Marguerite Harrison is a name you might not recognize. Under the guise of a newspaper correspondent, she was an American woman who worked as a spy in Europe and Asia in the years between World War I and World War II. This post illustrates her life in newspapers articles- some penned by her and others about her.
“Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.” In 1887, investigative journalist for the New York World newspaper Nellie Bly went undercover to expose the dreadful conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum, a mental institution on Blackwell’s Island. Read more about Bly’s fearless investigation and how her work forever changed the field of journalism.
Alice Guy-Blaché is a name you likely have never heard. She was a pioneer of the French and American film industries during the silent era and the first woman to have a career as a director, yet her work and career have largely been overlooked throughout history. She was among the very first to use …
Presenting feel-good news stories to round out our posts for the year and say farewell to 2020 on a positive note! Hopefully, these uplifting, heartfelt, funny, and touching stories from yesterday’s news in Chronicling America* serve as a diversion from the darker news of this year… In 1947, after scouring newspaper stories around the country, …
This post is a collaboration with Dr. Christina Burr, Associate Professor in History at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, where she teaches courses in North American Popular Culture, Women’s History, and a Graduate Seminar on the Modern Girl. Dr. Burr and I met while she was conducting research on-site at the Library …
One hundred years ago this week, on November 2, 1920, the United States presidential election was held. It was the first presidential election held after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. Incidentally – and as holders of the Library’s main newspaper collections, we can’t <not> mention it – …