Todd clearly relays how these varied women were able to spark change, and how they went on to write books or become activists themselves in the early 20th century. VERDICT Todd's comprehensive account rightly sheds light on the many women who changed the face of journalism and helped jump-start the newspaper industry. Her accessible writing draws in readers from the first page.--Rebecca Kluberdanz, Central New York Lib. Resources Council, Syracuse

      Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      March 15, 2021
      In the mid-nineteenth century, few employment paths were open to women beyond domestic worker, teacher, and sweatshop laborer, and all were anathema to those with independent minds and adventurous spirits. Fortunately, newspapers of the day saw the subscription-bait value of hiring young, intrepid women for so-called stunt assignments, going undercover to expose all-too prevalent cases of human rights abuses, poverty, and political corruption. For women willing, more typically eager, to accept the challenge, the world was as exhilarating as it was dangerous. As the Victorian age inexorably gave way to the very different modern era, women journalists began to emerge from their undercover pretenses to openly write overt works of investigative journalism. In order for today's indefatigable, audacious women (or men, for that matter)--such journalists as Jane Mayer and Barbara Ehrenreich--there first had to be such gutsy ""girl"" reporters as Nellie Bly and Ida Tarbell. With textured analysis and an instinct for salient details, Todd emulates her pioneering heroines to offer multidimensional examples of the revolutionary contributions women of this era made to journalism.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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