Born today in 1864 in
Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania, to Michael and Mary Jane Cochran, a daughter,
Elizabeth Jane, better known as “Nellie Bly”, intrepid investigative (read:
sensationalist) reporter in the last part of the nineteenth century, whose most
famous feat – bettering the travel time of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s
“Around the World in Eighty Days” with her own time of 72 days – is for what
she is most often remembered. Much
continues to be written about her, so I have culled some contemporary
statements about the brave and plucky journalist. As with most 19th century writing, there are a
lot of words – 19th century writers didn’t do ‘sound bytes’ or even
‘word bytes’.
Her first report upon being
hired by the New York newspaper The
World, was the exposé of the shocking treatment of the insane at Bellevue,
New York’s hospital for the mentally ill, which led to reforms both in
examinations and determinations of insanity, and in the subsequent medical and
physical treatment of the condemned person. The Review of Reviews praised her report as “a striking
account of the manner in which the great State lunatic asylum on Blackwell
Island was being managed, or rather mismanaged, by those in authority….
Probably nothing that has appeared in any American newspaper ever attracted so
much attention as did these revelations.”
W. T. Stead, The Review of Reviews, Vol VI,
July-December 1892, p. 168
“Miss "Pink"
Elizabeth Cochrane, who has gained a national reputation over her nom de plume of
"Nellie Bly," is a Pittsburg girl, and it
was in this city she made her entrance into journalism. Her writing, colloquial
in style, is simple and pointed. Her letters from Mexico to the Pittsburg Dispatch, and her investigation, in the
character of an insane pauper patient, into the inside workings and abuses at
Ward's Island, New York, the account of which appeared in the New York World, securing for her a permanent
position on that great newspaper—are her greatest journalistic feats. In person
"Nellie Bly" is slender, quick in her
movements, a brunette with a bright, coquettish face. Animated in conversation
and quick in repartee, she is quite a
favorite among the gentlemen.”
Adelaide M. Nevin, The Social Mirror: A
Character Sketch of the Women of Pittsburg and Vicinity, (1888). p. 29
The World, in its self-laudatory “Almanac and Encyclopedia”, made special
mention of Nellie’s exposure of “the wickedness of Saratoga” (as they called
it), in which righteous indignation was levied at the gambling hells and the
“wild reign of extravagance” by the fast set at “The Wickedest Summer
Resort”! It went on to enumerate
more of their star female reporter’s exploits: “Nellie Bly performed a number
of remarkable feats, many of which were of distinct service to the public. She
interviewed at length young John Jacob Astor and learned his views on the
obligations of wealth and the duty of millionaires as citizens; she visited the
Delaware jail and described the whipping-post as she saw it there in operation;
she took the Keeley cure at White Plains and explained the treatment in The
Sunday ‘World”, and then she
visited Athlete Muldoon at his sanitarium in the country. Nellie Bly likewise
tried a bout with Pugilist Corbett and exposed the humbug of an alleged
mind-reader and a magnetic girl who were astonishing New York.”
The (New York) World Almanac and Encyclopedia, Vol II, No. 16 (1895), pp
27-29.
Her entry in American Women: Fifteen Hundred Biographies
was equally admiring: “COCHRANE, Miss Elizabeth, author, journalist and
traveler, known the world over by her pen-name, "Nellie Bly,"… She
originated a new field in journalism, which has since been copied all over the
world by her many imitators. Her
achievements since her asylum exposé have been many and brilliant. Scarcely a week passed that she had not
some novel feature in the "World." Her fame grew and her tasks enlarged, until they culminated
in the wonderful tour of the world in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14
seconds. … Since Miss Cochrane "girdled the globe," others have
repeated the feat in less time.
Her newspaper work resulted in many reforms. Her exposé of asylum abuses procured an appropriation of
$3,000,000 for the benefit of the poor insane, in addition to beneficial
changes in care and management.
Her exposé of the "King of the Lobby" rid Albany of its
greatest disgrace; her stationhouse exposé procured matrons for New York
police-stations; her exposé of a noted "electric" doctor's secret rid
Brooklyn of a notorious swindler.
Miss Cochrane left journalism to do literary work for a weekly
publication. She is now a resident
of New York.”
Frances E. Willard, ed., American
Women: Fifteen Hundred Biographies (1897), p. 186-187
After her renowned trip
around the world, the St. Louis-based Annan Burg & Co., celebrated by
putting on the market a flour brand named “Nellie Bly.”
Not everyone thought that
she was the greatest thing since sliced bread, however. In Steps
into Journalism: Helps and Hints for Young Writers, the author smirked: “A
few examples will serve to show that as a rule something more than mere
facility with the pen is required to attain the spectacular sort of fame that
comes to the successful special writer. Nellie Bly has
won her reputation by going to the bottom of New York harbor in a diver's suit,
circling the globe alone in seventy-odd days, and performing similar daring
tricks in the interest of the New York World
and her own pocketbook.”
Edwin L. Shuman, Steps into Journalism: Helps and Hints for
Young Writers, (1894) p. 154
The Portland, Oregon High
School graduating class of 1890 heard this advice: “By the greed of the press
for mere sensation, the whole world has been convulsed—an innocent convulsion
perhaps—because a young woman went around the world in seventy-five days! The press sent her. Was there a blessing to humanity in
that? Think of the unutterable joy
to posterity to read that Nellie Bly went round the
world in seventy-five days. It is
about as useful as standing on your head, and about as instructive as studying
the time tables, not half so amusing as reading Jules Verne's novel. He from the time tables made out the
whole thing long ago, and gave his hero the interest of several thrilling
delays. Now young ladies, don't go
home, pack your Saratogas and report to the nearest newspaper office. It won't
do; that little sensation has served its turn. You must hunt up something
novel, it makes no difference to the newspaper man what it is. You may go to
Washington and slap President Harrison on the cheek, and be welcomed and
achieve as much notoriety, perhaps, as Nellie Bly, and
with just as much credit to yourself in my humble opinion.”
C. E. S. Wood, "Address to
the [High School] Graduating Class", in Seventeenth Annual Report of the City Superintendent
of Public Schools, Portland Oregon, (1890), p. 57
The Literary Digest moaned “Have
Women Degraded Journalism? “: “It is the sensational female reporter who signs
her productions who has been disagreeably noticeable in recent years--the
imitators of ‘Nellie Bly' of the New York World—the
female who is sent to do startling things that would not be startling were they
done by a man. The interest in such work is obviously not clean. A woman whose
triumph in journalism is that she escapes alive with her item, her virtue, and
her pencil, is scarcely a Martineau, and not, we should say, a heroine over
whom even a New Woman, if at all thoughtful, can rejoice. … The newspaper
office instead of being brought under woman's refining power by her admission
to it seems to deprive her not only of that power, but to rob her of the wish
to possess it. If the tribe of
‘Kitty Keeneye’, ‘Nellie Bly', and ‘Giddy Gladys’…
are what the New Woman has to offer us in journalism, we prefer to pause before
welcoming what she is likely to give us in politics."
Wilfred J. Funk, ed., "Have Women Degraded
Journalism?" in The Literary Digest,
Vol 13 (October 1896), p. 27
Some of her
exposés, while
not failures, were not unmitigated successes either. Attempting to show her readers how they were being swindled
by highly-paid doctors, she visited seven of the brotherhood, asking for an examination
then and there. The report of the
differing diagnoses, including tuberculosis, Bright’s Disease, extreme liver
problems, and muscular atrophy, was duly printed in The World, and gleefully
acknowledged as a sock in the eye of the medical establishment by the practitioners
of homeopathic medicine, who had long been the target of the medical professionals
as quacks to be legislated out of business. An editorial in The Press (Philadelphia) begged to differ: “The
real ignorance that Miss Bly's explorations expose is the superstition of the
public that a doctor, by a few questions addressed to some one he never saw
before, can determine the condition and care of that intricate organism, the
human body,” and followed with, “it is well to remember that the practice of
choosing a doctor, as Miss Bly did, by accident
will lead to prescriptions given haphazard, and the impression that good advice
can be had for the asking will lead to little advice worth taking. Yet we fear
Miss Bly represents the average patient…”
College and Clinical Record,
November 1889, p. 275
Her laudable attempt to
expose the corruption of lobbyists in the state government, by entrapping one
of the most successful of the lobbyists into admitting that he could have a
bill defeated by payments to six state legislators (whom he supposedly named)
led to an inquiry by the state judiciary committee, but its opinion was that
the investigative reporter who went in, as she said, “telling a story to catch
a story”, might have been fooled by an equally duplicitous person! “The stock
in trade of a lobbyist consists in making a person believe that he can
influence legislation by buying up legislators. He trades upon the wickedness
of the few and the gullibility of the many.”
Documents of the Assembly of
the State of New York, Volume 10, No. 90 “Report of the Judicial Committee on
the Investigation… in Reference to Charges Made in the New York World…”, (May
1, 1888) pp. 1-98
Her most famous exploit, as
mentioned, was the travel around the world in less than 80 days. This was supposed to be done in
emulation of Phileas Fogg, using only those conveyances available to the
ordinary traveler. She embarked
from New York and headed east across the Atlantic. Nine hours later, Miss Elizabeth Bisland of the monthly
magazine “Cosmopolitan” headed west on the same journey. The race was on! Miss Bisland had bad luck in that she
lost a day by going west, and also in missing her boat for her final ocean
crossing. However, there was just
a chance that she might still arrive in New York before Miss Bly – Nellie was
in San Francisco, but heavy winter storms had blocked portions of the train
tracks, and there was no way to get to New York until they were cleared.
Joseph Pulitzer, the
powerful owner and publisher of The World
(and Nellie’s boss) refused to consider that he might lose to an unknown rag
like the ‘Cosmopolitan’. A special
fast train was ordered so that Nellie could take the longer southern route and
skirt the storm area – it was against the rules, but Pulitzer made the rules,
and he could break them when he chose.
He was quoted as saying, “No man is so great that his place cannot be
filled,” and that went for women as well.
A woman who made a living by impersonation and lying to get a story
might not have caviled at a spot of cheating, especially when her paycheck was
involved. She got aboard the
special fast train – definitely not available to ordinary travelers, who were
left stranded in San Francisco – and triumphantly entered New York 72 days, 6
hours, and 11 minutes after she had left.
The Warren Gazette noted
that unlike Miss Bly, Miss Bisland did indeed play by the rules, and would have
come in ahead, had both adhered to them.
“The employment of special trains is a confession of defeat.”
Warren (Rhode Island) Gazette, 1 February 1890.
Morally, perhaps. But it isn’t how you play the game,
it’s whether you win or lose.
If you are interested in
Miss Bly’s work, Nellie Bly Online has downloadable pdf pages of her articles
in The World, along with “Around the World in 72 Days” and “Ten Days in a
Madhouse”.
