Abstract: In history, women have made to stay in their stations of duties. Told to be bound to the home and hearth. Much of the time not being allowed to have a voice at the table. Men were the dominant ones and had sway over everything. Women have broken this pattern time and time again. In journalism, women were expected to write on what men felt women should write on about: gardening, fashion, hair, and beauty. Few attempted to break the mold. Nellie Bly was one of them. At a young age, she made a name for herself in what we now call investigative reporting. She and others took it upon themselves to create a different image for women in an early wave of feminism. Nellie’s effort is seen today, though not without the age-old struggle that many still face in the newspaper industry.
This biography attempts to show how the legacy Bly left on the world of women in journalism in chronically her many writings on topics women wanted to be a part of. As well as her hand in helping others achieve their goals in life, including, being a woman of their own standard.
One of the first female investigative journalists was Nellie Bly. Her birth name was Elizabeth Jane Cochran. Born May 5th, 1864 to Mary Jane cunnings Kennedy and judge Michael Cochran. she was the 13th daughter of Michael and the 7th daughter of Mary Jane. Her siblings included Thomas Jefferson Cochran, angelwing K Cochran, Mildred Cochran, Albert Paul, Robert Scott, George Washington Cochran, Mary Ann, Charles, Catherine may, Julianna Cochran, Harry Cummings Cochran, Isabella, and William worth. Her life would span the Reconstruction Era, The Victorian era, the Progressive Era, and the Great War. These areas encompass movements regarding women’s rights, the purification of the government, the reparation of political, social, and economic problems. as well as Industrial work ethic and personal improvement. Much of which would define Elizabeth “Nellie Bly” Cochran.
Michael was a self-made man. A former blacksmith shop owner justice of the peace and later an associate justice of Armstrong County. The town in which he resided had been named after him. Mary was his second wife after his first Katherine Murphy died in 1857.
Elizabeth got the nickname Pink early in life since her mother dressed her in pink clothing and frilly dresses. The one thing her mother taught her that would stick with her for a very long time was to gain and keep attention. She was a writer from a young age. Often telling about things that happened around her as well as writing poetry and telling stories. Since not much was known about her town; one can only look at the earliest memory she had written down in an 1888 article she wrote.
None of the children of the Cochrane family ever pursued higher education as far as any documents can tell. Despite her father having contributed $25 to Allegany College in Meadville, PA in the chance that they should attend. He left no will when he died of a case of paralysis when Elizabeth Pink was only six years old. Academically she was not a regular student and was instead more apt for being known to getting attention rather than an education. She would say that she was a reader however as a child.
Her mother remarried three years later to a civil war vet named William Henry. The marriage was short-lived as he was cruel drunk to her and the children. So vile and fearsome with his behavior that Elizabeth Pink noted to the judge in court what she saw in his seemingly hateful behavior:
Make my age is 14 years. I live with my mother. I was present when mother was married to JJ Ford. I {have} seen them married about six years ago. Ford has been generally drunk since they were married. When drunk he was very cross and crossed when sober. {I have} heard him scold mother often and heard him use profane language towards her often and call her names; a whore and a bitch. {I have} seen mother vexed on account of his swearing and bad names and {I’ve} seen her cry. Ford threatened to do mother harm. Mother was afraid of him. {I’ve} seen Ford throw clothes after being washed and ironed on the floor and throw water on them and seen him upset at the table. The first time I seen {sic} Ford take of mother in an angry manner, he attempted to choke her. This was sometime after they were married. The next time was at the odd fellows Hall New Years Night 1878. (Kroeger 1994)
Divorce was granted on June 3rd, 1879. due to how she had seen her mother get treated Elizabeth “Pink” made it a point to provide for her mother once she could. She’d attend The State Normal School in Indiana in hopes of becoming a teacher. It was a respectable position that women could get an education for and have without a second thought of being ridiculed for working.
Her late father’s funds were headed by Colonel Samuel Jackson as per settlement by the court after his death. Jackson would take over payments the family received, though their home had been sold and they moved into a much smaller home.
Colonel Jackson would essentially pay for Elizabeth’s education. She would only attend school for two years or for finding out that Colonel Jackson had mismanaged the money that had been her father’s. The family was made to leave their smaller home and moved to Pittsburgh. They would move several times over the next decade or so.
It was in Pittsburgh that Elizabeth “Pink” took up reading the newspaper. The town had seven newspapers. Among them were the Pittsburgh Gazette, the Pittsburgh Post, and the Pittsburgh Dispatch. Each leaning toward a different political bias. The Dispatch had a regular column buy one erase Erasmus Wilson titled “Quiet Observations”. Much like an advice column. This column ran for 30 years. It was one of the columns that Elizabeth joyed as well as one by another columnist Elizabeth Wilkinson Wade. AKA Bessie Bramble. It wasn’t until Wilson took a decidedly offensive opinion an answer to a reader’s question about his unmarried daughters that Elizabeth Pink decided to make her own opinion heard. Wilson had stated that women were of no use outside of being wives and mothers. That they shouldn’t try to be outside of their “women’s sphere”. Even Bessie took to having a response. Elizabeth Pink penned a letter though not wanting to sign her name called herself “Lonely Orphan Girl”. No address would she include either.
The editor, George Madden, was the one who took notice of Elizabeth’s response and took up a request in the newspaper to address her to come in as he wanted to offer her a position. He told Erasmus, “She isn’t much for style but what she has to say she says it right regardless of paragraphs or punctuation. she knocks it off and is just right too.” (Kroeger 1994) It was with this that men successfully extended a position to her after she showed up in response to his request. This would be the start of her journalism career.
Instead of having her letter in response to Wilson, to whom she would become close friends, she was tasked in her writing about the “women’s sphere”. Which Madden edited before publication. Part of what Bly wrote in this article read:
The schools are overrun with teachers, the stores with clerks, the factories with employees. There are more cooks, chambermaids, and washerwomen than can find employment. in fact, all places that are filled by women are overrun, and still, there are Idol girls, something has aged parents depending on them. we cannot let them starve. can they that have full in plenty of this world’s goods realize what it is to be a poor working woman, abiding in one or two bear rooms, Without fire enough to keep warm, while her threadbare clothes refused to protect her from the wind and cold, aunt annoying herself necessary food that her little ones may not go hungry; fearing the landlord’s frown and a threat to cast her out and sell what little she has, begging for employment at any kind that she may even earn enough to pay for the bare rooms she calls home, no one to speak kindly to or encourage her, nothing to make life worth living? (Kroeger 1994)
For a time, her pen name would be “Lonely Orphan Girl”. Well, she did write about how women were to be viewed. She wrote on the regular and categorical women’s interest pages such as gardening and the like that most women regularly wrote about instead of what men rode upon. As what most women ever did in the newspaper back then. The idea she had for preceding articles came from a variety of places. As many do. Conversations overheard discussions over meals in random chitchats with other people. Bly realized that many people of the lower class in everyday jobs had stories to tell and subjects she felt should come to light. Not just about women’s positions in the home but as workers and as customers as well. Situations in which women weren’t always treated fairly and had many complaints about.
After a short time, Bly left the dispatch. She felt that the writing assignments the woman was more known to write about were too commercial for her tastes. With that, she left in hopes of covering foreign topics. She had often thought about traveling growing up. With that she left in hopes of covering goings-on in Mexico such as laying the railroad tracks. among other topics. she took with her, her mother. She wanted to describe the country, its people, life, and customs. eventually, she would add in their politics. Which, considering what she would write about would involve Mexico’s leader and be the reason why she left worrying she would cause some sort of uproar. Some readers would have classified her as gossip more than truth. Don’t be something new. Though her overall reporting in later columns would be honest, she wouldn’t always get thorough coverage of whatever
After her article of Mexico was published on September 19th, 1886 in losing the court case against Colonel Jackson, Bly wrote her last column article at the dispatch in which she was employed on March 20th, 1887 before leaving without notice to New York to advance her career and to travel. It was the newspaper The World that she set her eye on. A newspaper that maintained its neutrality in regard to women’s rights. (Grappo 2011) On paper one, George Juergens, a Pulitzer biographer and historian of the press, writes that “Pulitzer subscribed to the principle that two men occupying the same slot compelled both to their competitive best”. (Grappo 2011)
Arriving in New York, she would find it hard to get work in journalism and was unemployed for several months. Bly managed to snag a position with The World newspaper’s first expose on her still best-known experience as a fake patient at a poorly run asylum on Blackwell Island. This after a failed attempt at applying for work on a piece to record the traveling in a hot air balloon from Saint Louis. The assignment was considered too risky for a woman to participate in. with the asylum story she was highly considered and offered a post-payment. The consideration was on part of her idea to travel to Europe and return steerage class to document the treatment of immigrants.
“10 Days in a madhouse” was a two-part series that later Bly would publish in a book. The story helped to solidify the need to overhaul the asylum at Blackwell island and increase funds from the state who had already planned on increasing anyway. Readers wrote letters of outrage from across the country when reading Bly’s expose. How she managed to get admitted came after a single stay at Matron Irene Stenards Temporary Home for Women. She had practice faces in the mirror and while there stared at walls and made other women so nervous, they thought Bly may murder them in their sleep. Brown and at one point refer to herself as Nellie marron. Spanish for Brown. This would be how the newspaper in an attempt to get her out would know who she was. when being admitted to the asylum by a doctor at the request of a judge, the doctor said, “she never seems to be restless her delusions, her dull apathetic condition, the muscular twitching of her hands and her arms and her loss of memory indicate hysteria.” (Kroeger 1994)
Jean Marie Lutes, an assistant professor of English at Villanova University, would later remark that “Impersonating insanity allowed her to flaunt the very characteristics that were being used by bar women from city newsrooms: her femaleness, her emotional expressiveness, her physical-even her explicitly sexual-vulnerability.” (Wills 2014)
Referring to how Bly had changed her name to be recognizable to the newspaper, she questioned how she might get out of the asylum once in. the newspaper promised that they would work it out. on October 4th they sent attorney Peter a Hendricks to request her release. her story had made its way to other newspapers describing a ludicrous woman having been sent there by the judge. no one seems to know that she was a journalist where did they rise it was the famous Nellie Bly.
Bly went on to write other exposés like pretending to be a maid define doubt the uncouth happenings with employers treating the working staff horribly, posing to be a woman hoping to buy a baby (something that later influenced her work in helping children find homes), matchmaking in hopes of getting married though she made it clear that this wasn’t her true intent, as well as a stage dancer in choir girl. any matter of which women had claimed to be treated poorly in some way shape or form.
I know the break came in the autumn of 1888 when Bly got into reporting about politics. as a self-made woman who faced low-income life after her prestigious father’s ill-prepared death, Bly would find room in the feminist new wave in politics. 1888 was an election year. she interviewed Belva Lockwood, one of the first women at the late age of 40 who had studied law but refused admission to practice before the Supreme Court and was the nomination of the national equal rates party when running for president as a well-known feminist. this happening approximately three decades before women could vote.
Later the next year she got to meet Helen Adams Keller. Famous for improvising sign language when she lost her eyesight and hearing after falling ill. No known record of the meeting is found but only noted to have happened when Bly visited the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston to visit an old friend from childhood who cannot speak hear or see but could read and speak with her fingers as well as knit among so much many more talents she displayed. One could only wish to have known about the details of Bly’s meeting with Miss Keller.
After showing skill in interviews during the election, Bly took to interviewing inmates both male and female to let them have their sides of the story heard. The first was with Eva Hamilton. a woman being tried for the murder of her maid after finding out that the child she had bought previously was not the original child. the child in question had been bought by her husband and another party. Pregnancy in order to marry her husband. they had bought a child who died and then bought another unbeknown to Mrs. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton’s reasons for buying another were that there had been three other babies bought to replace the first. the first two having died and the third not looking the part was given back and sold in exchange for a fourth but still not looking as similar as the first two. Prompting Mrs. Hamilton in noticing the difference between the change in her child to the murder of the maid in anger. the maid having been the other conspiring party. This would be one of the many inmate interviews Bly did.
Around the World in 80 days remains a popular fiction novel by Jules Verne. Bly loved the story so much and wanted to attempt it in 70 days. Beating the fictional main character. The World was nervous to attempt this stating that she needed a chaperone at best. And also pointed out that women couldn’t be fit for such an undertaking as she would slow down the trip with her luggage. Given that at the time women were known for taking more luggage than they needed on trips. When she was told that a man should take the assignment, Bly said that it would be fine but that she would find another newspaper to let her do it just so she could beat whoever they gave the assignment to. With this minor threat, they decided to let her take the assignment. Go she went just with the clothes she wore, a coat, gloves, two small bags, in a pouch in which she carried her monies in around her neck so as not to lose it.
On this infamous trip, we take her to England first where she noted her dislike for the English. They showed no reason for her to dislike them. her view was most likely a long-held stance of Americans not liking the English since the war for independence and separating from the Church of England. From there she went to France where she got to meet Jules Vern, the author of around The World in 80 Days. He and his wife welcomed her and found her to be a pleasant person. Jules appreciated how his book brought about Bly’s attempt to travel around the world. Other places she visited were Egypt, Ceylon, Hong Kong, and Japan. It was at this point that she learned that another female journalist, Elizabeth Bisland, was sent from another newspaper in hopes of beating Bly at the record. Sending wirings chronicling of her trek around The World was monitored by The World. Bly wasted no time finishing her record after hearing this. The race was so tight that some wondered if maybe the two happened to cross paths at some point. This we will never know for sure. Bly almost lost the record when Bisland managed to get ahead of her. But Bisland found issues with a ship leaving Japan. Not being on time making it so that Bly coax the captain to leave early. Leaving Bisland having to catch another ship.
Bly arrived in California and made her way back to New York. Two days later than she had hoped however due to bad weather wow charging the Pacific. Her trip still outdid Jules Vern’s character by 8 days. Sadly, upon Bly’s return from her globe track fanfare and a warm welcome from The World. While there was fanfare in congratulations, Bly felt undercut by the newspaper when not receiving a bonus or raise. she felt that given the contribution she had in the newspapers increase in readership and revenue, compensation would be given. Having none she left her position at the newspaper. When asked by Frank G Carpenter why she left on August 12th, 1890 she quoted. “Pulitzer cabled his congratulations and begged me to accept a gift he was sending from India. I accepted the congratulations but never seen them present.”(Kroeger 1994) She would still write books about her writing and attend giving talks for the next three years while not writing for any newspaper. She suffered from a few bouts of illness but recovered. During this time, she would often write to her friend Mr. Wilson whom she can credit the beginnings of how she became a journalist years before. Turn after these three years with a new article interviewing an inmate named Emma Goldman on September 17th, 1893.
Emma Goldman was a writer and anarchist who set against unjust political and economic organizations. she felt anarchism would free people and allow Liberty and social justice. She was an immigrant from Lithuania after coming to America in fighting for her cause. She would be arrested many times but during this before inciting riots and violence. Bly would name her as the “fire-eating anarchist”. When Bly asked Goldman how murder helped her cause, she explained that and doing so that within 20 to 25 years that the people would gain from it. But until then she was satisfied to disturb the matter. Goldman would be sentenced to one-year on Blackwell Island before being deported after release and arrested a second time. This would send her back to the USSR on December 21st, 1919 where she found herself in exile and no real place to settle down at.
Bly began to write on various topics from how and why people don’t like strangers talking about racehorses she found herself fond of. On October 1st of 1893, she did an assignment on the Salvation Army. Finding a reason for the cause, but not liking how they profited off donations Ann made the employees pay for their uniforms to be some of the things that she most disliked about the organization. since Bly had experience in a needing of these services growing up after her father’s death and going undercover at workhouses and factories and writing on children not only being bought but having to need services from organizations like the Salvation Army, felt it necessary to ridicule them of how they managed their basis. This would be one of the many things that helped Bly be compelled later to help the needy. mostly women and children. The Salvation Army assignment was just a taste of what she got about charitable causes.
In continuation of her now popular inmate interviews, Nellie Bly interviewed Lizzie Halliday, who had been arrested for a triple murder of her husband a woman by the name of Margaret McQuillan Anne miss McQuillan’s daughter, Sarah. She had a string of other arrests from supposedly killing her husband’s son from another marriage to selling horses that she had stolen. She had seemed to have gone insane and was committed by an appointed judge. Refusing to interview until convinced by Bly. After a short meeting found myself not feeling well enough to answer questions. Bly claimed that she wouldn’t return. Two weeks later miss holiday requested to see miss Bly say that she hadn’t committed the murders because she was drugged and made to watch the killings instead. Judge or jury and she was convicted of 1st-degree murder.
As per the norm, Bly would find a reason to write for this newspaper unfulfilling. she wasn’t receiving the assignment she wanted, and it seemed her own company would pit other women against her in competition to do embarrassing stunts for assignments. Almost to the point of putting them in danger and other times simply demeaning them in the process. This was due in part to how popular what was then called stunt reporting had become.
She would find relief traveling to Chicago to cover a union workers strike. A venture she worried about being in the middle of given the stories of riots that she had heard about. in the beginning she wasn’t on the side of the protesters. Thinking them to be whining for nothing. much of the blame had been put on the union workers. Upon arrival, she found this not to be the case. There was even division among the living arrangements in which some families lived on numbered rows in others in lettered rows. she interviewed families of workers and then John P. Altgeld who is at the center of the controversy. When the wife of a worker explained how it wasn’t the fault of the union workers that everything had gone sideways.
“It was only a few that had wanted to strike. they shut up the shops in the others did not dare go back for fear of their lives. My husband doesn’t belong in the union and we have to be careful what we say — only sometimes I have to break out and tell them what I think when they talk too much.”
She would go on to say, “That is not all. there were many charges against the bosses. of course, Mr. Pullman got the blame, and, as he is the head of the whole thing, it was his duty to inquire into things. He can’t expect his bosses always to be right and just, they have their likes and dislikes, just like everyone else, do things that are wrong but strikes do no good. The poor man is the only one to suffer.” (Kroeger 1994)
Altgeld would Suggest that Mr. Pullman would be hurt by this strike. essentially in opposite view of the woman Bly had interviewed Mr. Pullman was one of the bosses of the company and the town in which the strikers quit working until their demands were met.
Bly’s reporting on the Pullman strike would save her to be an active member of the labor movement of the late 1800s. As at the time the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had formed only two decades before alongside a few other union organizations. Most of which would Bly a part in World War I. A part of history that would later be part of Bly’s journalism career. But before then she would suddenly elope with a much older man. One Robert Livingston Seaman. A rich industrialist who she met through unknown circumstances. The rumors had it that they met at differing locations and events. A man to whom her marriage began on rocky terms and his many attempts to have her spied on followed. Not allowed much room to be the wife she wanted because she was vastly different from the other women of his sociological circle. It would be five weeks before the announcement of the marriage was made in the newspapers. Many, readers included, thought that maybe it was a farce. A stunt she was putting on. It would prove to not be the case much to everyone’s shock.
Along with the beginning of a rocky marriage Bly, now publicly known as Elizabeth Seaman but still known as Nellie Bly in journalism, was led to believe that her husband would family to make sure that they were taken care of. Her husband had promised this, but it wasn’t until a year after their vows that something had changed in marriage. He moved around money to uphold his promise. they lived in Europe for several years. Mrs. Seaman stopped writing once again to live a life unhindered by needing to work. She managed the homes they had thankful high-class women did and still do. It seems that at some point after a marriage that Mrs. Seaman seemed to change herself. Gone would be the woman’s understanding of not having money. She had linked herself as being a suffragette at the time of her writings on women’s issues in which case some with considered suffragettes to be unattractive ], barren, neglectful, and manly. (Grappo 2011) Also, though she never seemed to falter in wanting to help women and children, there would be a change that sends to describe her as a person “only 100% American people, that of whom the women can’t expect freedom to work and be a housewife at the same time”. She would later claim that the mixing of nationalities, especially with the English, as well as the children of mixed parental nationality we’re just as undeserving as immigrants and mixed-race children couples. This change would contrast with her European living. Especially when she seemed to prefer living there while still being American. Emphasizing the need to question her allegiance with America broke out.
Her marriage was short-lived. Four years of matrimony later, Robert would be struck by a horse in the wagon that left him with a broken rib. While he would recover, he would shortly have something come up again. a month later March 10th, 1897. Bly would inherit much of his money and business. This shook his family who contested it in court. Citing an earlier will their father had had and stating that Bly had influenced him when he wasn’t of sound mind to change it in her favor. The case would drag on for five years ending in Bly’s favor.
Having control of the company, it was clear Bly had no experience in the business. issues would arise from Bly blaming financial mismanagement on part of a man met her husband had hired, to herself on trial for fraud. She would escape back to Europe fearing persecution leaving what part of the business she could to her brother Albert and her mother. She won’t be able to return home, however. War was on the horizon and Bly would be in its midst.
While in the middle of a war, Bly would become one of the first female war correspondents. She leaped back into her writing. Writing about everything and anything that she saw from her perspective though not without consequence. She would write from her perspective by becoming friends with the Central Powers of Europe leaders and members of the Bolshevik. This was an interesting position for an American citizen much less an American journalist. So, she said she did so to provide truth and request fellow Americans to supply support for people caught in the middle. To aid soldiers gaunt with hunger and tired from little chance of sleep. (Philibert-Ortega 2017) to align not with America but with Germany and other countries. She accused England of being the catalysts to the start of the war. She protested that not all Bolsheviks were bad, and they were fighting for their rights while at the same time stating that she was not one herself. Admitting she had never seen any American propaganda to influence her reporting.
She stated in defense of what she reported in request to meet the then President Woodrow Wilson, that:
The truth regarding the Bolschewicks is not published anywhere. no one dares to print the real facts. accepting Bolschewicks, the citizens of these countries, from the nobility to the street vendors {sic}, Want to make a Republic but they dare not make a real one. They’re like a banker who opens the safe at the command of masked robbers. All the people believing you and are depending on you to succor. the nobility, the college professors {sic}, the businesspeople — even the beggars on the street who see the American flag up on my arm, say to me, “Ask President Wilson to save us!” The Bolsheviks fear you. they know you can destroy their power prevent their increase. It cannot trust to paper what I can tell you in 5 minutes. I am convinced that the fate of The World depends upon you or I would not urge. (Kroeger 1994)
But on February 4th, 1919, after applying to the American embassy of Paris for a return passport to the United States, Bly was investigated and held. Due to her writing in favor of the enemy, she was seen to be anti-American. She tried to persuade otherwise. Second Lieutenant John a Chamberlain actions:
Miss Bly stated upon investigation that the only remedy for the Bolshevik evil was the upholding of the governments of Austria and Germany. She also said that she believed in democracy, does she thought the only monarchy which was satisfactory in The World was the German monarchy and the Kaiser Was the only great monarch; this due to the fact that he had given his people a government which had made them healthy and happy. She stated that if large debts were put upon the Austrian and German people by the Allies, they would become Bolsheviks and that she had worked in connection with the Prefect of Police in Vienna, who she states is a fine man. She’s claiming to be a confidential and intimate friend of the Bolshevik movement there. (Kroeger 1994)
When she did return to New York, she awaited a verdict about her admittance into the states in jail but was released on a $1000 bail. Due part of her fleeing the country to avoid the persecution of the situation she’d left her mother and brother Albert in charge of.
It wouldn’t end well. She found herself bankrupt and though her family was able to manage some of the company, she would again find herself in court on statement that her family had made it worse. This caused a rift in family relations as well as bankruptcy. Being without home or income and no welcome from her mother when asked for a place to stay, she lived in a small hotel until she moved in with her brother Albert. Though this won’t go to her liking when she had him arrested and taken to court in July 1914. She filed a complaint on her brother future the finances of the business, but the charges were dropped by the judge.
To find a way for income, Bly managed to return to work at the Journal. Initially rating on frivolous things such as pushing fermented either hair dark as the Europeans did to giving babies fresh air for their health. She would return to interviewing when assigned interview with contestants Jack Dempsey and Jess Willard. Two heavyweight boxing champions. At this point stunt work why was known for had lost his interest in readers. Thus, interviews it was.
The first interview Bly wrote was on Edward O’Brien. He was a young clerk on Wall Street being charged for murdering his boss Gardiner C. Hall with a hammer. during the interview, Bly felt for him. Though she agreed he should be put to death; it was his story of growing up without a father that had touched her the most. It’s one of the reasons she would begin helping mothers and children. Mothers for telling them when it was right or not right to give their children up for adoption or to have an abortion. most of the time she protested abortion calling it premeditated murder. A subject she had written on in her younger years during her time as a stunt performer attempting to get an abortion though she wasn’t pregnant. She also wrote on never divorcing because it was most likely the woman’s fault for being unable to keep the interest of her husband so he wouldn’t stray. A stark contrast since the days of her mother’s horrible treatment by her stepfather. This was a 180 and her earlier views that women had the right to divorce if unhappy. she would help find jobs for young men when they asked and becoming her own keeper of helping families adopt a child. Something she helped do personally and confidentially. Fighting with agencies that made it their business the help in adoption. There is often a feud between Bly and adoption agencies.
One case came in December 10th, 1919 involving the story she wrote about a baby who would become known as the “For the love of Mike” baby. He had been left with a note at a station personally addressed to her for help. While she did manage to find two suitable families; the sensation became enough for the real mother to come forward with the true story. as it turned out the husband had thought of the idea since they control caring for their son. they had a friendly people I personally, but she got nervous and left the note at the station. The child did return to his biological family despite more able-bodied families applying to be his parents.
In 1920 Bly had fallen ill. Having had a long history of supposed heart issues and headaches. But now that she was older as with comes with age illness can seep in. It wouldn’t be the end of her life though. She momentarily recovered and continued to try to help people who are she seemed to revel in doing. Her reversed mindset of women’s roles became stauncher at this point. They’re not entirely old-fashioned, they weren’t progressive either. She’d write extensively on them.
1921 rolled around and on February 26th, her mother died of bladder cancer. All that her mother had left was her home, it’s belongings, and $400 in the bank account. Without fail, Bly filed a complaint when learning of her brother Albert selling of their mother’s things. She felt it unnecessary considering that the will had not been probated at that point. Nothing would come of it. no one had enough to secure a win in the case was dropped. Bly had strong feelings about her mother’s death. Being both angry and sad she wrote in her column about these feelings,
Life is a mask of uncertainties and surprises. families produce children totally unlike {each other} . . . children have hated parents and parents have hated children. Brothers and sisters have despised each other and have been unable to live in peace in the same home. I have known mothers who abhorred the very presence of their daughters and I have known daughters who despise their mothers. I have known fathers to hate their children with a murderous hate and I have known children who would not endure the presence of their fathers.
Later in October she would write a very different emotion of sadness:
Death, which leaves no opportunity for forgiveness, is this severest reproach when can harbor in heart and soul in the very grave. . .
Before you were unkind and ill-tempered to anyone, try to think what you would do if that one was forever removed from your life. Would you not alter your action immediately? would you not try by word, as well as by act, to retain that person — be a father, mother, sister, brother, lover or friend? If you are a child, are you laying up a life of regrets in your conduct toward your parents? (Kroeger 1994)
Bly’s last act of goodwill would be for a young girl, Dorothy Coulter, found left at home alone by her mother who had been arrested for shoplifting and having cocaine on her person. The mother, Grace Coulter, had not been the best of what a mother could be. Her past was the stream of getting pregnant young, marrying the wrong man, thieving, drugs, and traveling with Gypsies. She went into hiding during the trial. Poor Dorothy’s case was handled by Bly. The case was difficult in that it was hard to ascertain the girl’s proper religion. Protestant or Catholic. She couldn’t be placed into a home by any family until it was worked out. If having done so would cause religious issues. It was when the mother finally resurfaced that she gave the court necessary details to her daughter’s religion. Then upon getting sick with tuberculosis and dying she finalized her part of the legal proceedings with her signature, giving her daughter up for adoption. Dorothy lived at Peekskill. a Catholic home for children. She would later be transferred to Leake and Watts orphan asylum. A home for Protestant children. Bly did find the girl a home however, but it can’t be determined who that family was since Bly kept information confidential. The judge to the case was worried for the outcome knowing that Bly had wanted to adopt the girl herself and expressed this in hopes of stopping her from doing so. Like he had no children of her own. The judge did allow her to visit Dorothy on June 7th, 1921. Bly had asked to take her for a short visit somewhere. Only she never returned with Dorothy.
January 9th, 1922, she wrote her last article about destiny. Shortly after it was published, she fell ill once again I went to Saint Marks Hospital where she had gone before while ill with a case of bronchopneumonia complicated by heart disease. She would die January 27th, 1922.
Her will divided her belongings to the people she knew accordingly. It would be worked out over the course of a year after her death. Her brother Harry and sister Beatrice helped prepare her funeral. Her death was also covered in several newspapers.
One quote of hers that should be remembered was on how to know what to do in life.
Know yourself.
That is the first essential for success.
If one would become great two things are necessary. the first is to know yourself, the second is to not let The World know you.
If you do not know yourself, you are a slave. your hands and feet are tide; your mouth is gagged; your eyes are blindfolded.
If The World knows you, you are prey. your heart and soul are exposed and unprotected; your abilities are undefended; your progress is defeated.
. . . Smiles, expressions and words should be the shield or mask to protect you. by these means, one can avoid being the victim of the unscrupulous.
If you are an open book to The World, you are doomed.
. . . if you have been flattered and praised, don’t gulp it down wholesale. Chew it carefully before swallowing it. Exaggerated praise is prompted by a desire to be agreeable. Accept praise for what it’s worth — politeness. Be brutally frank with yourself. it’s safer. (Kroeger 1994)
Nellie Bly left this world with a mark for many women in writing and journalism to aspire to. Had it not been for her effort in pushing the envelope, we may still be in the early stages of women demanding their abilities to be shown. They do bring to the table, views, and perspectives that many cannot. While we are still in need of more work done for equality, with evidence that much of the news industry is still with a glass ceiling, Bly’s work undoubtedly set the mark for improvement.
References
Grappo, Martha. 2011. “Uncovering Nellie Bly.” https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=kaleidoscope.
Kroeger, Brooke. 1994. Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. New York: Times Books (Random House).
Philibert-Ortega, Gena. 2017. Remembering Intriped Nellie Bly, World War I Reporter. May 18. Accessed December 5, 2020. https://blog.genealogybank.com/remembering-intrepid-nellie-bly-world-war-i-reporter.html.
Wills, Mathew. 2014. JSTOR Daily. November 14. Accessed December 5, 2020. https://daily.jstor.org/nellie-bly-girl-reporter/.
