Eileen M. Wirth never set out to be a groundbreaker for women in journalism, but if she wanted to report on social issues instead of society news, she had no alternative. Her years as one of the first women reporters at the Omaha World-Herald, covering gender barriers even as she broke a few herself, give Wirth an especially apt perspective on the women profiled in this book: those Nebraskans who, over a hundred years, challenged traditional feminine roles in journalism and subtly but surely changed the world.

The book features remarkable women journalists who worked in every...