Sensational : the hidden history of America's "girl stunt reporters" / Kim Todd.

Presents a social history of women journalists of the Gilded Age who went undercover to champion women's rights and expose corruption and abuse in America.

In the waning years of the nineteenth century women journalists across the United States risked reputation and their own safety to expose the hazardous conditions under which many Americans lived and worked. They stole into sewing factories to report on child labor, fainted in the streets to test public hospital treatment, posed as lobbyists to reveal corrupt politicians. Todd shows how these "girl stunt reporters" changed laws, helped launch a labor movement, championed women's rights, and redefined journalism for the modern age. -- adapted from jacket