Campaigns of Curiosity, Elizabeth L. Banks
Campaigns of Curiosity, Elizabeth L. Banks
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Campaigns of Curiosity

Author: Elizabeth L. Banks

Series: Forerunners Series

Narrator: Jennifer Rubins

Unabridged: 6 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/04/2025


Synopsis

Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR’s founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR’s core mission: fearless reporting, global perspective, and intellectual rigor. Each selection remains strikingly relevant today, offering historical insights that challenge contemporary perspectives and reaffirm the power of journalism to shape the world.

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.

About The Author

Elizabeth Leonor 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 in the US 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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Melody on August 09, 2013

This book was remarkable in so many ways. First, that the author was an employed female journalist in 1894. That alone is impressive but the fact that she goes undercover into several job positions for research purposes takes quite a bit of fortitude and nerve, even in present times. She was very fo......more

Goodreads review by Stan on September 09, 2017

History is always fascinated me. I love to look into other worlds and other times to see how people dealt with the day to day. Recently, Bernadette and I have started to watch Downton Abbey, a show about Victorian England and the different classes of people. So far, I have enjoyed watching ho......more

Goodreads review by Mélanie on October 31, 2025

Ce qui est le plus intéressant dans cet ouvrage, c'est la partie historique, qui témoigne d'une époque, d'un cadre de vie. Car la journaliste qui rédige ces témoignages fait preuve d'un certain parti pris, très souvent persuadée qu'elle sait, mieux que les autres, comment il faudrait agir. Que si le......more

Goodreads review by Jan Mc on August 11, 2017

Fascinating and Witty Observations This is a set of stories written by a female journalist as she explored London, circa 1890s. They are both interesting and funny, as the author wrote with great intelligence and humor about conditions of the working class women of her time. Miss Banks immersed herse......more

Goodreads review by Jay on May 09, 2024

For the most part love the reportage of Banks investigating late Victorian London. Selling entry and husbands I was familar enough with writers like Henry James, but the lives of maid servante, laundry woman and street sweeps was really interesting. Only wish there was more of the voices of the work......more