From exposing slumlords and corrupt politicians to advocating for impoverished immigrants, she captured the injustices of her era with a wit and tenacity that still resonate today.
In the first biography of Norris, Queen of Bohemia Predicts Own Death: Gilded-Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris (Fordham University Press, 2025), independent scholar Eve Kahn restores her legacy, illuminating her work as a novelist, magazine publisher, and social reformer who challenged the powerful and gave voice to the oppressed.
A prolific writer and editor, Norris chronicled the struggles of Lower East Side immigrants in the self-published periodical she established in 1909, The East Side, often going undercover to report on the harsh realities of tenement life…