Zibby Mag

This excerpt is part of our First Look column where you’ll find exclusive sneak peeks into upcoming books across all genres!

Louisa Treger’s newest book, MADWOMAN, follows the world’s first female investigative journalist Nellie Bly through her early life and burgeoning career in the 1880s. The novel takes readers right into the infamous story of Nellie’s undercover project inside an asylum where she worked to expose the horrifying conditions patients endured. Fans of empowering female narratives and captivating historical fiction will love this, out August 23rd.

Pre-order your copy here!

Nellie chose her topic for her first series of articles and put it to Madden: working women.‘I want to write about the woman in the street and how hard her life is,’ she told him. ‘I’d like to go into the factories and investigate conditions. I believe they’re among the worst in the country. So are the slums, and most people have no idea how awful they are.’

Madden was watching her closely. ‘What’s your angle?’ he asked.

‘To tell the public the truth. To show them the facts about the poor, about the immigrants who come over here and aren’t taken care of – good people who could make good citizens. But they’re all packed in together, scared and unassimilated.’

‘I see. And after you’ve told the story? What then?’

She leaned forward in her chair. ‘If people knew, I think they would be outraged. I want to shock them into pushing for change, shock the government into actually doing something.’

As she said this, she understood why she was drawn to journalism. It was storytelling with a difference. It involved delving into complexity, bringing gray areas of morality to light; and it was backed up by collating evidence and finding justice. Journalism reconciled the contributions of both her parents.

But Madden was frowning.

It’s admirable, but you’re going to hit obstacles. He said, ‘Don’t you see that?’

Nellie felt a stab of dismay. ‘What kind of obstacles?’

‘Well, for one thing there will be landlords who don’t want the public knowing the facts about their slum properties.’

Silence. She held her breath, praying he wouldn’t re- fuse her.

‘Look, this paper has never been cowardly,’ he said at last. ‘The people of Pittsburgh deserve to know the truth. Who knows, this might be the first step in lobbying for a lot of reform.’ He drew a hand across his eyes. ‘All right then, Nellie, I’m going to say yes. Go out and find the material for your “real experience” stories. I’ll get an artist to go with you.’

She felt an explosion of relief. ‘Thank you, sir. I promise you won’t regret it.’

He raised his brows and said, ‘Just be careful, all right? A man’s life isn’t safe on some of our streets, even in broad daylight. A lady is at even greater risk. You must be vigilant.’

She laughed at him. ‘If women aren’t safe on the streets on honest business, it’s high time they can be. I plan on setting the trend.’

For her first article, Nellie decided to apply a fresh lens to working women’s lives: she would write about what they did after hours. She caused a stir showing up at the gates of Allen’s Clothing Factory in her pretty dress and bonnet. Boys whistled, women glared, men made lewd remarks. But Nellie kept her composure, ignoring them, and presently, girls and women in brown uniforms began to stream out of the building, walking in small groups. Nellie stopped one after another and asked if they would mind answering a few questions, but they looked at her strangely, pursing their lips and shaking their heads. ‘I’ve so little leisure time, I’d rather not spend it with a stranger,’ said a woman whose hands cradled her stomach, as if she were in pain. Finally, a girl with dark, braided hair wound elaborately around her head agreed to talk. She was thin and pale, with a cold sore at the corner of her mouth that must have made speaking painful.

She told Nellie that just about their only relief from the long days of drudgery was the activity known as ‘man mashing’. Many a working girl met a man on the streetcars or in a bar, got drunk and accompanied him home, only to repeat the risky routine the next weekend. More often than not, these girls would end up in a home for fallen women.

‘Why do you risk your reputation like this?’ Nellie asked, concerned.

‘Risk my reputation? I never had one to risk,’ the girl said, with a short laugh.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I work twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, for a pittance,’ she said. ‘At the end of the day, I’m sick of it all and longing for something new. I hardly care if it’s good or bad – anything to break the monotony.’

‘Couldn’t you find a safer form of pleasure?’

The girl shrugged. ‘What do you suggest?’ she said bitterly. ‘I have no books. I can’t go to places of amusement because I don’t have the clothes or money. No one cares what becomes of me.’ She stared ahead, her mouth trembling.

Nellie knew all about desperation, and her heart ached for the girl. She pressed a couple of dollars into her hand and went home to write her story.

If no amusement is offered these girls, they will seek it and accept the first thing that comes along. There’s no excuse for girls with pleasant homes and kind friends, no excuse for the men who can seek amusement elsewhere. But for the poor working girl without friends or money, with the monotonous grind of hard work, who shall condemn and who shall defend?

For her next articles, Nellie tramped for miles through some of Pittsburgh’s most deprived areas to interview women workers in eight factories, where they assembled everything from cigars to bottles to barbed wire. She’d learned to wear old clothes – the interviews went more easily if she did not stand out.

They told her about the frightful conditions of cold, damp and dirt; the long hours of standing; the wire and broken glass that cut their hands to shreds while rats ran between their feet, looking for anything edible. They weren’t allowed to eat or drink while they worked, not even a sip of water, and there was only one toilet for both sexes to use on two floors. It was no good complaining to the manager, for dissent was simply ignored. And for their trouble, they were often despised and shamed. ‘I’ve always been told that factory girls are the worst girls on earth,’ a worker with thoughtful brown eyes told Nellie. ‘But you can be a lady just as well in a factory as in a parlor.’

When Nellie had finished her research about working women, she turned her attention to the slums. Anger and outrage grew in her as she walked through narrow, unpaved streets, past blocks of shabby tenements and decrepit old houses with broken windows. There were no trees or flowers, only weeds pushing through the mud. Washing was slung from window ledges, gutters ran with filthy water, and dogs – all ribs and fur worn down to inflamed skin – dug in rotting trash heaps, where small ragged children also played. Conditions were worse than anything Nellie had dreamt of. Whole families in one room, eating, drinking, sleeping, working, dressing and undressing, without privacy or dignity. Fire-trap tenements that were hives of disease, their halls full of rats and garbage. Homeless people sleeping in doorways, too ground down to care for their own safety. Children who had never been to school, and others of ten or twelve who were sent to work in the mills because if they didn’t earn a wage, their families would starve.

These children broke her heart.

They were trained to work, virtually from birth. They were old before their time, their bodies stunted and twisted by heavy labor and long hours. They knew almost nobody who went to school or had enough to eat. Members of their families were out of work and leading chaotic lives, whole segments of their community. They were born with no hope; they didn’t stand any kind of chance in life.

Nellie’s articles ran as a series every Sunday, with its own logo emblazoned with the headline, ‘Our Workshop Girls: Women’s Labor in Pittsburgh’. They were accompanied by pictures of women with their feet bundled in rags against the bitter cold of the cement floors. The articles were personal, emotional, giving intimate glimpses into the lives and feelings of female workers. Something was brewing in Nellie. She had a fight to make and a voice with which to make it heard.

The reaction was mixed. The Dispatch sold out. Working people flocked to buy it because this was their story and Nellie Bly their champion. Madden was pleased – the paper’s circulation was exploding.

But factory owners were livid. Condemnation of Nellie’s ‘immoral’ articles rang out from church pulpits; how dare she meddle in worldly affairs instead of sticking to the domestic realm, as a woman should? Her mailbox was filled with letters that ranged from threats to marriage proposals. The ‘Nellie Bly’ articles became a regular feature, her identity the subject of much speculation.

‘Women gossip about you while they’re sewing,’ Madden told her gleefully. ‘Businessmen quarrel over lunch. I even heard about a couple of inebriated gentlemen who were dragged off to the cells to cool down, still slurring: “She’s a woman!” “Nah, I tell you it’s a man using the name!”’

Nellie chuckled.

‘The mystery is part of the game and we’re going to play it up as fully as we can,’ he said.