ABSTRACT
During the Gilded Age, many women began openly participating in the public sphere. The women living under the bridge, in tenements, or on hardscrabble farms remained mostly voiceless until the Gilded Age, when Campbell and other writers told their stories in books illustrated with drawings based on photographs, or in newspapers and magazines. The social evils of the Gilded Age motivated some women to try journalism. Journalism offers large opportunities for doing good, for influencing public opinion, and for purifying the atmosphere of the times. The rise of women in journalism coincided with surging industrialism, innovation, immigration, and public education. By 1890, the woman journalist was doing tasks once reserved for men so well that the editor of the Salt Lake Herald observed, "She does serious work honestly when she gets a chance, and she is graphic and brilliant as an interviewer."
