Nellie Bly was the penname of the daring 18th century journalist and entrepreneur Elizabeth Cochrane. By the end of her long career, she had exposed the deplorable conditions of women’s insane asylums, circumnavigated the globe ala Jules Verne, reported on women’s suffrage, and even ran her late husband’s Iron Factory. Who was this amazing woman who accomplished so much when women of her century rarely did?
Born in 1865, she experienced firsthand how difficult it was for women to be self-sufficient in the 1800’s. She enrolled as a teenager at the Illinois Normal School – a teachers’ college. After just one semester, she had to abandon the effort when her divorced mother had no more money for her tuition. This however, was fine with the rebellious Elizabeth as she wished bea Writer, most certainly not a teacher.
In 1885, she wrote a decidedly fiery Letter-to-the-Editor of the Pittsburg Dispatch, denouncing in no uncertain terms a sexist article calling any working women a “MONSTROSITY OF NATURE!” The paper’s Editor was impressed with the anonymous writer’s passion and spunk. He ran an advertisement asking her to come forward and identify herself. Never shy, Elizabeth marched down to the newspaper’s office and pleaded her case loudly to the Editor. He promptly hired her for $5/week. She decided to take the penname Nellie Bly, after a popular song of the day by Stephen Foster.
Nellie began her career with her typical gusto, writing articles aimed at social injustice, including deplorable state of labor laws for working women. After just one year, her boss sent her on assignment to Mexico as a foreign correspondent. There, she managed to exposed rampant political corruption. The Mexican government was not grateful, however, and had her promptly expelled from the country. Frustrated with her Pittsburgh paper, she moved alone to a much bigger market, New York City. She was still only 23.
Within six months, Joseph Pulitzer hired her at The New York World.
The assignment he had in mind for her would prove daunting. Bly feigned mental illness in order to be committed to the notorious Blackwell Island Woman’s Insane Asylum. She bravely lived there for 10 LONG DAYS, experiencing firsthand the physical cruelty of the uncaring staff, cold baths, and forced meals of rotted food. Her subsequent article, 10 Days in a Mad-House, prompted public outrage and political action, eventually leading to badly needed reforms at the institution.
Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.
Nellie Bly
For the next two years, Nellie Bly continued to work undercover exposing injustices and corruption where ever she found them. Among her most daring exploits, she arranged to be thrown into a New York City jail. There she suffered and later exposed the cruel treatment of female inmates by the male guards. She next worked in a textile factory sweatshop for weeks. Nellie then wrote about the horrid treatment of women workers by the greedy owners and leering foremen. She wrote shocking exposes in the New York World, again leading to long overdue political reforms.
Her most famous exploit was when she mimicked Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days.
It was Nellie Bly’s own idea. She became an international celebrity when she circled the globe alone by ship, train, horse, and balloon in 1889. Nellie took with her just the dress she was wearing, an overcoat, several changes of underwear, and toiletries in a small travel bag. She managed to do it in just 72 DAYS, well ahead of Verne’s male hero, Phileas Fogg. For a woman to do this alone without a male traveling companion was unprecedented. Millions followed her telegraphed journey as she sent back correspondence. It resulting in international fame for her, and vastly increased newspaper sales for Mr. Pulitzer. She came back to the U.S. a famous woman across America.
In 1895, Nellie Bly shocked her fans when she gave up reporting and wed industrialist Robert Seaman. With typical Bly impulsiveness, she married him after just a few days. She was just 31, while he was 72! Their marriage was amicable though and it provided her the financial security she could never achieve as a single woman in the 1800’s. After his death, she stepped up and ran his business, Iron Clad Manufacturing, and in fact improved upon it. Nellie turned the business into a multi-million-dollar company. She continued her social reforms in her own way – by paying both female and male workers an equal living wage.
Just prior to World War I, Nellie moved to Austria where, due to the global war, the government forced her to stay for the entire duration until 1918. On her arrival back in the US, she decided to return to her first love, Journalism. Joining the New York Journal, she reported on Women’s Suffrage, labor unrest, and similar causes. She never quite returned to the celebrity status she enjoyed while in her twenties. Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman remained a hard-working journalist until her death of pneumonia in New York City in 1922 at only 57.
Throughout her remarkable life, Nellie Bly exposed countless corruptions and injustices towards women, the sick, and those living in poverty. Her bravery and courage opened the profession to new generations of female journalists for decades and even centuries to come. Her heroic life was turned into a Broadway musical, opera and several movies including, The Adventures of Nellie Bly, starring actress Linda Purl. In 1998, the National Women’s Hall of Fame inducted Elizabeth Cochrane (aka Nellie Bly) posthumously.