- Elizabeth Cochran (she later added an e to Cochran) was born on May 5, 1864. The was the 13th of 15 children. Her father was a factory owner and county judge. When he died when she was 6, he did not leave a will and the family was plunged into poverty. The next few years made her determined to defeat obstacles and fight injustices.
- At age 19, she wrote a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch to complain about an article entitled “What Girls Are Good For”. The reporter argued that a woman’s place was in the home. She signed herself “Lonely Orphan Girl”. The editor was impressed and put out a notice to find her. When she showed up at the newspaper she was hired. The editor gave her the penname “Nellie Bly” after the popular song.
- Her first article was called “The Girl Puzzle”. It was about the injustices of divorce laws. She then wrote about the hardships of factory workers. When the factory owners complained, she was put reporting about women’s fashions.
- At age 21, she was sent to report from Mexico, but she had to flee the country after criticizing the dictatorship. She published a book entitled “Six Months in Mexico”.
- She moved to New York City and spent four months searching for a job. Fed up, she snuck into the headquarters of the New York World (Joseph Pulitzer’s paper). She was hired. She created investigative journalism when she went undercover in an insane asylum. She got herself committed by going to a boarding house, not sleeping for several days, and accusing the other boarders of being insane. In her ten days, she discovered that there were rats, the inmates were abused by taking ice cold baths, served poor food, and forced to sit for hours on benches. Her “Ten Days in a Mad-house” made her famous. Newspapers began to hire other women to do exposes. They were called “stunt girls”.
- Her greatest stunt was trip around the world. When she proposed an attempt to beat Phineas Fogg’s fictional record, the newspaper thought it was a great idea – for a man. She threatened to go to another newspaper and they gave in. She was 24 when she left in 1889. She sent back reports of her progress and the whole world followed her adventures. These included meeting Jules Verne, visiting a leper colony in China, and buying a monkey in Singapore. She returned in 72 hours and was now the most famous woman in the world.
- She married a millionaire mill owner named Robert Seaman. She was 31 and he was 42 years older. She helped run the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company, but after her husband died, the company went bankrupt through no fault of hers.
- She went back to reporting and was living in Vienna when WWI broke out. She became the first female war correspondent when she reported from the trenches. The articles were called “Nellie Bly on the Firing Line”.
- Returning to America, she went to work for the Evening Journal. She used her own money to help disadvantaged women and orphans. She died of pneumonia at age 57. She was so poor that she was buried in an unmarked grave. She was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998.
https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-nellie-bly/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly
https://facts.net/nellie-bly-facts/
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