Undaunted: the untold story of women in American journalism

“Getting the cold call email from him was crazy,” said author and journalist Brooke Kroeger, telling me about how her latest project, Undaunted – which recounts the two-century-long story of women in journalism – originated with a phone call from a male editor. “I had some idea of who he was, I was aware of him. I knew he was senior, and I looked him up pretty quick.”

The man in question was Jonathan Segal, a vice-president at Knopf who has published seven books that went on to receive Pulitzer prizes. He was offering Kroeger the assignment of a lifetime. Segal had determined that there was no good trade book available covering the history of women in journalism in the United States, and he was hoping Kroeger would be willing to write it.

“He was looking for a history of women in journalism but couldn’t find one, and he thought this book should exist,” said Kroeger. “You don’t get invitations like that all the time. I mean, this is just not my karma at all.”

Kroeger shared that the only comparable non-academic title she could find was 1936’s Ladies of the

Press by Ishbel Ross, a novelist and author of non-fiction books known for bringing to prominence unsung women like Elizabeth Blackwell, who is remembered as the first woman in the US to receive a medical degree. For nearly 100 years, no new book for a wide audience had been published documenting the contributions of women to journalism. It was certainly time for an update, especially considering that, while Ross’s Ladies as a substantial accomplishment, the work can be critiqued for, among other things, not including a single Black woman among the 300 journalists that it celebrates.

With the invitation from Segal, Kroeger prepared to put off her plans for retirement and take on a major new project. She noted that the sub