JOUR: Journalism: Biography & Classic Works

This book provides a representative history of the American women who surmounted every impediment put in their way to do journalism's most valued work. From Margaret Fuller's improbable success to the highly paid reporters of the mid-19th century, to the breakthrough investigative triumphs of Nellie Bly, Ida Tarbell, and Ida B. Wells, author Brooke Kroeger examines the lives of both best-remembered and long-forgotten woman journalists. She explores the careers of standout woman reporters who covered major news stories -- and every conflict at home and abroad since before the Civil War -- and she celebrates those exceptional careers up to the present, including those of Martha Gellhorn, Rachel Carson, Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, Cokie Roberts, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault. As Kroeger chronicles the lives of journalists and newsroom leaders in every medium, a larger story develops: the nearly two-centuries-old struggle for women's rights. The text discusses the collective fight for equity from the gentle stirrings of the late 1800s through the legal battles of the 1970s, to the #MeToo movement and today's racial and gender disparities. 'Undaunted' unveils the huge and singular impact women have had on a vital profession still dominated by men.