Stop the Insanity, Journalism Nellie Bly Style
Stop the Insanity, Journalism Nellie Bly Style
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
Continuing my study of people who helped the insane (I am profoundly grateful that Fish has agreed to clear my internet browser history after I die). This research phase inevitably led me to the extraordinary story of Nellie Bly.
I vaguely remembered hearing her name when I was younger, but after digging into her life, I’m convinced she remains one of the bravest journalists who ever lived, even by today’s standards.
Her career began with an article written under the pseudonym “Lonely Orphan Girl,” a bold piece that challenged the limited roles available to women and argued for reform of divorce laws. The article earned her a full-time position at the Pittsburgh Dispatch, where she immediately turned her attention to reporting on the brutal working conditions faced by women in local factories.
That initiative lasted only briefly.
She was soon reassigned to the women’s pages and instructed to write about fashion.
Unwilling to waste her voice on society columns, Bly went rogue, traveling to Mexico as a foreign correspondent. There, she reported on local customs but quickly crossed dangerous lines by protesting the imprisonment of a journalist, criticizing the Díaz government, and calling out the absence of a free press. When authorities threatened her with arrest, she fled back to the United States, where she continued publishing sharp critiques of President Porfirio Díaz and press repression, an issue that, unfortunately, still resonates.
Back home, she was reassigned to the women’s section again.
That was enough.
Leaving the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Bly forced her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer at the New York World, where she accepted one of the most terrifying undercover assignments in journalistic history: an investigation of the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island.
Feigning insanity, Bly was committed to the asylum and spent ten harrowing days enduring freezing conditions, neglect, abuse, grotesque “treatments,” and rotten food. When she was released, her exposé—Ten Days in a Mad-House—shocked the nation and sparked meaningful reform.
Her fame was sealed.
Next, she set her sights on the globe. Inspired by Around the World in Eighty Days, Bly circumnavigated the world alone in just seventy-two days. She met Jules Verne during her journey and briefly held the world record for fastest global travel, until George Francis Train edged her out a few months later.
Eventually, Bly stepped away from journalism to marry, but not to disappear.
In 1895, she married Robert Seaman, founder of Iron Clad Manufacturing Company. When he died in 1904, Bly took over the business. Though a capable inventor, she even patented a new milk can—she struggled with industrial management. When an embezzling employee undermined the company, she was forced to close it.
So she did what she always did.
She went back to journalism.
During World War I, Bly reported from the Eastern Front and was briefly arrested as a suspected spy. She later covered women’s suffrage and social issues until her death from pneumonia in 1922.
Nellie Bly didn’t just expose cruelty, corruption, and confinement; she challenged the idea that women should be quiet observers of the world’s injustices.
She has become one of my heroes.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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