Winifred Black

Under the pseudonym “Annie Laurie,” Winifred Black published articles she wrote after conducting undercover investigations for the San Francisco Examiner and other publications in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Willing not only to lie, but to put herself in harm’s way to identify public institutions in need of reform, Black exposed practices in a San Francisco hospital, a Hawaiian leper colony, and even dressed as a boy to sneak through the police cordon and become the only reporter to cover first-hand the Galveston, Texas, flood that was said to claim 7,000 lives in 1900. She tried marriage a couple of times, but being an in-your-face woman -- especially one who’s given to running off in the middle of the night to cover a story -- can make long-term relationships difficult.