[20], Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. Nellie Bly was born as Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5, 1864 in Cochran’s Mills, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, to a mill worker Michael Cochran and his wife Mary Jane. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. Nellie Bly was an amazing journalist at a time when women were discouraged from joining the workforce, let alone becoming reporters. [13] Her first article for the Dispatch, entitled "The Girl Puzzle", was about how divorce affected women. Biography of Nellie Bly, Investigative Journalist, World Traveler. Cochrane rode on ships and trains, in rickshaws and sampans, on horses and burros. Her … [16], 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 women factory workers. Cochran’s editor chose the name “Nelly Bly” from a Stephen Foster song. • Bly, Nellie (January 12, 1915). Her first articles, on conditions among working girls in Pittsburgh, slum life, and other similar topics, marked her as a reporter of ingenuity and concern. Luciana Cimino’s meticulously researched graphic-novel biography tells Bly’s story through Miriam, a fictionalized female student at the Columbia School of Journalism in 1921. Nellie Bly’s Book: Around the World in Seventy-two Days (1890) was a great popular success, and the name Nellie Bly became a synonym for a female star reporter. Nellie Bly married manufacturer Robert Seaman in 1895. Seaman died in 1904, and Bly took over his firm, the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company. Elizabeth Jane Cochran was born in Cochran's Mills, Pennsylvania on May 5, 1864. [2], Elizabeth Jane Cochran was born May 5, 1864,[3] in "Cochran's Mills", now part of the Pittsburgh suburb of Burrell Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. episode "Jack's Back". [10] In 1880, Cochrane's mother moved her family to Pittsburgh. In 1880, her family moved to Pittsburgh where she supported her mother by running a boarding house. American journalist best known for her record-breaking trip around the world, inspired by author Jules Verne‘s book Around The World in 80 Days. Born in 1864, Nellie Bly was a woman who did not allow herself to be defined by the time she lived in, she rewrote the narrative and made her own way. [70], 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). Nellie Bly was the most famous American woman reporter of the 19th century. [1] She was a pioneer in her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism. At a time when a woman’s contribution to a newspaper was generally confined to the “women’s pages,” Cochrane was given a rare opportunity to report on wider issues. Bly told the assistant matron: "There are so many crazy people about, and one can never tell what they will do." Nellie Bly is best known as a Journalist. Her article's headline was "Suffragists Are Men's Superiors" and in its text she accurately predicted that it would be 1920 before women in the United States would be given the right to vote. [62], Bly has been the subject of two episodes of the Comedy Central series Drunk History. [20] 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. Similar reportorial gambits took her into sweatshops, jails, and the legislature (where she exposed bribery in the lobbyist system). Nellie Bly, pseudonym of Elizabeth Cochrane, also spelled Cochran, (born May 5, 1864, Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died January 27, 1922, New York, New York), American journalist whose around-the-world race against a fictional record brought her world renown. Elizabeth Cochran, "Nellie Bly," aged about 26, Bear, David. After ten days, the asylum released Bly at The World's behest. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [27][28] Bly, however, did not learn of Bisland's journey until reaching Hong Kong. Patents 808,327 and 808,413). Within her lifetime, Nellie Bly published three non-fiction books (essentially compilations of her newspaper reportage) and one novel. Become a Lottie Super Fan! In 1886–87 she traveled for several months through Mexico, sending back reports on official corruption and the condition of the poor. [61] Bly was also 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 on his weekly radio address. [40] Bly was 31 and Seaman was 73 when they married. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The second-season episode "New York City" featured her undercover exploits in the Blackwell's Island asylum,[63] while the third-season episode "Journalism" retold the story of her race around the world against Elizabeth Bisland. Bisland would travel the opposite way around the world, starting on the same day as Bly took off. He’s been in the midst of media scandals, he’s interviewed some of the most famous celebrities and most… Nellie Bly (May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922) was an American journalist, author, and charity worker, who received initial renown after writing a stinging expose of the mistreatment of the mentally ill while faking insanity and living undercover at a New York mental institution. Recent and Upcoming Nonfiction Comic Releases. [12][11][13] The editor, George Madden, was impressed with her passion and ran an advertisement asking the author to identify herself. Nellie Bly was the most famous American woman reporter of the 19th century. [citation needed], The board game Round the World with Nellie Bly created in 1890 is named in recognition of her trip. She was far and away the best-known woman journalist of her day. Michael married twice. She began her career in 1885 in her native Pennsylvania as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Dispatch, to which she had sent an angry letter to the editor in response to an article the newspaper had printed entitled “What Girls Are Good For” (not much, according to the article). She also undertook a record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days. [11], Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. The articles were subsequently collected in Six Months in Mexico (1888). [71], 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. - Be the first to hear about new Lottie Dolls In 1895, Bly married millionaire manufacturer Robert Seaman. [75], Cover of the 1890 board game Round the World with Nellie Bly. Train completed the journey in 67 days, and on his third trip in 1892 in 60 days. Bly, Nellie (05 May 1864–27 January 1922), reporter and manufacturer, was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Michael Cochran, a mill owner and associate justice of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, and Mary Jane Kennedy Cummings. [14] Madden was impressed again and offered her a full-time job. [32] During these stops, she visited a leper colony in China[33][34] and, in Singapore, she bought a monkey. Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late 1960s. 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, industrialist, inventor, and charity worker 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 an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within. Young Elizabeth attended boarding school but just for a term before dropping out due to insufficient funds. She expressed interest in writing a story on the immigrant experience in the United States. Her sharply critical articles angered Mexican officials and caused her expulsion from the country. She got her break in 1885, after a letter she had written to the Pittsburgh Dispatchcaugh… According to biographer Brooke Kroeger: She ran her company as a model of social welfare, replete with health benefits and recreational facilities. However, he also misspelled the name, and she became “Nellie Bly.”. COMICS. She also had missed a connection and had to board a slow, old ship (the Bothnia) in the place of a fast ship (Etruria). [4][5][6] Her father, Michael Cochran, born about 1810, started out as a laborer and mill worker before buying the local mill and most of the land surrounding his family farmhouse. Her investigation of conditions at an insane asylum sparked outrage, legal action, and improvements of the treatment of the mentally ill. In 1904, Seaman died. But Bly was hopeless at understanding the financial aspects of her business and ultimately lost everything. Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5, 1864, in Cochran’s Mills,Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. The Incredible Nellie Bly: Journalist, Investigator, Feminist, and Philanthropist. Nellie Bly. [14] In one report, she protested the imprisonment of a local journalist for criticizing the Mexican government, then a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz. [7] Michael Cochran's father had immigrated from County Londonderry, Ireland, in the 1790s. "Nellie Bly: Professional Badass" could have been the title. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days' notice,[23] she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line,[24] and began her 40,070 kilometer journey. Omissions? It was for the Dispatch that she began using the pen name “Nellie Bly,” borrowed from a popular Stephen Foster song. 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. ", Cochran's Mills, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Burrell Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story, An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster, "Five Reasons why a Google Doodle Tribute to Nellie Bly is justified", "Young and Brave: Girls Changing History", "Nellie Bly's Lessons in Writing What You Want To", "Ten Days in a Madhouse: The Woman Who Got Herself Committed", "Eyewitness 1890: Pittsburgh welcomes home globe-trotting Nellie Bly", George Francis Train, The Bostonian Who Really Was Phileas Fogg, "William Lightfoot Visscher, Journal profile, part one", "Nellie Bly, journalist, Dies of Pneumonia", "Industries – Business History of Oil Drillers, Refiners", "Nellie Bly, Girl Reporter : Daredevil journalist", "Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913", "Elizabeth Jane Cochran – National Women's Hall of Fame", "Four Accomplished Journalists Honored on U.S. Postage Stamps", "Nellie Bly Marguerite Higgins Ethel L. Payne Ida M. Tarbell March Women's History Month Lady Journalists on Postage Stamps", "Amanda Matthews of Prometheus Art Selected to Create Monument to Journalist Nelly Bly on Roosevelt Island, Press Release", "Fearless Feminist Reporter Nellie Bly Hits the Big Screen", "Judith Light hopes 'The Nellie Bly Story' will prompt mental health discussions", "All the Real-Life Scary Stories Told on American Horror Story", "Ladyghosts: The West Wing 2.05, 'And It's Surely to Their Credit, "Nellie Bly Goes Undercover at Blackwell's Island", "What Girls are Good For: Happy birthday Nellie Bly", "What Girls Are Good For: A Novel of Nellie Bly", "Author: There's gold in them thar southern Black Hills", "Round the world with Nellie Bly—The Worlds globe circler", "Adventurer's Park Family Entertainment Center – Brooklyn, NY", "The nautical adventures of the Trillium ferry in Toronto", "American Woman Imprisoned in Austria; Liberated When Identified by Dr. Friedman", 10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1601472, "Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl Stunt Reporting in Late Nineteenth-Century America", "Nellie Bly: Pioneer journalist extraordinaire", "Dislocating the Masculine: How Nellie Bly Feminised Her Reports", Library of Congress "Nellie Bly: A Resource Guide", The Daring Nellie Bly: America's Star Reporter, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nellie_Bly&oldid=1009746279, Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York), Pennsylvania state historical marker significations, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2020, Articles lacking reliable references from February 2021, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with multiple identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Information, photos and original Nellie Bly articles at, This page was last edited on 2 March 2021, at 02:52.

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