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How Women Changed American Journalism
by Brooke Kroeger
An essential history of women in American journalism, showcasing exceptional careers from 1840 to the present.
Undaunted is 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-nineteenth century to the breakthrough investigative triumphs of Nellie Bly, Ida Tarbell, and Ida B. Wells, Brooke Kroeger examines the lives of the best-remembered and long-forgotten woman journalists. She explores the careers of standout woman reporters who covered the 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. Here as well is 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.
"Monumental... A substantial work of research on women journalists over the last 180 years, underscoring both sexist hurdles and tremendous breakthroughs... A tour de force that should be in every library and school in the country." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A sweeping history... A solidly researched and fluidly written overview of an important chapter in women's history." —Publishers Weekly
"Undaunted is proof that not every patriotic hero bore a gun and wore pants. Historically, most of the women who poured their souls into the Fourth Estate were treated like witnesses to their own execution: Everyone got to make a speech about them — but them. Now their story is told by one of their own, with the forthright candor and superb journalistic skill for which Brooke Kroeger is known. The pioneers in this tome were foot soldiers of justice and imagination. Their presence in newsrooms challenged the very nature of journalism, which by its nature, lives in a language dipped in the subtle but charged, effective strength of male prejudice. For all their talent and skill, these women had no voice in history. Now, thanks to Kroeger, they have one." —James McBride, author of Deacon King Kong
"Brooke Kroeger here offers an invaluable accounting of two centuries of achievement. Full of surprising stories, Undaunted masterfully charts individual breakthroughs while building the larger narrative of female journalists in America. While it can be disheartening to watch the same issues come back decade after decade, it is impossible to read this record of journalistic innovation without a sense of triumph." —Kim Todd, author of Sensational: The Hidden History of America's "Girl Stunt Reporters"
"For too long the contributions of women to American journalism have been devalued or overlooked. Fortunately, Brooke Kroeger has retrieved many of their inspiring tales from the waste bin of history to show how women forever changed the field. An overdue collective history of generations of intrepid female journalists." —Pamela Newkirk, author of Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media
This information about Undaunted was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Brooke Kroeger is a professor emerita at New York University, where she was the founding director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and taught from 1998 to 2021. She was UN correspondent for Newsday, deputy metropolitan editor at New York Newsday, and for more than a decade a correspondent, editor, and bureau and division chief for United Press International at home and abroad. She serves on the editorial board of American Journalism: A Journal of Media History. Undaunted is her sixth book. She lives in New York.
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