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From Reviews
PassingFannieNellie
Bly 
In much the way that the life of Nellie Bly, 1864-1922, provided an opportunity to unfold the story of how women entering the field of journalism en masse for the first time came of age as professionals, expanding their sights beyond the sphere of family and home, Hurst's life provides a superb vehicle for exploring what happened to women in the period that followed. Specifically: How was it that the exemplary achievement and accumulated wisdom on the realm and role of women that had been amassed at the turn of the century should have so completely evaporated from the collective consciousness by the end of the 1950s? Why had it been necessary for a brand new women's movement to form in the mid-1960s as if the notion of women's equality were some brand new idea? What happened to make women forget so completely what they already had achieved and what they already had figured out?
Hurst, who at one point had planned to write a three-volume "History of Women in the History of the Race," thought hard on these themes and saw clearly the price that was sure to be paid -- and, in fact, ended up being paid -- if women surrendered the gains they had made at the end of the last century for the sake of the overwhelming concerns that emerged in The Depression and again during and after World War II.
Brooke Kroeger is also an associate professor of journalism at New York University. A former foreign correspondent and editor, she has worked in every print medium. At NEWSDAY, she served as UN Correspondent and as a deputy metropolitan editor for NEW YORK NEWSDAY. This followed an eight-year stint overseas in the Scripps Howard days of United Press International with postings in Brussels, London and Tel Aviv. She was Tel Aviv bureau chief for three years before returning to London to serve as the agency's chief editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She started with the wire service in its Chicago bureau, and over the course of four years, wrote about everything from local and state politics to sports.
Over the years, her freelanced work has appeared in numerous women's magazines as well as in THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND NEWSDAY
FANNIE, Kroeger's second biography, was published in 1999, following the 1994 NELLIE BLY: DAREDEVIL, REPORTER, FEMINIST. Her third book (2003) is entitled PASSING: When People Can't Be Who They Are.