Elizabeth
Cochrane was born in Cochran Mills, Pennsylvania on 5th May, 1867.
Her father died six years later, leaving her mother, Mary Jane Cochrane,
with fifteen children to raise. Elizabeth was not an impressive student
at school but she did develop a strong desire to be a writer.
The family were fairly poor and when Elizabeth reached sixteen she
moved to Pittsburgh to find work. She soon discovered that only low-paid
occupations were available to women. In 1885 she read an article in
the Pittsburgh Dispatch entitled
What Girls Are Good For. The male
writer argued that women were only good for housework and taking care
of children. Elizabeth was furious and wrote a letter of protest to
the editor. George Madden responded by asking her what articles she
would write if she was a journalist. She replied that newspapers should
be publishing articles that told the stories of ordinary people. As
a result of her letter, Madden commissioned Elizabeth, who was only
eighteen, to write an article on the lives of women.
Elizabeth accepted, but as it was considered improper for at the time
for women journalists to use their real names, she used a pseudonym:
Nellie Bly. She decided to write an article on divorce based on interviews
with women that she knew. In the piece, Bly used the material to argue
for the reform of the marriage and divorce laws.
Madden was so impressed with the article he hired her as a full-time
reporter for the Pittsburgh Dispatch.
Bly's journalistic style was marked by her first-hand tales of the
lives of ordinary people. She often obtained this material by becoming
involved in a series of undercover adventures. For example, she worked
in a Pittsburgh factory to investigate child
labour, low wages and unsafe working conditions. Bly was not only
interested in writing about social problems but was always willing
to suggest ways that they could be solved.
Her editor later wrote that Bly was "full of fire and her writing
was charged with youthful exuberance." However, it was not long
before he was receiving complaints from those institutions that Bly
was attacking in her articles. When companies began threatening to
stop buying advertising space in the Pittsburgh
Dispatch, the editor was forced to bring an end to the
series.
Bly was now given cultural and social events to cover. Unhappy with
this new job, Bly decided to go to Mexico where she wrote about poverty
and political corruption. When the Mexican government discovered what
Bly had been writing, they ordered her out of the country.
In 1887 Bly was recruited by Joseph Pulitzer
to write for his newspaper, the New York
World. Over the next few years she pioneered the idea of investigative
journalism by writing articles about poverty, housing and labour conditions
in New York. This often involved undercover work and she feigned insanity
to get into New York's insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. Bly discovered
that patients were fed vermin-infested food and physically abused
by the staff. She also found out that some patients were not psychologically
disturbed but were suffering from a physical illness. Others had been
maliciously placed there by family members. For example, one woman
had been declared insane by her husband after he caught her being
unfaithful. Bly's scathing attacks on the way patients were treated
at Blackwell's Island led to much needed reforms.
After reading Jules Verne's Around the World
in Eighty Days in 1889, Bly suggested to Joseph
Pulitzer that his newspaper should finance an attempt to break
the record illustrated in the book. He liked the idea and used Bly's
journey to publicize the New York World.
The newspaper held a competition which involved guessing the time
it would take Bly to circle the globe. Over 1,000,000 people entered
the contest and when she arrived back in New York on 25th January,
1890, she was met by a massive crowd to see her break the record in
72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds.
Bly retired from journalism after marrying Robert Seaman in 1895.
Seaman, the millionaire owner of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company
and the American Steel Barrel Company, died in 1904. Bly decided to
take over the running of these two ailing companies. Recognizing the
importance of the well-being of the workers, Bly introduced a series
of reforms that included the provision of health-care schemes, gymnasiums
and libraries.
Bly was on holiday in Europe on the outbreak of the First
World War. She immediately travelled to the Eastern
Front where she reported the war for the New
York Evening Journal. Nellie Bly died of pneumonia in New
York on 27th January, 1922.
(1)
Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad House (1888)
As the wagon was rapidly driven through the beautiful lawns up
to the asylum, my feelings of satisfaction at having attained the
object of my work were greatly dampened by the look of distress on
the faces of my companions. Poor women, they had no hopes of a speedy
delivery. They were being driven to a prison, through no fault of
their own, in all probability for life. In comparison, how much easier
it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!
On the wagon sped, and I, as well as my comrades, gave a despairing
farewell glance at freedom as we came in sight of the long stone buildings.
(2)
Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad House (1888)
We were sent to the bathroom, where there were two coarse towels.
I watched crazy patients who had the most dangerous eruptions all
over their faces dry on the towels and then saw the women with clean
skin turn to use them. I went to the bathtub and washed my face at
the running faucet and my underskirt did duty as a towel.
Before I had completed my ablutions a bench was brought into the bathroom.
Miss Grupe and Miss McCarten came in with combs in their hands. We
were told to sit down on the bench and the hair of forty-five women
was combed with one patient, two nurses, and six combs. As I saw some
of the sore heads combed I thought this was another dose I had not
bargained for.
(3)
Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad House (1888)
The eating was one of the most horrible things. Excepting the first
two days after I entered the asylum, there was no salt for the food.
The hungry and even famishing women made an attempt to eat the horrible
messes. Mustard and vinegar were put on meat and in soup to give it
a taste, but it only helped to make it worse. Even that was all consumed
after two days, and the patients had to try to choke down fresh fish,
just boiled in water, without salt, pepper or butter; mutton, beef,
and potatoes without the faintest seasoning. The most insane refused
to swallow the food and were threatened with punishment. In our short
walks we passed the kitchen where food was prepared for the nurses
and doctors. There we got glimpses of melons and grapes and all kinds
of fruits, beautiful white bread and nice meats, and the hungry feeling
would be increased tenfold. I spoke to some of the physicians, but
it had no effect, and when I was taken away the food was yet unsalted.
People in the world can never imagine the length of days to those
in asylums. They seemed never ending, and we welcomed any event that
might give us something to think about as well as talk of. There is
nothing to read, and the only bit of talk that never wears out is
conjuring up delicate food that they will get as soon as they get
out. Anxiously the hour was watched for when the boat arrived to see
if there were any new unfortunates to be added to our ranks. When
they came and were ushered into the sitting-room the patients would
express sympathy to one another for them and were anxious to show
them little marks of attention."
(4)
Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad House (1888)
I always made a point of telling the doctors I was sane, and asking
to be released, but the more I endeavored to assure them of my sanity,
the more they doubted it. 'What are you doctors here for?' I asked
one, whose name I cannot recall. 'To take care of the patients and
test their sanity,' he replied. 'Very well,' I said. 'There are sixteen
doctors on this island, and, excepting two, I have never seen them
pay any attention to the patients. How can a doctor judge a woman's
sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her
pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything,
for the answer will be that it is their imagination.' 'Try every test
on me,' I have urged others, 'and tell me am I sane or insane? Try
my pulse, my heart, my eyes; ask me to stretch out my arm, to work
my fingers, as Dr. Field did at Bellevue, and then tell me if I am
sane.' They would not heed me, for they thought I raved. The insane
asylum on Blackwell's Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get
in, but once there it is impossible to get out.
Last
updated: 1st August, 2002
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