Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Jane Cochran, 1864-1922) was an influential American journalist known for her innovative investigative reporting. Her journalism career began in 1885 with a letter under the pseudonym “Lonely Orphan Girl,” responding to Erasmus Wilson’s article, “What Girls Are Good For,” in the Pittsburgh Dispatch.
In her rebuttal, Cochran argued women had value and capabilities beyond traditional domestic roles. What were the working class’s single young girls and widows to do? Women, like men, deserve opportunities to make a decent living and contribute meaningfully to society. The newspaper’s editor, George Madden, offered her a job; thus, Nellie Bly became an outstanding investigative reporter.
In 1887, she published “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” an explosive investigation into the horrors of the mental asylum on Blackwell’s Island, in which she committed herself undercover. She tells of a wrongly committed woman, Miss Tillie Mayard. Her treatment damaged Mayard to the point she came to believe she was insane. For long periods, the staff neglected patients and withheld proper medical attention. The asylum was filthy and overcrowded. The asylum often provided spoiled and inedible food. Staff beat, restrained, and treated patients with unnecessary force. The patients suffered inadequate clothing and heat in winter.
Nellie Bly published “Around the World in Seventy-Two Days” in 1890, detailing her record-breaking journey worldwide. Inspired by Jules Verne’s novel “Around the World in Eighty Days,” Bly finished in just 72 days. She left New York on November 14, 1889. She then traveled through England, France (where she met Jules Verne), Italy, the Suez Canal, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Unknown to Bly, she was in a race with Elizabeth Bisland, a Cosmopolitan magazine reporter, traveling in the opposite direction. Bly arrived at a hero’s welcome on January 25, 1890.
In 1895, Bly married industrialist Robert Seaman. When he died in 1904, she took over his company. During World War I, she returned to journalism, reporting from Europe.
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