Sandi's Historic Hub: Nellie Bly

Journalist, 1867 - 1922

This week's Daring Woman was Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane). I just love her dress in this photograph! Read more about Cochrane below.

Elizabeth Cochrane, who took the pen name Nellie Bly from a popular Stephen Foster song, was the best-known "girl reporter" of her day, not only for her colorful exploits (most notably an 1888 -1889 solo round-the-world voyage she made in seventy-two days) but also for her skill and resourcefulness as an investigative journalist. Largely self-educated, Bly embarked on her reporting career in her early twenties, quickly taking on such volatile subjects as political corruption and problems of working women. To gain employment at the New York World in 1887, Bly finagled admission as a patient to Blackwell's Island, a notorious mental institution; her articles exposing its inhumane conditions led to a grand jury investigation and several million dollar's worth of improvements. Later journalistic exploits revealed abominable conditions in sweatshops, jails, and other institutions - not to mention bribery in the New York legislature. After her death, the Evening Journal eulogized her as having been "the best reporter in America." 

Guess this week's Daring Woman here.