Journalism, Gender, and Fiction in America

FAIN: FT-51386-03

Jean M. Lutes
Manhattan College (Bronx, NY 10471-4004)

This book argues for the significance of newswomen in American culture and analyzes a spirited group of writers whose work has received almost no scholarly attention. Tracing the figure of the female reporter, both real and imagined, in the late 19th and early 20th century, it revises previous studies of newspaper journalism’s relation to realist and naturalist fiction. Analyzing women’s reportage, fictional portrayals of women journalists, and the literary careers of two female reporters-turned-novelists, this project shows that newswomen became both standard-bearers and scapegoats as the national literary imagination adapted to a new era of mass-market publicity.