Sensational by Kim Todd (chromebook ebook reader .txt) 📕

the editor stressed, the whole thing should be “distinctly from Mrs. Peary’s own point of view and expressed in her own way.”

Though she insisted she wanted no part of stunt reporting, Jordan leaped at the chance to go on horseback into the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee and report on what she found there. The framing—warnings of the danger that she cheerfully ignored, the stress on her being a woman doing something unconventional—was very similar to the setup of a stunt, but she saw it as something distinct but still thrilling: “To me the southern mountain assignment was merely a high adventure; and a high adventure it remained from start to finish.”

Jordan took the train to Bristol in Virginia. In the city, everyone told her not to venture into the long, narrow mountains that rippled across the state. Hiring a guide and ignoring the advice, she pressed beyond Big Stone Gap, a small town clustered at the side of the Powell River, crossing streams and tramping through muddy ravines on horseback. Good thing the horses have more sense than the riders, her guide commented. Finally, they arrived at the rustic, one-room log cabin of the Baptist preacher Joseph C. Wells, surrounded by a rail fence. Again relying on her ability to put strangers at ease, whether wives of presidents or backwoods preachers, Jordan was invited in.

The intense quiet and slow pace was far from the pressure of New York and the rush for the newest, most entertaining, most shocking thing. The stars felt near; animal cries echoed in the dark. Newspapers existed as an illustration to be tacked to the wall, a bit of art to brighten the room, along with the red calico curtains. Here was a man living not far from where he was born, on $30 a year, spending his days walking over mountains to marry, bury, and preach. There seemed a bit of regret for the prayer-filler road not taken when Jordan mused: “In the nineteenth century there are comparatively few of us who are laying all our treasures up above.”

The piece was more than a quaint sketch. It was a eulogy for this way of life. Coal and iron deposits drew outsiders to the area; meadows and forests were being turned into mining camps. Prospectors squinted, and in the narrow valley and dirt roads could make out a new Pittsburgh. Train routes competed to pass through town. None had reached it yet, but they were coming.

And the preacher, whose life to this point had such a small radius, whose birthplace might be turned into a hotel, was going to have to move. Maybe to Tennessee, he said. This portrait, her gameness in going after it, and her general stamina cemented her place on the staff.

But the World wasn’t all literary heaven. Lewd suggestions and abusive treatment by sources, editors, and fellow reporters could wear a writer down. Newspaper offices weren’t immune from the kind of harassment Nelson documented in factories. Men made passes, winked, said degrading things that hollowed out Jordan’s confidence. She felt that “the comments not only smirched one but that, in a way, I might be responsible for them. Possibly something in me drew them out!” It wasn’t until Jordan had lunch with older writers, heard their stories of harassment and saw how it distressed them, that she began to think it wasn’t her fault.

Jordan started to write short stories about newspaper life in which she puzzled out some of these thoughts. In one a young, naive, convent-educated reporter, Miss Van Dyke, aware that a new editor found her stories colorless, volunteered to go to a rowdy neighborhood to report on a post-election victory celebration, despite the fact that she was bound to be jostled in the streets and witness bad behavior. When she returned, colleagues back at the office who had always treated her with care taunted her and dropped liquor bottles and cigarettes on her desk. She garnered no more respect than the brassy-haired, heavily made-up woman who “did sensational stories.” The cruel teasing didn’t let up until she finally quit and got married to a fellow reporter to save her reputation.

Nights were their own challenge. Newspaper Row, with its posh editors’ offices, was adjacent to the Bowery, with its brothels and bars. The staff stayed late to get the freshest news for the morning papers, often finishing up past midnight. At some point, the typewriters stopped and the rooms fell silent. Generally unmarried, with families (if they had them) far away, female reporters faced the question every day: How were they going to get safely home?

The streets were often lit—where they were lit—by gas lamps that didn’t do much to illuminate shapes in darkened doorways. The walk to the elevated train, or streetcar, or horse carriage was marked by uncertainty. Was that noise the suck of mud on carriage wheels or something more sinister?

Once, at her first job in St. Paul, Elizabeth Banks had stayed so late that the cable cars stopped running. When her editor asked for a male reporter to get her to her house safely, the one who grudgingly volunteered commented that female reporters were “nothing but nuisances in a place like this at midnight. While I’m walking home with her, I’ll ask the young lady to marry me, and that’ll put an end to all our troubles.” Accepting help clearly meant submitting to humiliation. Banks rejected the offer and started walking by herself, terrified, until she met a policeman who escorted her. It became a pleasant routine, until he asked to marry her, too.

And Jordan worked later than most. At times, she wouldn’t be done until three or four in the morning. One night, she got off at the elevated railroad near Midtown and started walking fast, as was her habit. On an isolated, ill-lit street, the driver of a cab gestured to her. A man was already inside.

“Get in, Miss,” the driver said. “It’ll be worth while.” Flooded with foreboding, she sprinted toward Broadway,