Stunt girl

Throughout the 1880s and 1890s multiple newspapers employed women who went undercover into factories, mills, institutions, hospitals, agencies, and tenements to report on conditions or expose scams or scandals.

[6]: 14 [7] Over time the genre evolved from investigations of social ills to ever-more sensational capers such as describing what it felt like to be strapped into an electric chair or spending a night in a supposed haunted house.

[3] By the end of the 19th century, the stunt girl genre was discredited, its journalists reduced to reporting on such things as nights spent in supposed haunted houses, and became associated with yellow journalism.

"[4]: 8 In 1887, Nellie Bly spent ten days living in Blackwell's Island, an institution housing people with mental illness, and wrote for the World an exposé, Inside the Madhouse, which documented the abuse of patients.

She wrote a 21-part "White Slave Girls" series that was endorsed by the Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly and earned her a book contract.

[6]: 151 Academic Kim Todd wrote that "stunt reporters changed laws, launched labor movements, and redefined what it meant to be a journalist.

[10] After Bly's exposé on Blackwell's Island, New York City spent $50,000 on management of institutions housing people with mental illness.