Nellie Bly was a trailblazer for women journalism who was
born in 1864 under the name Elizabeth Jane Cochran. She began her journalism career
at the age of 18 when she made a controversial response to an editorial piece
from the Pittsburgh Dispatch. This piece focused on the ideas that women
were meant for domestic duties, and when she submitted this powerful response, she
was offered a position at the Pittsburgh Dispatch.
At this point she adapted her pen name of Nellie Bly where
she worked to point out the inequality of the patriarchal rule. At the Dispatch
she began the start of her career as an investigative reporter where she
exposed inequalities and wrongful doings including her report on a sweatshop. There
she went undercover as a sweatshop worker where she discovered the poor working
conditions faced by those women workers.
After working at the Pittsburgh Dispatch, she felt
that her career was being limited to certain topics, so she went to work at the
New York World during 1887. This publication worked to rid yellow
journalism which focused on flashy headlines and crude exaggerations. During this
time here she experienced and wrote one of her most famous pieces involving the
cruelty of insane asylums. She committed herself to the infamous Blackwell’s Island
where she pretended to be a patient there for ten days. After finishing this
mentally scarring experience she made the inhabitable conditions that these women
lived in available to the public. The public was abhorred by the neglect and physical
abuse that was happening to these innocent mentally unstable women. This expose
and her book not only brought to light the hidden horrors of mental institutions,
but actually pushed for an investigation that lead to significant changes. Her work
lead to larger funds for their care, more physician appointments and
supervision, and more regulations to prevent overcrowding and safety hazards.
Nellie Bly not only pushed away from the normative and restricting female topics
but made significant impacts on the world around her.
Following her Asylum expose she continued to uncover improper
treatment found in places such as New York factories or jails. She also found and
exposed corruption in the state legislature and interviewed influential people
such as Emma Goldman and Susan B. Anthony.
During the time of 1889 she attempted to beat the imaginary record
from the novel Around the World in Eighty Days. She managed to complete
this task in less than seventy-three days which set an actual real-world
record.
Bly married and retired from journalism until her husband
passed away where she was left his manufacturing company. While running the
Iron Clad Manufacturing Co. she patented the first practical steel oil drum
which would be adapted to our present-day drums. She worked to enhance work
environments by including perks and benefits that were not common during this
time such as gyms and healthcare. Unfortunately, her generosity costed her too
much so she unretired from journalism where she began working for the New
York Evening Journal. During the 1920’s she reported on various important
events such as the women’s suffrage movement.
Nellie Bly was an extremely influential journalist and one
of the most important trailblazers for women during this time. She worked to
prove that women are not limited to feminine-based topics and ideas and pushed
and improved the equality and treatment of women. Nellie Bly achieved such a
large range of achievements during her life in a patriarchal ruled world which
showed that with power and dedication anything is possible.
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