Out on Assignment

September 15, 2011

Although written by an academic for academics, this study of the turn-of-the-20th-century newspaper business and its women practitioners is an accessible cultural history. In seven chapters covering such topics as the personalities of women newspaper writers, the style and impact of papers' popular "women's pages" and human interest stories, and how women writers undertook "stunt" journalism and travel adventures, Fahs (history, Univ. of California, Irvine; The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North & South, 1861-65) combines quotations from the journalists (from the well-known Nellie Bly to the more obscure, e.g., Margherita Hamm) with primary research and scholarly citations. In discussing how these trendsetters wrote about themselves as "bachelor girls" and adventurers, Fahs also explores how they led the way to women's suffrage and modern ideas of feminism. VERDICT Readers with an interest in media history as well as in women's studies will find this to be an enjoyable and character-driven scholarly book, although its academic style may render it a bit dry for the general history reader.--Sarah Statz Cords, The Reader's Advisor Online

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