Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Nellie Bly (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. In 1864, Elizabeth Jane Cochran was born in Cochran Mills, Pennsylvania. At the age of 18, she began a career in journalism writing under a pen name, and during her career she became a pioneer in both investigative journalism and travel writing. She later became a novelist, ran an industrial factory, and was one of the leading voices for women's suffrage in the early 20th century. Learn more about Nellie Bly and her incredible life on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong?

Starting point is 00:00:50 ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The woman the world came to know as Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5, 1864 in Kodagh. Cochran Mills, Pennsylvania. The name of her family and the name of the town she was born in was not a coincidence. Her father was Michael Cochran, a self-made man who began as a mill worker and eventually purchased the mill that the town was named after. He was also a local judge for the

Starting point is 00:01:33 community. He had a total of 15 children with two different wives, 10 with his first wife and five with his second. Elizabeth was the youngest in the family. Her father died at the age of six, and her mother, Mary, struggled to raise such a large family alone. Her father's estate was divided it evenly between all of his children, leaving little for young Elizabeth and her mother. In 1878, her mother remarried. However, her new husband was violent and abusive, and they were divorced within a year. In 1879, she enrolled in the Indiana Normal School, now known as the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, with the intent of becoming a teacher. However, she dropped out after a semester due to a lack of funds. In 1880, her mother moved to what is today, Pittsburgh,

Starting point is 00:02:14 Pennsylvania. There, she and her mother lived in slums doing what they could to earn a living. It was in 1885 that the event took place that would change her life forever. The Pittsburgh Dispatch published an opinion piece titled What Girls Are Good for? The column suggested that women were only good for having children and keeping a home and that they had no place working in regular jobs. Elizabeth was so angry that she wrote a very tersely worded letter to the editor signed Lonely Orphan Girl. The editor to the newspaper was so impressed with her writing that, in complete opposition to the column that the paper actually ran, he offered her a job.

Starting point is 00:02:51 Her first article for the Pittsburgh Dispatch was titled The Girl Puzzle. The article suggested that not all girls were going to get married and that more jobs should be available for them. The article was again published under the pseudonym Lonely Orphan Girl. However, it was suggested that she needed a more serious pen name. The editor suggested the name Nellie Bly, which was taken from an 1850 song by the American songwriter Stephen Foster. She originally wanted it spelled N-E-L-L-L-Y, but it was accidentally published as N-E-L-L-I-E, and the name stuck.

Starting point is 00:03:24 Her early work for the Pittsburgh Dispatch was writing about the lives of working women, in particular the conditions they were forced to work under in local Pittsburgh factories. After local factory owners complained to the newspaper, she was reassigned to cover topics such as fashion and gardening, which were topics typically covered by female journalists of the era. She had no desire to write those type of stories, so she set out to, quote, do something no girl has done before. Still only 21 years old, she left Pittsburgh for Mexico and became a freelance foreign correspondent.

Starting point is 00:03:56 She initially came with her mother, who acted as her chaperone, but her mother soon left, leaving her unaccompanied, which was scandalous at the time. While in Mexico, she reported on cultural topics, but also about the living conditions of the people there. She eventually strayed into Mexican politics, writing about the corruption of the Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. Mexican officials threatened her with arrest, which caused her to flee the country and returned to Pittsburgh.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Once back home, she continued reporting on Diaz and his corrupt government. In 1888, she published her stories in a book titled Six Months in Mexico. She quickly became bored back in Pittsburgh, so one day she left her editor a note that read, quote, I'm off for New York, look out for me, bligh. In New York, she had a difficult time finding a job and wrote freelance pieces for the Pittsburgh dispatch, documenting her troubles finding a journalism job as a woman. But she eventually managed to work her way into the offices of the publisher of the New York World newspaper Joseph Pulitzer. She pitched Pulitzer a story on the plight of immigrants in New York City. He didn't go for the

Starting point is 00:05:00 immigrant story, but he had another idea. He suggested she do a story on the condition of insane asylums. This, her very first story for the New York News, would turn out to be the one that cemented her reputation as a journalist. To get the story, she would have to get inside an insane asylum. Her plan was to get herself declared insane and committed to the women's lunatic asylum on Blackwell Island, now named Roosevelt Island in New York City. However, this was easier said than done, even in the 19th century. The first thing she did was check into a boarding house for women known as the temporary home for females. Using her knowledge of Spanish from her time in Mexico, she pretended to be a native Spanish speaker.

Starting point is 00:05:41 She began staying up all night and not sleeping to give herself the look of someone deranged. She then started accusing all of the other guests at the boarding house of being insane. She continued scaring the other guests at the boarding house until the police were called in. When in custody and in court, she claimed she couldn't remember anything. After being interviewed by several doctors, she was declared insane by all of them and committed to Blackwell Island. Oddly enough, the case of her arrest was covered by several. other newspapers, all of which wondered who this mystery woman was. Once she entered the asylum, she ceased the show and started acting normally again.

Starting point is 00:06:17 She remained in the asylum for ten days, documenting the horrible conditions that she found. For starters, many of the women in the asylum were perfectly sane. They just didn't speak English. Because they couldn't communicate, they couldn't defend themselves. Inmates lived under horrible conditions. They were given rotting food, slept in filth, and had to take baths in cold, dirty water. The staff at the asylum abused the patients and treated them horribly. After 10 days, just as planned, lawyers from the New York world showed up and got her released.

Starting point is 00:06:47 Her exposé on the conditions at the asylum, published in October of 1887, shocked the public and turned Nellie Bly into a celebrity. It led to reforms of the asylum system in New York, and her story was quickly turned into a book published under the title, 10 Days in a Madhouse. It wasn't just a shocking expose. it was one of the first cases of undercover investigative journalism to be brought to the attention of the public. Deli Bly's newfound status allowed her to pursue the stories that she wanted to do. She did stories on the working conditions of sweatshops, baby buying rings and corrupt legislators. She interviewed the wives of three U.S. presidents, Polk, Grant, and Garfield. She also interviewed Buffalo Bill and the female serial killer Lizzie Halliday.

Starting point is 00:07:30 However, her greatest accomplishment was yet to come. In 1888, she suggested to her editor that she travel around the world. She would turn the fictional book Around the World in 80 Days, published by Jules Varn in 1873, into a reality. A year later, at exactly 9.40 a.m. November 14, 1889, on just two days' notice, she boarded the Augusta Victoria steamship to Europe with nothing but two dresses and one bag. The New York world played up her journey, and it was an incredible health. hit. Readers were given daily update sent via telegram on her progress. They even held a contest called

Starting point is 00:08:09 the Nellie Blye guessing match to guess how long it would take her to complete the journey down to the second. She traveled by almost every means available at the time, including boat, train, horse, and Rickshaw. However, the trip was mostly at sea, save for crossing Europe by train. The last leg of her trip took her from San Francisco to New York via a special train sponsored by the newspaper. A competing newspaper, the New York Cosmopolitan, sent one of their own female reporters Elizabeth Bissland on a trip going the opposite direction to try and beat Bly's time. But it never got nearly as much attention. Nellie Bly's final time set a record for circumnavigating the Earth at 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds. With the incredible success of her trip around the world, she actually stepped away from journalism to capitalize on her fame and began writing serial novels for the New York

Starting point is 00:09:00 family story paper. As her stories were only published in serial form, they were thought to be lost until copies were found in old issues of the London story paper in 2021. Her attempts at fiction weren't as successful as her nonfiction writing, and she returned to journalism in 1893. However, in 1895, she married the multimillionaire industrialist Robert Seaman. His company manufactured milk cans, fluid tanks, and steam boilers. Bly was 31 years old, and Seaman was 70. Many people assume that this was just another one of her stunts and she wasn't really married. They were married just two weeks after meeting each other in Chicago. But she was married and they remained married until his death in 1904.

Starting point is 00:09:45 After his death, Bly took over control of the company. And that same year, the Ironclad Manufacturing Company began the sale of the 55-gallon oil drum, which is still the standard that's used today. She received two U.S. patents for a new type of milk can as well as for a stackable garbage can. For several years, she was considered the leading female industrialist in the United States. However, the company was eventually brought down by an embezzling scheme by one of its managers. After the failure of her company, she returned to journalism and covered the women's suffrage movement. During the First World War, she was one of the first female war correspondents

Starting point is 00:10:20 covering the eastern front of the war. She returned to the United States in 1919 and began writing an advice column for the New York Evening Journal. She was writing for them up until she was She fell ill with pneumonia and died on January 27, 1922 at the age of 57. Since her death, Nellie Bly has been regarded as one of the greatest journalists in American history. She's been the subject of movies, books, television shows, and theatrical performances. She's been on postage stamps, and there's a statue dedicated to her in Brooklyn titled The Girl Puzzle, named after the title of her first article. Nellie Bly's role in pioneering investigative journalism had a lasting impact on news reporting.

Starting point is 00:10:59 It's why the famed reporter and editor Arthur Brisbane, the day after her death, called her the best reporter in America. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Oakden and Cameron Kiefer. I want to thank everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. I'd also like to thank all the members of the Everything Everywhere community who are active on the Facebook group and the Discord server.

Starting point is 00:11:29 If you'd like to join in the discussion, there are links to both. within the show notes. And as always, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Nellie Bly (Encore)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.