Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters”

Nelly Bly famously went undercover in the late 1800s as a “girl stunt reporter” to expose the abusive world of female asylum patients. Nell Nelson was commissioned to expose the real lives of shop girls in factories. I have been sharing some of these stories with my students in my Gilded Age course for years. But I’ve always hoped for more scholarly information and a readable book to recommend. Now I have both.

Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters” by Kim Todd tells the tale of these women and many more. The history of these journalists is told, including some whom I’d never heard of. Todd investigates why male reporters were involved in important “muckraking” while these female reporters were relegated to the status of yellow journalism and “stunts”. The book is quite interesting and well written. I often prefer to steer away from history books for reading pleasure because I have read so many textbooks and boring historical works that I yawn when thinking about them. But Sensational reads like literature. I highly recommend it.