Nellie Bly
Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran; May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist, who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within.[1] She was a pioneer in her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.[2]
Nellie Bly
January 27, 1922 (aged 57)
Elly Cochran, Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, and most commonly known as Nellie Bly as her pen-name
- Journalist
- writer
- inventor
Early life[edit]
Elizabeth Jane Cochran was born May 5, 1864,[3] in "Cochran's Mills", now part of Burrell Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.[4][5][6] Her father, Michael Cochran, born about 1810, started out as a laborer and mill worker before buying the local mill and most of the land surrounding his family farmhouse. He later became a merchant, postmaster, and associate justice at Cochran's Mills (which was named after him) in Pennsylvania. Michael married twice. He had 10 children with his first wife, Catherine Murphy, and 5 more children, including Elizabeth Cochran who was his thirteenth daughter, with his second wife, Mary Jane Kennedy.[7] Michael Cochran died in 1870, when Elizabeth was 6.[8]
As a young girl, Elizabeth often was called "Pink" because she so frequently wore that color. As she became a teenager, she wanted to portray herself as more sophisticated, and she dropped the nickname and changed her surname to "Cochrane".[9] In 1879, she enrolled at Indiana Normal School (now Indiana University of Pennsylvania) for one term but was forced to drop out due to lack of funds.[10] In 1880, Cochrane's mother moved her family to Allegheny City, which was later annexed by the City of Pittsburgh.[11]
Legacy[edit]
Honors[edit]
In 1998, Bly was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[42]
Bly was one of four journalists honored with a US postage stamp in a "Women in Journalism" set in 2002.[43][44]
In 2019, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation put out an open call for artists to create a Nellie Bly Memorial art installation on Roosevelt Island.[45] The winning proposal, The Girl Puzzle by Amanda Matthews, was announced on October 16, 2019.[46] The Girl Puzzle opened to the public in December, 2021.[47]
Within her lifetime, Nellie Bly published three non-fiction books (compilations of her newspaper reportage) and one novel in book form.
Between 1889 and 1895, Nellie Bly also penned twelve novels for The New York Family Story Paper. Thought lost, these novels were not collected in book form until their re-discovery in 2021.[77]
