Out on Assignment
Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space
Alice Fahs
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 11/2011
Pages: 376
Subject: Social Science, History, Language Arts and Disciplines
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807869031
DESCRIPTION
Newspaper women were part of a wave of women seeking new, independent, urban lives, but they struggled to obtain the newspaper work of their dreams. Although some female journalists embraced more adventurous reporting, including stunt work and undercover assignments, many were relegated to the women's page. However, these intrepid female journalists made the women's page their own. Fahs reveals how their writings--including celebrity interviews, witty sketches of urban life, celebrations of being "bachelor girls," advice columns, and a campaign in support of suffrage--had far-reaching implications for the creation of new, modern public spaces for American women at the turn of the century. As observers and actors in a new drama of independent urban life, newspaper women used the simultaneously liberating and exploitative nature of their work, Fahs argues, to demonstrate the power of a public voice, both individually and collectively.