Nellie Bly
Cochran at 26 years old, c. 1890
Born	Elizabeth Jane Cochran (1864-05-05)May 5, 1864 Burrell Township, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	January 27, 1922(1922-01-27) (aged 57) New York City, U.S.
Pen name	Elly Cochran, Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, and most commonly known as Nellie Bly as her pen-name
Occupation	Journalist writer inventor
Language	English
Notable awards	National Women's Hall of Fame (1998)
Spouse	Robert Seaman (m. 1895; died 1904)
Signature

Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and for an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within.^[1] She pioneered her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.^[2]

Early life

[edit]

Elizabeth Jane Cochran was born May 5, 1864,^[3] in Cochran's Mills, now part of Burrell Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.^[4]^[5]^[6] Her father, Michael Cochran, born about 1810, started as a laborer and mill worker before buying the local mill and most of the land surrounding his family farmhouse. He later became a merchant, postmaster, and associate justice at Cochran's Mills (named after him) in Pennsylvania. Michael married twice. He had 10 children with his first wife, Catherine Murphy, and five more children, including Elizabeth, his thirteenth daughter, with his second wife, Mary Jane Kennedy.^[7] Michael Cochran died in 1870, when Elizabeth was 6.^[8]

As a young girl, Elizabeth often was called "Pink" because she so frequently wore that color. As she became a teenager, she wanted to portray herself as more sophisticated, and she dropped the nickname and changed her surname to Cochrane.^[9] In 1879, she enrolled at Indiana Normal School (now Indiana University of Pennsylvania) for one term but was forced to drop out due to lack of funds.^[10] In 1880, Cochrane's mother moved her family to Allegheny City, which was later annexed by the City of Pittsburgh.^[11]

Career

[edit]

Pittsburgh Dispatch

[edit]

In 1885, a column in the Pittsburgh Dispatch titled "What Girls Are Good For" stated that girls were principally for birthing children and keeping house. This prompted Elizabeth to write a response under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl".^[12]^[11]^[13] The editor, George Madden, was impressed with her passion and ran an advertisement asking the author to identify herself. When Cochran introduced herself to the editor, he offered her the opportunity to write a piece for the newspaper, again under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl".^[13] Her first article for the Dispatch, titled "The Girl Puzzle", argued that not all women would marry and that what was needed were better jobs for women.^[14]

Her second article, "Mad Marriages", was about how divorce affected women. In it, she argued for reform of divorce laws.^[15]^[16] "Mad Marriages" was published under the byline of Nellie Bly, rather than "Lonely Orphan Girl" because, at the time,^[14] it was customary for female journalists to use pen names to conceal their gender so that readers would not discredit them. The editor chose "Nellie Bly", after the African-American title character in the popular song "Nelly Bly" by Stephen Foster.^[17] Cochrane originally intended that her pseudonym be "Nelly Bly", but her editor wrote "Nellie" by mistake, and the error stuck.^[18] Madden was impressed again and offered her a full-time job.^[11]

As a writer, Nellie Bly focused her early work for the Pittsburgh Dispatch on the lives of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on female factory workers. Bly went undercover as a poor woman to get hired at a copper cable factory for a firsthand view of the working conditions that women and children faced in the typical factory setting. Her columns were applauded by factory workers for highlighting the bad working conditions. ^[19] However, the newspaper soon received complaints from factory owners about her writing, and she was reassigned to women's pages to cover fashion, society, and gardening, the usual role for female journalists, and she became dissatisfied. Still only 21, she was determined "to do something no girl has done before."^[20] She then traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent, spending nearly half a year reporting on the lives and customs of the Mexican people. Her dispatches later were published in book form as Six Months in Mexico.^[21] In one report, she protested the imprisonment of a local journalist for criticizing the Mexican government, then a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz.^[22] When Mexican authorities learned of Bly's report, they threatened her with arrest, prompting her to flee the country. Safely home, she accused Díaz of being a tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican people and controlling the press.^[11]

Asylum exposé

[edit]

Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. Bly faced rejection after rejection as news editors would not consider hiring a woman.^[23] Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the New York World, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island, now named Roosevelt Island.^[24]

It was not easy for Bly to be admitted to the asylum: she first decided to check herself into a boarding house called "Temporary Homes for Females". She stayed up all night to give herself the wide-eyed look of a disturbed woman and began making accusations that the other boarders were insane. Bly told the assistant matron: "There are so many crazy people about, and one can never tell what they will do."^[25] She refused to go to bed and eventually scared so many of the other boarders that the police were called to take her to the nearby courthouse. Once examined by a police officer, a judge, and a doctor, Bly was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a few days, then after evaluation was sent by boat to Blackwell's Island.^[25]

Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. After ten days, the asylum released Bly at The World's behest. Her report, published October 9, 1887^[26] and later in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation, prompted the asylum to implement reforms, and brought her lasting fame.^[27] Nellie Bly had a significant impact on American culture and shed light on the experiences of marginalized women beyond the bounds of the asylum as she ushered in the era of stunt girl journalism.^[23]

In 1893, Bly used the celebrity status she had gained from her asylum reporting skills to schedule an exclusive interview with the allegedly insane serial killer Lizzie Halliday.^[28]

United for Libraries Literary Landmark on Roosevelt Island that mentions Bly's connection to the island

Biographer Brooke Kroeger argues:

Her two-part series in October 1887 was a sensation, effectively launching the decade of "stunt" or "detective" reporting, a clear precursor to investigative journalism and one of Joseph Pulitzer's innovations that helped give "New Journalism" of the 1880s and 1890s its moniker. The employment of "stunt girls" has often been dismissed as a circulation-boosting gimmick of the sensationalist press. However, the genre also provided women with their first collective opportunity to demonstrate that, as a class, they had the skills necessary for the highest level of general reporting. The stunt girls, with Bly as their prototype, were the first women to enter the journalistic mainstream in the twentieth century.^[29]

Around the world and general impact

[edit]

In 1888, Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days' notice,^[30]^{[clarification needed]} she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line,^[31] and began her 24,898 mile (40,070 kilometer) journey.

To sustain interest in the story, the World organized a "Nellie Bly Guessing Match" in which readers were asked to estimate Bly's arrival time to the second, with the Grand Prize consisting at first of a trip to Europe and, later on, spending money for the trip.^[32]^[33] During her travels around the world, Bly went through England, France (where she met Jules Verne in Amiens), Brindisi, the Suez Canal, Colombo (in Ceylon), the Straits Settlements of Penang and Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Just over seventy-two days after her initial departure, Bly arrived in New York on January 25, 1890, completing her circumnavigation of the globe.^[34] She had traveled alone for almost the entire journey.^[31] Bly was not the only woman attempting to circumnavigate for newspaper sensation, a competitor named Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore was also attempting the journey in the opposite direction, for the Cosmopolitan. Ultimately, Bly triumphed over Bisland. Bly's journey was a world record, though it only stood for a few months, until George Francis Train completed the journey in 67 days.^[35]

Novelist

[edit]

After the fanfare of her trip around the world, Bly quit reporting and took a lucrative job writing serial novels for publisher Norman Munro's weekly New York Family Story Paper. The first chapters of Eva The Adventuress, based on the real-life trial of Eva Hamilton, appeared in print before Bly returned to New York. Between 1889 and 1895 she wrote eleven novels. As few copies of the paper survived, these novels were thought lost until 2021, when author David Blixt announced the discovery of 11 lost novels in Munro's British weekly The London Story Paper.^[36] In 1893, though still writing novels, she returned to reporting for the World.

Later work

[edit]

In 1895, Bly married millionaire manufacturer Robert Seaman.^[37] Bly was 31 and Seaman was 73 when they married.^[38] Due to her husband's failing health, she left journalism and succeeded her husband as head of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co., which made steel containers such as milk cans and boilers. Seaman died in 1904.^[39]

That same year, Iron Clad began manufacturing the steel barrel that was the model for the 55-gallon oil drum still in widespread use in the United States. There have been claims that Bly invented the barrel,^[39] but the inventor was registered as Henry Wehrhahn (U.S. Patents 808,327 and 808,413).^[40]

Bly was also an inventor in her own right, receiving U.S. patent 697,553 for a novel milk can and U.S. patent 703,711 for a stacking garbage can, both under her married name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. For a time, she was one of the leading women industrialists in the United States. But her negligence, and embezzlement by a factory manager, resulted in the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co. going bankrupt.^[41]

According to biographer Brooke Kroeger:

She ran her company as a model of social welfare, replete with health benefits and recreational facilities. But Bly was hopeless at understanding the financial aspects of her business and ultimately lost everything. Unscrupulous employees bilked the firm of hundreds of thousands of dollars, troubles compounded by protracted and costly bankruptcy litigation.^[29]

Back in reporting, she covered the Woman Suffrage Procession of 1913 for the New York Evening Journal. Her article's headline was "Suffragists Are Men's Superiors" and in its text she accurately predicted that women in the United States would be given the right to vote in 1920.^[42]

Bly wrote stories on Europe's Eastern Front during World War I.^[43] Bly was the first woman and one of the first foreigners to visit the war zone between Serbia and Austria. She was arrested when she was mistaken for a British spy.^[44]

Death

[edit]

On January 27, 1922, Bly died of pneumonia at St. Mark's Hospital, New York City, aged 57.^[29] She was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.^[45]

Legacy

[edit]

Honors

[edit]

In 1998, Bly was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.^[46]

Bly was one of four journalists honored with a US postage stamp in a "Women in Journalism" set in 2002.^[47]^[48]

In 2019, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation put out an open call for artists to create a Nellie Bly Memorial art installation on Roosevelt Island.^[49] The winning proposal, The Girl Puzzle by Amanda Matthews, was announced on October 16, 2019.^[50] The Girl Puzzle opened to the public in December 2021.^[51]

The New York Press Club confers an annual Nellie Bly Cub Reporter journalism award to acknowledge the best journalistic effort by an individual with three years or fewer of professional experience. In 2020, it was awarded to Claudia Irizarry Aponte, of THE CITY.^[52]

Theater

[edit]

Bly was the subject of the 1946 Broadway musical Nellie Bly by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen. The show ran for 16 performances.^[53]^: 310

During the 1990s, playwright Lynn Schrichte wrote and toured Did You Lie, Nellie Bly?, a one-woman show about Bly.^[54]

An opera based on 10 Days in a Madhouse premiered in Philadelphia, PA in September 2023. The music was by Rene Orth and the libretto by Hannah Moscovitch.^[55]

Film and television

[edit]

Bly has been portrayed in the films The Adventures of Nellie Bly (1981),^[56] 10 Days in a Madhouse (2015),^[57] and Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story (2019).^[58] In 2019, the Center for Investigative Reporting released Nellie Bly Makes the News, a short animated biographical film.^[59] A fictionalized version of Bly as a mouse named Nellie Brie appears as a central character in the animated children's film An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster.^[60] The character of Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) in American Horror Story: Asylum is inspired by Bly's experience in the asylum.^[61] Bly was a subject of Season 2 Episode 5 of The West Wing in which First Lady Abbey Bartlet dedicates a memorial in Pennsylvania in honor of Nellie Bly and convinces the president to mention her and other female historic figures during his weekly radio address.^[62] On May 5, 2015, the Google search engine produced an interactive "Google Doodle" for Bly; for the "Google Doodle" Karen O wrote, composed, and recorded an original song about Bly, and Katy Wu created an animation set to Karen O's music.^[63]

Audio drama

[edit]

Nellie's story was adapted into a Doctor Who audio drama by Big Finish Productions, released on September 8, 2021. The Perils of Nellie Bly was the second story in a three story box set, and was written by Sarah Ward.^[64]

Literature

[edit]

Bly has been featured as the protagonist of novels by David Blixt,^[65] Marshall Goldberg,^[66] Dan Jorgensen,^[67] Carol McCleary,^[68] Pearry Reginald Teo, Maya Rodale,^[69] Christine Converse^[70] and Louisa Treger^[71] David Blixt also appeared on a March 10, 2021, episode of the podcast Broads You Should Know as a Nellie Bly expert.^[72]

A fictionalized account of Bly's around-the-world trip was used in the 2010 comic book Julie Walker Is The Phantom published by Moonstone Books (Story: Elizabeth Massie, art: Paul Daly, colors: Stephen Downer).^[73]

Bly is one of 100 women featured in the first version of the book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls written by Elena Favilli & Francesca Cavallo.^[74]

Eponyms and namesakes

[edit]

The board game Round the World with Nellie Bly created in 1890 is named in recognition of her trip.^[75]

The Nellie Bly Amusement Park in Brooklyn, New York City, was named after her, taking as its theme Around the World in Eighty Days. The park reopened in 2007^[76] under new management, renamed "Adventurers Amusement Park".^[77]

A large species of tarantula from Ecuador, Pamphobeteus nellieblyae Sherwood et al., 2022, was named in her honour by arachnologists.^[78]

A fireboat named Nellie Bly operated in Toronto, Canada, in the first decade of the 20th century.^[79] From early in the twentieth century until 1961, the Pennsylvania Railroad operated an express train named the Nellie Bly on a route between New York and Atlantic City, bypassing Philadelphia.

A steam tug named after Bly served as a fireboat in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.^[79]
Cover of the 1890 board game Round the World with Nellie Bly

Works

[edit]

Within her lifetime, Nellie Bly published three non-fiction books (compilations of her newspaper reportage) and one novel in book form.

Bly, Nellie (1887). Ten Days in a Mad-House. New York: Ian L. Munro.
Bly, Nellie (1888). Six Months in Mexico. New York: American Publishers Corporation.
Bly, Nellie (1889). The Mystery of Central Park. New York: G. W. Dillingham.
Bly, Nellie (1890). Nellie Bly's Book: Around the World in Seventy-two Days. New York: The Pictorial Weeklies Company.

Between 1889 and 1895, Nellie Bly also penned twelve novels for The New York Family Story Paper. Thought lost, these novels were not collected in book form until their re-discovery in 2021.^[80]

Eva The Adventuress (1889)
New York By Night (1890)
Alta Lynn, M.D. (1891)
Wayne's Faithful Sweetheart (1891)
Little Luckie, or Playing For Hearts (1892)
Dolly The Coquette (1892)
In Love With A Stranger, or Through Fire And Water To Win Him (1893)
The Love Of Three Girls (1893)
Little Penny, Child Of The Streets (1893)
Pretty Merribelle (1894)
Twins & Rivals (1895)

See also

[edit]

Eleanor Riese, a psychiatric patient who sued over non-consensual administration of anti-psychotic medicine
Elizabeth Bisland, who raced Nellie around the globe for a competing publisher
Frances Farmer, actress who was involuntarily committed to mental hospitals
List of American print journalists
List of female explorers and travelers
Nellie Bly Cub Reporter Award
Women in journalism

References

[edit]

^ Bernard, Diane (July 28, 2019). "She went undercover to expose an insane asylum's horrors. Now Nellie Bly is getting her due". The Washington Post.
^ "American Experience". PBS. Archived from the original on March 5, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
^ Kroeger 1994, pp. 3 & 5.
^ "Nellie Bly" (PDF). Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 1, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ "Nellie Bly Historical Marker". Explore PA History. WITF-TV. Archived from the original on April 15, 2016. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ Cridlebaugh, Bruce S. "Cochran's Mill Rd over Licks Run". Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, PA. Archived from the original on August 28, 2017. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ Kroeger 1994, p. 3.
^ "Nellie Bly Biography". Biography.com. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved January 27, 2021.
^ Kroeger 1994, p. 25.
^ Englert, John; Houser, Regan (1994). "The New American Girl". IUP Magazine. 12 (4). Indiana University of Pennsylvania: 4–7. Archived from the original on May 1, 2010. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Fritz, Arthur. "Nellie Bly, (1864–1922)". Nellie Bly Online. Archived from the original on March 23, 2016. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
^ "Young and Brave: Girls Changing History". National Woman's History Museum. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
^ ^a ^b Jone Johnson Lewis. "Nellie Bly". About.com. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
^ ^a ^b Todd, Kim (2021). Sensational : the hidden history of America's "girl stunt reporters" (1st ed.). New York: Harper. p. 17. ISBN 978-0062843616. OCLC 1244546167.
^ PBS website, Nellie’s Milestones
^ Historic American Journalism website, Archive section, Mad Marriages That Break Hearts Covered by Calico as Well as By Sealskin Sacques, copy of original article by Nellie Bly, dated February 1, 1885
^ Room, Adrian (2010). Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins (5th ed.). McFarland. p. 182. ISBN 978-0786457632.
^ Kroeger 1994, pp. 43–44.
^ Wildemuth, Susan. “Nellie Bly and the Power of the Press.” Cobblestone, vol. 20, no. 1, Jan. 1999, p. 16. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=1764c592-e2d7-3661-9c16-702e1f3b59e8.
^ "Nellie on the Fly". The Attic. January 26, 2019. Archived from the original on April 23, 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
^ Simkin, John (September 1997). "Nellie Bly". Spartacus Educational. Archived from the original on April 3, 2019. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ Bly, Nellie (1889). "Chapter XXVI" . Six Months in Mexico . New York: American Publishers Corporation – via Wikisource.
^ ^a ^b Lutes, Jean Marie (2002). "Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl Stunt Reporting in Late Nineteenth-Century America". American Quarterly. 54 (2): 217–253. doi:10.1353/aq.2002.0017. ISSN 1080-6490. S2CID 143667078.
^ Gregory, Alice (May 14, 2014). "Nellie Bly's Lessons in Writing What You Want To". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on July 19, 2019. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
^ ^a ^b Bly, Nellie (1887). Ten Days in a Mad-House. New York: Ian L. Munro. Archived from the original on February 16, 2004. Retrieved October 13, 2018 – via digital.library.upenn.edu.
^ Hershman, Tania; Bell, Jo; Holland, Ailsa (2021). On this day she : putting women back into history, one day at a time. Tania Hershman, Ailsa Holland. London. p. 313. ISBN 978-1789462715. OCLC 1250378425.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ DeMain, Bill. "Ten Days in a Madhouse: The Woman Who Got Herself Committed". mental floss. Archived from the original on May 14, 2019. Retrieved May 10, 2010.
^ Telfer, Tori (2017). Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 69.
^ ^a ^b ^c Kroeger 2000.
^ Ruddick 1999, p. 4.
^ ^a ^b Kroeger 1994, p. 146.
^ Ruddick 1999, p. 5.
^ Kroeger 1994, p. 150.
^ Linford 2022, pp. 72–77.
^ "George Francis Train, One of the Few Sane Men in a Mad, Mad World". New England Historical Society. March 2015.
^ Reid, Kerry (February 2, 2021). "Almost 100 Years After Her Death, Nellie Bly Is Back". Chicago Reader.
^ "Nellie Bly | American journalist". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on August 23, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
^ "Nellie Bly, journalist, Dies of Pneumonia". The New York Times. January 28, 1922. Archived from the original on November 15, 2011. Retrieved November 29, 2011.
^ ^a ^b "The Remarkable Nellie Bly". American Oil & Gas Historical Society. Archived from the original on October 4, 2011. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ "Industries – Business History of Oil Drillers, Refiners". Business History. Archived from the original on October 6, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ Garrison, Jayne. "Nellie Bly, Girl Reporter : Daredevil journalist". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 8, 2015. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
^ Harvey, Sheridan (2001). "Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913". American Women. Library of Congress. Archived from the original on February 10, 2013. Retrieved March 3, 2013.
^ "The remarkable Nellie Bly, inventor of the metal oil drum". Petroleum Age. December 2006. p. 5.
^ Bly, Nellie (January 12, 1915). "American Woman Imprisoned in Austria; Liberated When Identified by Dr. Friedman". Los Angeles Herald. p. 2. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
^ Dunning, Jennifer (February 23, 1979). "Woodlawn, Bronx's Other Hall of Fame". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 10, 2018. Retrieved November 29, 2011.
^ "Elizabeth Jane Cochran – National Women's Hall of Fame". Greatwomen.org. Archived from the original on September 24, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ "Four Accomplished Journalists Honored on U.S. Postage Stamps". about.com (Press release). USPS. September 14, 2002. Archived from the original on October 16, 2011.
^ Fletcher, Bertram Julian. "Nellie Bly Marguerite Higgins Ethel L. Payne Ida M. Tarbell March Women's History Month Lady Journalists on Postage Stamps". Archived from the original on February 9, 2018. Retrieved February 9, 2018.
^ "Nellie Bly Memorial Call for Artists". Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation of New York. New York State. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
^ "Amanda Matthews of Prometheus Art Selected to Create Monument to Journalist Nelly Bly on Roosevelt Island, Press Release". Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation of New York. New York State. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
^ "Monument honoring journalist Nellie Bly opens: "This installation is spiritual"". CBS News. December 11, 2021. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
^ "New York Press Club Announces its 2020 Journalism Award Winners". www.nypressclub.org. August 19, 2020. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
^ Dietz, Dan (2010). Off Broadway Musicals, 1910–2007: Casts, Credits, Songs, Critical Reception and Performance Data of More Than 1,800 Shows. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786457311.
^ "Lynn Schrichte". Resourceful Women. Library of Congress. Archived from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ Brodeur, Michael Andor (September 22, 2023). "A reporter feigned madness to expose abuse. Now it's an unnerving opera". Washington Post. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
^ "The Adventures of Nellie Bly (1981)". The New York Times. March 4, 2016. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.
^ "Fearless Feminist Reporter Nellie Bly Hits the Big Screen". Ms. Magazine. November 11, 2015. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
^ Bentley, Rick (January 17, 2019). "Judith Light hopes 'The Nellie Bly Story' will prompt mental health discussions". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
^ Reveal 2017.
^ "Nellie Bly". Popular Pittsburgh. February 11, 2015. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
^ Eidell, Lynsey (October 7, 2015). "All the Real-Life Scary Stories Told on American Horror Story". Glamour. Archived from the original on June 19, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ MacIntosh, Selena (July 2011). "Ladyghosts: The West Wing 2.05, 'And It's Surely to Their Credit'". Persephone. Archived from the original on February 5, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ "What Girls are Good For: Happy birthday Nellie Bly". May 4, 2015. Archived from the original on May 7, 2015. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
^ "Many happy returns, Peter Davison!". Big Finish. April 13, 2021. Retrieved May 10, 2024.
^ "What Girls Are Good For - A Novel Of Nellie Bly". Next Chapter. September 20, 2019. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
^ "The New Colossus". diversionbooks.com/ebooks/new-colossus. Archived from the original on April 24, 2014. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
^ Callison, Jill (March 23, 2015). "Author: There's gold in them thar southern Black Hills". USA Today. Archived from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ "Books". Carol McCleary. Archived from the original on May 14, 2016. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ "The Mad Girls of New York: A Nellie Bly Novel". Maya Rodale. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
^ "Bedlam Stories". Archived from the original on October 1, 2013. Retrieved September 24, 2013.
^ "Madwoman". Bloomsbury.
^ Broads You Should Know (2021). "Nellie Bly".
^ "024. Julie Walker: The Phantom (A)". Moonstonebooks.com. Archived from the original on July 29, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ Establishment, The (May 22, 2016). "New Book Gives Rebel Girls The Bedtime Tales They Deserve". The Establishment. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
^ "Round the world with Nellie Bly – The Worlds globe circler". Library of Congress. 1890. Archived from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ "Adventurer's Amusement Park". UltimaterollerCoaster.com. Archived from the original on July 28, 2015. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
^ "Adventurer's Park Family Entertainment Center – Brooklyn, NY". adventurerspark.com. Archived from the original on May 3, 2015. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
^ Sherwood, D., Gabriel, R., Brescovit, A. D. & Lucas, S. M. (2022). "On the species of Pamphobeteus Pocock, 1901 deposited in the Natural History Museum, London, with redescriptions of type material, the first record of P. grandis Bertani, Fukushima & Silva, 2008 from Peru, and the description of four new species". Arachnology 19(3): 650–674. Online
^ ^a ^b Chris Bateman (2013). "The nautical adventures of the Trillium ferry in Toronto". Blog TO. Archived from the original on August 28, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2018. A second fire boat, the Nellie Bly, presumably named after the American journalist famous for her round-the-world trip and exposé piece of US mental health practices, was also involved. 'Their combined efforts prevented the fire from spreading,' noted the Star.
^ McKee, Jenn (February 3, 2021). "Ann Arbor Native David Blixt Discovered a Cache of Long Lost Novels by Journalist-Adventurer Nellie Bly". Pulp | Arts Around Ann Arbor. Retrieved November 21, 2022.

Sources

[edit]

Kroeger, Brooke (1994). Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0812925258.
Kroeger, Brooke (February 2000). "Bly, Nellie". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1601472.
Linford, Autumn Lorimer (2022). "Nellie Bly Merchandise and the Changing American Woman: A Material Culture Study". American Journalism. 39 (1): 72–91. doi:10.1080/08821127.2022.2026195.
"Nellie Bly Makes the News". Reveal. The Center for Investigative Reporting. 2017. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
Ruddick, Nicholas (1999). "Nellie Bly, Jules Verne, and the World on the Threshold of the American Age". Canadian Review of American Studies. 29 (1): 1–12. doi:10.3138/CRAS-029-01-01. S2CID 159883003.

Further reading

[edit]

Library resources about
Nellie Bly

By Nellie Bly

Brown, Rosemary J. (2021). Following Nellie Bly: Her Record-Breaking Race Around the World. Pen & Sword Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1526761408.
Goodman, Matthew (2013). Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World. Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0345527264.
Lutes, Jean Marie (June 2002). "Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl Stunt Reporting in Late Nineteenth-Century America". American Quarterly. 54 (2). Johns Hopkins University Press: 217–253. doi:10.1353/aq.2002.0017. S2CID 143667078 – via Project MUSE.
Mahoney, Ellen (Summer 2017). "Nellie Bly: Pioneer journalist extraordinaire". Western Pennsylvania History: 32–45.
Parham, Stacey Gaines (2010). Nellie Bly, "the best reporter in America": one woman's rhetorical legacy (PDF) (PhD thesis). The University of Alabama.
Randall, David (2005). "Nellie Bly: The best undercover reporter in history". The Great Reporters. London: Pluto Press. pp. 93–113. ISBN 0745322972.
Rittenhouse, Mignon (1956). The Amazing Nellie Bly. Dutton. OCLC 299483.
Roggenkamp, Karen (2016). Sympathy, Madness, and Crime: How Four Nineteenth-century Journalists Made the Newspaper Women's Business. Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-1606352878.
Vengadasalam, Puja (September 10, 2018). "Dislocating the Masculine: How Nellie Bly Feminised Her Reports". Social Change. 48 (3): 451–458. doi:10.1177/0049085718781597. S2CID 149576773.

External links

[edit]

Information, photos and original Nellie Bly articles at Nellie Bly Online
Library of Congress "Nellie Bly: A Resource Guide"
Nellie Bly's collected journalism at The Archive of American Journalism
Norwood, Arlisha. "Nellie Bly". National Women's History Museum. 2017.
The Daring Nellie Bly: America's Star Reporter illustrated biography by Bonnie Christensen, reviewed by Maria Popova
Works by Nellie Bly at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Nellie Bly at the Internet Archive
Works by Nellie Bly at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Inductees to the National Women's Hall of Fame

1970–1979

1973	Jane Addams Marian Anderson Susan B. Anthony Clara Barton Mary McLeod Bethune Elizabeth Blackwell Pearl S. Buck Rachel Carson Mary Cassatt Emily Dickinson Amelia Earhart Alice Hamilton Helen Hayes Helen Keller Eleanor Roosevelt Florence Sabin Margaret Chase Smith Elizabeth Cady Stanton Helen Brooke Taussig Harriet Tubman
1976	Abigail Adams Margaret Mead Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
1979	Dorothea Dix Juliette Gordon Low Alice Paul Elizabeth Bayley Seton

1980–1989

1981	Margaret Sanger Sojourner Truth
1982	Carrie Chapman Catt Frances Perkins
1983	Belva Lockwood Lucretia Mott
1984	Mary "Mother" Harris Jones Bessie Smith
1986	Barbara McClintock Lucy Stone Harriet Beecher Stowe
1988	Gwendolyn Brooks Willa Cather Sally Ride Mary Risteau Ida B. Wells-Barnett

1990–1999

1990	Margaret Bourke-White Barbara Jordan Billie Jean King Florence B. Seibert
1991	Gertrude Belle Elion
1993	Ethel Percy Andrus Antoinette Blackwell Emily Blackwell Shirley Chisholm Jacqueline Cochran Ruth Colvin Marian Wright Edelman Alice Evans Betty Friedan Ella Grasso Martha Wright Griffiths Fannie Lou Hamer Dorothy Height Dolores Huerta Mary Putnam Jacobi Mae Jemison Mary Lyon Mary Mahoney Wilma Mankiller Constance Baker Motley Georgia O'Keeffe Annie Oakley Rosa Parks Esther Peterson Jeannette Rankin Ellen Swallow Richards Elaine Roulet Katherine Siva Saubel Gloria Steinem Helen Stephens Lillian Wald Madam C. J. Walker Faye Wattleton Rosalyn S. Yalow Gloria Yerkovich
1994	Bella Abzug Ella Baker Myra Bradwell Annie Jump Cannon Jane Cunningham Croly Catherine East Geraldine Ferraro Charlotte Perkins Gilman Grace Hopper Helen LaKelly Hunt Zora Neale Hurston Anne Hutchinson Frances Wisebart Jacobs Susette La Flesche Louise McManus Maria Mitchell Antonia Novello Linda Richards Wilma Rudolph Betty Bone Schiess Muriel Siebert Nettie Stevens Oprah Winfrey Sarah Winnemucca Fanny Wright
1995	Virginia Apgar Ann Bancroft Amelia Bloomer Mary Breckinridge Eileen Collins Elizabeth Hanford Dole Anne Dallas Dudley Mary Baker Eddy Ella Fitzgerald Margaret Fuller Matilda Joslyn Gage Lillian Moller Gilbreth Nannerl O. Keohane Maggie Kuhn Sandra Day O'Connor Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin Pat Schroeder Hannah Greenebaum Solomon
1996	Louisa May Alcott Charlotte Anne Bunch Frances Xavier Cabrini Mary A. Hallaren Oveta Culp Hobby Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Anne Morrow Lindbergh Maria Goeppert Mayer Ernestine Louise Potowski Rose Maria Tallchief Edith Wharton
1998	Madeleine Albright Maya Angelou Nellie Bly Lydia Moss Bradley Mary Steichen Calderone Mary Ann Shadd Cary Joan Ganz Cooney Gerty Cori Sarah Grimké Julia Ward Howe Shirley Ann Jackson Shannon Lucid Katharine Dexter McCormick Rozanne L. Ridgway Edith Nourse Rogers Felice Schwartz Eunice Kennedy Shriver Beverly Sills Florence Wald Angelina Grimké Weld Chien-Shiung Wu

2000–2009

2000	Faye Glenn Abdellah Emma Smith DeVoe Marjory Stoneman Douglas Mary Dyer Sylvia A. Earle Crystal Eastman Jeanne Holm Leontine T. Kelly Frances Oldham Kelsey Kate Mullany Janet Reno Anna Howard Shaw Sophia Smith Ida Tarbell Wilma L. Vaught Mary Edwards Walker Annie Dodge Wauneka Eudora Welty Frances E. Willard
2001	Dorothy H. Andersen Lucille Ball Rosalynn Carter Lydia Maria Child Bessie Coleman Dorothy Day Marian de Forest Althea Gibson Beatrice A. Hicks Barbara Holdridge Harriet Williams Russell Strong Emily Howell Warner Victoria Woodhull
2002	Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis Ruth Bader Ginsburg Katharine Graham Bertha Holt Mary Engle Pennington Mercy Otis Warren
2003	Linda G. Alvarado Donna de Varona Gertrude Ederle Martha Matilda Harper Patricia Roberts Harris Stephanie L. Kwolek Dorothea Lange Mildred Robbins Leet Patsy Takemoto Mink Sacagawea Anne Sullivan Sheila E. Widnall
2005	Florence E. Allen Ruth Fulton Benedict Betty Bumpers Hillary Clinton Rita Rossi Colwell Mother Marianne Cope Maya Y. Lin Patricia A. Locke Blanche Stuart Scott Mary Burnett Talbert
2007	Eleanor K. Baum Julia Child Martha Coffin Pelham Wright Swanee Hunt Winona LaDuke Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Judith L. Pipher Catherine Filene Shouse Henrietta Szold
2009	Louise Bourgeois Mildred Cohn Karen DeCrow Susan Kelly-Dreiss Allie B. Latimer Emma Lazarus Ruth Patrick Rebecca Talbot Perkins Susan Solomon Kate Stoneman

2010–2019

2011	St. Katharine Drexel Dorothy Harrison Eustis Loretta C. Ford Abby Kelley Foster Helen Murray Free Billie Holiday Coretta Scott King Lilly Ledbetter Barbara A. Mikulski Donna E. Shalala Kathrine Switzer
2013	Betty Ford Ina May Gaskin Julie Krone Kate Millett Nancy Pelosi Mary Joseph Rogers Bernice Sandler Anna Schwartz Emma Willard
2015	Tenley Albright Nancy Brinker Martha Graham Marcia Greenberger Barbara Iglewski Jean Kilbourne Carlotta Walls LaNier Philippa Marrack Mary Harriman Rumsey Eleanor Smeal
2017	Matilda Cuomo Temple Grandin Lorraine Hansberry Victoria Jackson Sherry Lansing Clare Boothe Luce Aimee Mullins Carol Mutter Janet Rowley Alice Waters
2019	Gloria Allred Angela Davis Sarah Deer Jane Fonda Nicole Malachowski Rose O'Neill Louise Slaughter Sonia Sotomayor Laurie Spiegel Flossie Wong-Staal

2020–2029

2020	Aretha Franklin Barbara Hillary Barbara Rose Johns Henrietta Lacks Toni Morrison Mary Church Terrell
2022	Octavia E. Butler Judy Chicago Rebecca S. Halstead Mia Hamm Joy Harjo Emily Howland Katherine Johnson Indra Nooyi Michelle Obama
2024	Patricia Bath Ruby Bridges Elouise P. Cobell Kimberlé Crenshaw Peggy McIntosh Judith Plaskow Loretta Ross Sandy Stone Anna Wessels Williams Serena Williams

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