Nellie Bly was an important woman in American journalism.
She was an inspiration to my heroine in A Poppy in Remembrance, for example.
A resourceful and imaginative reporter, Nellie literally created a name for herself in the 19th century.
It wasn’t always pretty.
Finding her way into journalism
Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran during the Civil War, Nellie died a few years after World War I.
At her father’s death, the Pennsylvania family became impoverished. Her mother desperately tried to care for her family, but it was difficult.
Always observant and clear-eyed, Nellie’s determination to right wrongs resulted in her first writing.
In response to a local newspaper’s column depicting women as only good for child rearing and keeping house, Nellie wrote a piece calling herself “lonely orphan girl.”
The editor ran an advertisement to find her and offered her pay to write for the paper.
As customary at the time, the editor gave Elizabeth Jane a pen name: Nellie Bly.
It became both her name and her persona.
Off to the big city
After her family’s experiences, Nellie wrote about working conditions for women.
The articles generated anger from prominent employers and her editor relegated Nellie to the women’s section, to focus on “soft” stories.
She didn’t like it.
Once she’d saved up enough money, Nellie left Pennsylvania and headed to Mexico. The intrepid reporter styled herself as a foreign correspondent!
Nellie ruffled feathers in Mexico as well, while reporting on societal conditions. She returned with enough stories to write her first book, Six Months in Mexico at the age of twenty-one!
With clip sheets in hand, Nellie moved to New York City in 1887. The brash young woman eventually talked her way into working for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.
Nellie volunteered to go undercover as a madwoman to gain an insider look at a woman’s lunatic asylum!
Ten days after her admission, Pulitzer intervened to have her released and Nellie got a story!
(Did you see all those exclamation points? Stunt journalism at its finest!)
Nellie Bly races around the world!
Not content to write simple features, Nellie proposed a series of articles based on Jules Verne’s 1872 novel Around the World in Eighty Days.
The New York World agreed and funded the expedition and her trip ignited much interest.
It was the first time anyone had tried to see if it was possible to circumnavigate the world by local transportation in 80 days.
With the help of her editors, Nellie plotted her route carefully, but took a day off to a visit with Verne while in France.
The journey became even more exciting when a rival newspaper, the New York Cosmopolitan, launched their own female reporter on the same day.
Elizabeth Bisland caught a train that morning to travel around the globe in the opposite direction!
Who would win?
Both women wired stories as they traveled, alone, on a variety of trains, boats, ferries, rickshaws and even taxis.
The two women missed each other in Hong Kong by only three days.
In the end, they both beat Phineas Fogg’s trip. Bly arrived back in New York City in 72 days. Bisland docked at the New York pier four days later.
Bisland wrote seven articles about her experience and collected them into a book, In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World. She continued writing but never participated in a stunt journalism exercise again!
Bly’s 1890 book Around the World in Seventy-two Days, sold well.
Both books demonstrated women could accomplish anything they set their minds to do!
Later years
Nellie continued writing, but retired from journalism in 1895 to marry a millionaire.
Her brain continued to whirr, however, and ultimately she patented a milk can!
By the end of her life, she’d picked up her pen again. Nellie Bly became an advice columnist for another New York paper.
She died in 1922.
However, in 2002, Nellie Bly was honored as one of four female journalists on a US postage stamp.
Why is Nellie Bly important?
Women have always worked as journalists, but few received Nellie’s fame.
Making herself part of the story grabbed headlines just as much as her articles.
Her youth and pluck also played a role her popularity with the public.
Nellie wrote at a time when working as a reporter was not always considered a respectable profession.
Indeed, for my heroine Claire, she became an inspiration–when Claire’s friends and family weren’t dismissing Bly as preposterous!
I enjoyed reading about her life and that of her race with Elizabeth Bisland in Jason Marks’ book Around the World in 72 Days: The race between Pulitzer’s Nellie Bly and Cosmopolitan’s Elizabeth Bisland.
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