Wonder Woman of the Week: Nellie Bly

This week’s spotlight put the whole “Around the World in 80 Days” story to shame with her record breaking voyage across the globe. She was an investigative journalist, an explorer, and an American heroine. Nellie Bly is also the Wonder Woman of the Week.

Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864 in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania. Bly’s father founded the town and worked as a judge and landowner. Bly’s mother was her father’s second wife. From the first marriage, Elizabeth had ten siblings and she was the third of her mother’s children. Out of all thirteen kids, Elizabeth was the most rebellious. [1]

At only six years old, Elizabeth’s father died without a will and without a claim to the estate; the Cochran family was faced with a crisis. To help her family, when Elizabeth became old enough she enrolled at a teacher’s school in Indiana. As the financial situation in her family became worse, Liz had to quit school to help her family when they moved to Pittsburg where they ran a boarding house. When a Pittsburg newspaper published a sexist column about how women were meant to stay at home, Elizabeth got all kinds of riled up. She fired back with a rebuttal so powerful, the newspaper’s editor offered her a job. She was only eighteen year old. [2]

Elizabeth chose to write under the pen name “Nellie Bly” for the newspaper where women usually wrote about gardening, fashion, or society. Nellie chose to write about the plight of the poor and oppressed particularly the difficulties faced by women in the United States. Advertisers threatened to quit backing the newspaper and Bly was forced to write an article about gardening. She turned it in with her letter of resignation. [3]

That didn’t stop Nellie from earning a living. She convinced the newspaper to fund her trip to Mexico where she exposed political corruption keeping most citizens in poverty. The study was a ground breaking case of investigative journalism and it got Bly permanently banned from entering Mexico. Bly left Pittsburg for New York City when she returned and was hired by Joseph Pulitzer (of the Pulitzer Prize fame) for a special assignment. Bly went undercover as a mental patient and Blackwell’s Island for the Mentally Insane to investigate claims of abuse. Prisoners were being forced to eat expired food, take cold baths, and endured physical abuse. Bly’s report of her ten days in the facility resulted in public outcry and led to the reform of asylums across the country. [4]

Nellie Bly went on to complete something even more incredible. Inspired by Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” Bly circumnavigated the globe via ship, train, burro, balloon, other modes of 19th Century transportation. She completed the journey in seventy-two days, six hours, and eleven minutes defeating Verne’s fictional male hero. [4]

As far as American heroes go, Nellie Bly is severely underappreciated. She’s responsible for reforming mental asylums, exposed the corruption of a foreign government, and set the record for fastest trip to date around the world defeating her (fictional) male counterpart. After retiring from journalism, she went on to invent a metal 55-gallon barrel, introduced recreational activities to the factory she owned, and invested in libraries and health care. She exposed “the injustice of poverty” was a champion for women’s rights, campaigned for the fair treatment of prison inmates, and fought for equal opportunities for the poor.

“People & Events Nellie Bly.” American Experience. 2000. PBS.org. Accessed 12 August 2015. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/world/peopleevents/pande01.html

“Nellie Bly.” 2015. Biography.com. Accessed 12 August 2015. http://www.biography.com/people/nellie-bly-9216680#journalistic-career-begins

“Nellie Bly, (1864-1922).” Nellie Bly Online. Accessed 12 August 2015. http://www.nellieblyonline.com/bio#what

“Nellie Bly (1864-1922).” 2008. National Women’s History Museum. Accessed 12 August 2015. https://www.nwhm.org/html/exhibits/youngandbrave/bly.html