Nellie Bly (1864 – 1922)
Nellie Bly (1864 – 1922) was one of the world’s first undercover journalists and she opened the door for women writers to publish more than recipes and household tips.
The American writer is best remembered for the 10-days she spent inside a women’s mental institution to expose the abuse and cruelty that went on within its walls. A pioneer in her field, she launched a new kind of investigative journalism.
Her real name was Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (née Cochran) but she wrote under the pen name Nellie Bly and it was her passionate feminism that opened the door into journalism for her. When she read an article in the Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper that stated the main purpose of girls was to have babies and look after the home, she wrote an immediate response under a pseudonym. The editor was so impressed he ran an advertisement asking the author to identify herself. She did and, in a brilliant twist on the Cinderella story, was offered a job.
Nellie’s writing ruffled feathers and drew attention right from the start. At the age of 21 she served as a foreign correspondent in Mexico but was forced to flee the country after criticising the government.
She moved to New York but struggled to find a job as news editors were reluctant to take on a female writer. Eventually she approached the New York World newspaper with a proposal. She would feign insanity in order to be admitted to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in order to investigate reports of brutality and neglect.
Nellie approached the challenge with absolute professionalism, checking into a boarding house and acting so strangely that the matron called the police and soon after she was committed to the asylum. Once admitted, she behaved perfectly normally and yet at no time was her ‘insanity’ questioned.
I first read Nellie’s first-hand account of life in an asylum, Ten Days in a Mad-House, after I’d already written the first draft of The Room in the Attic. I subsequently scrapped much of what I’d written to make All Hallows a crueller and lonelier place that better reflected the conditions Nellie witnessed at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum.
Her report makes for chilling reading. Apart from the awful, cold conditions, the bullying and teasing of elderly and vulnerable patients was horrific. It’s awful to think that a century later, reports of similar cruelty still emerge from homes for the elderly and vulnerable in the UK. Echoes of the racism Nellie reported are all around us still.
Nellie Bly’s courageous infiltration of the mad-house and her exposure of the deplorable conditions caused a sensation. Millions of dollars were raised to help the vulnerable and the asylum implemented reforms. Nellie single-handedly shifted American culture, exposing the experiences of marginalised women in other aspects of society.
She took on a second enormous challenge when, decades before Michael Palin attempted it, she decided to take a trip around the world, to see if it was possible to travel the 40,070 km in 80 days or less. All she took with her were the clothes she was wearing, a small travel bag, and some money. She arrived back in New Jersey 72 days after she set off.
After this Nellie became a novelist, and then an inventor and for a while she took over the running of her husband’s business.
Later, she returned to journalism, covering the women’s suffrage movement and the First World War.
I had not heard of this remarkable woman before I started researching The Room in the Attic. Her exploits have been celebrated in film and books, but her fame doesn’t seem to have crossed the Atlantic (at least not in my direction).
Nellie Bly is an absolute inspiration and finding out more about her work has opened doors to whole aspects of recent history about which I had no idea.
The first link below is a picture of the New York Women’s Asylum for the Insane. The second is a transcript of Nellie’s report. It’s uncomfortable, but absolutely compelling reading!
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:468_NEW-YORK_CITY_ASYLUM_FOR_THE_INSANE_(WOMAN)_BLACKWELL%27S_ISLAND.jpg
- https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html
The Room in the Attic is out now!
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