Two journalist-professors discuss the history of women in American journalism from 1840 to the present; and the new book Undaunted, which showcases the exceptional careers of such impactful reporters as Margaret Fuller, Rachel Carson, Joan Didion, and Martha Gellhorn.

Join us in Women’s History Month to examine the lives of some of the best-remembered and long-forgotten woman journalists, standout reporters who covered the major news stories and every conflict at home and abroad since before the Civil War. In addition to chronicling the careers of journalists and newsroom leaders, Undaunted explores the larger story: the nearly two-centuries-old struggle for women’s rights as it manifests in a field where women have never found easy welcome. The book documents their collective fight for equity from the gentle stirrings of the late 1800s to the work, actions, and pronouncements of celebrated journalists such as Ida Tarbell, Ida B. Wells, and Kate Masterson as the century turned, on to Pauline Frederick, Anne O'Hare McCormick, Martha Gelhorn, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault in the first half of the 20th; through the legal battles of the 1970s to the #MeToo movement and onward. With Tracy Lucht, Kroeger will discuss the huge and singular impact women have had on this vital profession still dominated by men.

Brooke Kroeger is a professor emerita at New York University, where she was the founding director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and taught from 1998 to 2021. She was UN correspondent for Newsday, deputy metropolitan editor at New York Newsday, and for more than a decade before that, a correspondent, editor, and bureau and division chief for United Press International at home and abroad. She serves on the editorial board of American Journalism: A Journal of Media History. Undaunted is her sixth book. She lives in New York where, among other activities, she is President of the Board of Managers of the East Hampton Library.

Tracy Lucht is an associate professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and has worked at USA Today, The Washington Post and The Des Moines Register. She has written extensively on the history of women in the U.S. media and serves as president of the American Journalism Historians Association.

Our Special Thanks to American Inspiration Series Sponsors Susan K. and John D. Thompson

Presented in partnership with Boston Public Library and GBH Forum Network