Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, we’re adding the stories of remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in The Times.

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Isabella Goodwin’s big break came in 1912 when she took a job as a boardinghouse scrubwoman for $6 a week.

She had been hired by the New York City Police Department as a police matron, which mostly meant cleaning jail cells and supervising inmates rather than solving crimes.

But when news of a bank heist made national headlines, vexing police officials, the department asked Goodwin to pose as a maid and infiltrate a seedy boardinghouse. Her mission: Find enough evidence to arrest the suspect, a gangster named Eddie (the Boob) Kinsman, who frequented the quarters to see his sweetheart, Swede Annie.

Goodwin donned a ragged outfit, affected an Irish brogue and began snooping between scrubbing floors and cooking meals.