Campaigns of Curiosity

Name: Campaigns of Curiosity
Price: 18.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Elizabeth L. Banks

Journalistic Adventures of an American Girl in London

By Elizabeth L. Banks

A nineteenth-century Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Banks went undercover in England’s working world, taking on low-wage jobs to expose the realities of women’s labor. From domestic service to factory floors, her bold and witty writing stands as an early feminist statement, confronting rigid societal norms and advocating for women’s rights in Victorian Britain.

$18.00

ISBN: 9781967190027
ebook ISBN: 9781967190034
On Sale: September 30, 2025
Pages: 224

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Overview

Campaigns of Curiosity chronicles American journalist Elizabeth Banks’s bold entry into London’s rigid class system at the height of the Victorian era. Determined to make her name, Banks went undercover as a housemaid, laundress, flower girl, and heiress, bringing sharp wit and keen observation to her exposés of working-class life and the role of women in British society.

First published in 1894, Campaigns of Curiosity marks a pivotal moment in the rise of investigative journalism, a form pioneered and shaped by women using ingenuity and audacity to break new ground. Following Nellie Bly’s trail, Banks showed that “stunt” reporting could achieve both literary merit and lasting social insight.

With a new introduction by longtime correspondent Brooke Kroeger, this edition restores a forgotten pioneer to her rightful place in journalism’s history.

Read CGR Director Nicholas Lemann’s Letter to the Reader about the Forerunners series

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About the Author

Elizabeth L. Banks (1865–1938) was an American-born journalist and author who spent four decades in England. Renowned for her undercover investigations into domestic service and working-class life, she wrote for major London publications, championed women’s suffrage, and contributed to British wartime intelligence during World War I. She published several widely read memoirs, including Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl (1902) and The Remaking of an American (1928).

Brooke Kroeger is a correspondent and author who was, for more than a decade, a reporter, editor, and bureau chief for United Press International both at home and abroad. She has written six books, including Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism and Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. She is professor emerita of journalism at New York University, where she began teaching in 1998.