Campaigns of Curiosity

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.

A nineteenth-century Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist Elizabeth L. Banks investigated working conditions for women in England by going undercover and taking low-wage jobs. From exploring the lives of domestic workers to infiltrating factories, her courageous and witty narrative was a pioneering text of early feminism, highlighting the power of journalism in challenging strict adherence to traditional, rigid societal norms and fighting for the equality of women in Victorian Britain. First published in 1894, Campaigns of Curiosity is her autobiography.

With an introduction by Brooke Kroeger, journalist and professor emerita at New York University.