True Life Tuesday: Nelly Bly

To me Nelly Bly is one of the most interesting women in US history. I think it is a shame that she is not better known although that does seem to be changing a bit. 

Elizabeth Jane Cochran was born on March 5, 1864 in Cochran's Mills, Pennsylvania. Her father, a judge and land owner, founded the town. The marriage was the second for both of her parents and she had 10 siblings from her father's first marriage and 4 from their union. Her father died unexpectedly in 1870 with no will so the family had no rights to his estate.

She did enroll in the Indiana Normal School in Indiana, PA but had to drop out due to financial constraints. Eventually she and her mother moved to Pittsburgh where they ran a boarding house. 

At 18 she submitted a response to a piece written in the Pittsburgh Dispatch calling working women a monstrosity. The paper ended up publishing her writing. In 1885 she began writing for the paper. This is when she took the pen name of Nelly Bly. She wrote about women's issues along with doing some undercover stories detailing horrible working conditions in the city.

In 1887 she move to New York City and began to work for the New York World. This is where she took on her first famous piece - spending 10 days at the asylum at Blackwell's Island. Her piece exposed the horrible conditions at the facility and led to major changed in mental health regulations.

In 1889 she took on her most famous story - trying to beat the fictional record from the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 days. She began her trip in November and completed it in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds.

In 1895 she married millionaire industrialist Robert Seamen who was 40 years her senior. At this time she retired from her journalism career. When her husband died in 1904 she took over his Iron Clad Manufacturing Company and instituted many social reforms while leading the company. Unfortunately this caused her inheritance to dwindle so she went back to journalism in 1920 working for the New York Evening Journal. She dies from pneumonia at 57 on January 27, 1922.