Ad for abortion-causing pills in the Chicago Times, April 1, 1888
Pennyroyal ad. Chicago Times, April 1, 1888 (Center for Research Libraries, Chicago)
This building tension about a practice that was publicly condemned, privately embraced—a practice that it was illegal even to write about—split politically engaged women in the same way stunt journalists divided their reporter peers. The same question lurked at the heart of each divide. Was it manipulation at the hands of unscrupulous men, or a way for women to seize control of their lives? Suffragist Susan B. Anthony, in an 1875 speech, portrayed abortion as another example of women’s victimization by men’s drunkenness and lack of self-control, citing “the newspaper reports every day of every year of scandals and outrages, of wife murders and paramour shooting, of abortions and infanticides.” It’s important to note, too, that part of her sense of women’s experience came from headlines. But, as the Chicago Times reporting showed, many women sought out abortions on their own, telling doctors they wanted to wait to have children, or to have only two. Even the Girl Reporter was conflicted, adamantly opposed to abortion, adamantly in favor of women’s equality. When one doctor, sympathetic, justified offering the operation by saying, “A woman should have the same chances as a man has and society makes it much harder,” the Girl Reporter added “amen,” in parentheses. Then she went ahead and published his name for public scorn anyway.
Never missing a chance for self-promotion, the Times capitalized on curiosity about the Girl Reporter. An illustration on the editorial page showed five sketches of thin, dark-haired women with bangs in front and a bun in the back, wearing an apron over a collared shirt. The figures looked down, or up, with expressions pensive or half-smiling, line-drawn Mona Lisas. “For the Doctors,” the caption taunted. “Guess which one of the above is the ‘girl reporter’?”
Illustration featuring the Girl Reporter in the Chicago Times, December 21, 1888
“Guess the girl reporter.” Chicago Times, December 21, 1888 (Center for Research Libraries, Chicago)
Students at one college sent her a bouquet; students at another sent her a gold pen, a “small token of esteem in appreciation of the services you are rendering in the medical profession and the world at large.” The paper published her bashful letters of thanks and her fiery letters refuting doctors who claimed she’d misunderstood their intentions. On December 26 and 27, she wrapped up her findings, declaring, with a tone of relief, “My pilgrimage of disgrace is ended.” And then, in late December 1888, while her story spread from its Illinois epicenter, the Girl Reporter disappeared from the Chicago Times pages and from the public record.
“Many of the brightest women frequently disguise their identity, not under one nom de plume, but under half a dozen,” wrote a male editor for the trade publication the Journalist in an issue about female reporters in 1889. “This renders anything like a solid reputation almost impossible.” Some who used pseudonyms parlayed their disguises into decades-long careers. Some, like the Girl Reporter, never emerged from undercover.
While Bly’s exposé was an inspiration for many aspiring writers, the Girl Reporter’s was more of a cautionary tale. That kind of assignment, those kinds of topics, were a line one might not want to cross. Yes, she received applause for her bravery, but the condemnation of the reporter as indecent was what lingered, at least in the minds of young journalists like Elizabeth Banks. Writing for the society pages of the St. Paul Globe, Banks was keenly aware of class. Such distinctions weren’t supposed to exist in America, but every time an upper-class woman offered to have lunch with the reporter, as long as she didn’t let anyone know, or she was made to wait for her ride home shivering outside in the cold after getting details of a party, the lines appeared, like invisible ink revealed by heat. It intrigued and repelled her.
But at least she was writing, finally.
Banks had been dreaming about it for years. Born in 1865 in Trenton, New Jersey, Elizabeth Banks was the fifth child of Sarah Ann Brister and John Brister, a house painter. When Elizabeth was eleven, her mother died, and the girl was packed off to live with relatives in Wisconsin. She was raised on an “experimental farm” where her uncle pored over The Scientific Farmer, trying various techniques that never were successful enough to pay off the mortgage. Rural life had its charms. A boy who lived nearby pulled her on a sled through a snowy field. Oak trees filtered the sunlight, and a creek slicing through the meadow offered a cool place to dangle bare feet on a hot day. But most of her memories centered on dragging out of bed at four a.m. to boil potatoes for breakfast, the first chore of a day full of them—feeding chickens, shucking peas, picking currants, washing dishes, weeding onions—and the sting of being hit if she left silk on an ear of corn.
Respite came through animals, which she loved, telling her troubles to the cows and mourning every dead chick, and through reading. She savored Bible tales, short stories serialized in the weekly newspaper, and, especially, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Aurora Leigh.” The epic poem told the story of an orphan sent to live with an aunt who tries to make a lady of her, dismissing the young Aurora’s thirst to be an artist like Keats or Byron. Aurora Leigh’s attraction to books is beyond passionate. They save her. Early in the saga, Aurora Leigh turns down the chance to marry her wealthy cousin and moves to London to launch her writing career. Elizabeth Banks had no trouble imaging herself as the heroine, struggling with an oppressive aunt, taking refuge in books. As she gathered and sold eggs and watched over neighbor’s babies to scrape together money for college, certain lines echoed:
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