Nellie Bly Popular Books

Nellie Bly Biography & Facts

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. She was a pioneer in her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism. Early life Elizabeth Jane Cochran was born May 5, 1864, in "Cochran's Mills", now part of Burrell Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. 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 his thirteenth daughter, with his second wife, Mary Jane Kennedy. Michael Cochran died in 1870, when Elizabeth was 6.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". 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. In 1880, Cochrane's mother moved her family to Allegheny City, which was later annexed by the City of Pittsburgh. Career Pittsburgh Dispatch In 1885, a column in the Pittsburgh Dispatch titled "What Girls Are Good For" stated that girls were principally for birthing children and keeping house. This prompted Elizabeth to write a response under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl". The editor, George Madden, was impressed with her passion and ran an advertisement asking the author to identify herself. When Cochran introduced herself to the editor, he offered her the opportunity to write a piece for the newspaper, again under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl". Her first article for the Dispatch, titled "The Girl Puzzle", argued that not all women would marry and that what was needed were better jobs for women. Her second article, "Mad Marriages", was about how divorce affected women. In it, she argued for reform of divorce laws. "Mad Marriages" was published under the byline of Nellie Bly, rather than "Lonely Orphan Girl". It was customary for women who were newspaper writers at that time to use pen names. The editor chose "Nellie Bly", after the African-American title character in the popular song "Nelly Bly" by Stephen Foster. Cochrane originally intended that her pseudonym be "Nelly Bly", but her editor wrote "Nellie" by mistake, and the error stuck. Madden was impressed again and offered her a full-time job.As a writer, Nellie Bly focused her early work for the Pittsburgh Dispatch on the lives of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on women factory workers. However, the newspaper soon received complaints from factory owners about her writing, and she was reassigned to women's pages to cover fashion, society, and gardening, the usual role for women journalists, and she became dissatisfied. Still only 21, she was determined "to do something no girl has done before." She then traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent, spending nearly half a year reporting on the lives and customs of the Mexican people; her dispatches later were published in book form as Six Months in Mexico. In one report, she protested the imprisonment of a local journalist for criticizing the Mexican government, then a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz. When Mexican authorities learned of Bly's report, they threatened her with arrest, prompting her to flee the country. Safely home, she accused Díaz of being a tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican people and controlling the press. Asylum exposé Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. She faced rejection after rejection as news editors would not consider hiring a woman. Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the New York World, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island, now named Roosevelt Island.It was not easy for Bly to be admitted to the asylum: she first decided to check herself into a boarding house called "Temporary Homes for Females". She stayed up all night to give herself the wide-eyed look of a disturbed woman and began making accusations that the other boarders were insane. Bly told the assistant matron: "There are so many crazy people about, and one can never tell what they will do." She refused to go to bed and eventually scared so many of the other boarders that the police were called to take her to the nearby courthouse. Once examined by a police officer, a judge, and a doctor, Bly was taken to Bellevue for a few days, then after evaluation was sent by boat to Blackwell's Island.Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. After ten days, the asylum released Bly at The World's behest. Her report, published October 9, 1887 and later in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation, prompted the asylum to implement reforms, and brought her lasting fame. She had a significant impact on American culture and shed light on the experiences of marginalized women beyond the bounds of the asylum as she ushered in the era of stunt girl journalism.In 1893, Bly used the celebrity status she had gained from her asylum reporting skills to schedule an exclusive interview with the allegedly insane serial killer Lizzie Halliday. Biographer Brooke Kroeger argues: Her two-part series in October 1887 was a sensation, effectively launching the decade of "stunt" or "detective" reporting, a clear precursor to investigative journalism and one of Joseph Pulitzer's innovations that helped give "New Journalism" of the 1880s and 1890s its moniker. The employment of "stunt girls" has often been dismissed as a circulation-boosting gimmick of the sensationalist press. However, the genre also provided women with their first collective opportunity to demonstrate that, as a class, they had the skills necessary for the highest level of general reporting. The stunt girls, with Bly as their prototype, were the first women to enter the journalistic mainstream in the twentieth century.Around the world and general impact In 1888, Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) into fact for the first time.... Discover the Nellie Bly popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Nellie Bly books.

Best Seller Nellie Bly Books of 2024

  • The Scandalous Hamiltons synopsis, comments

    The Scandalous Hamiltons

    Bill Shaffer

    An Alexander Hamilton heir, a beautiful female con artist, an abandoned baby, and the shocking courtroom drama that was splashed across front pages from coast to coastthis is the f...

  • THE NELLIE BLY COLLECTION synopsis, comments

    THE NELLIE BLY COLLECTION

    Tri Fritz

    In 1887, reporter Nellie Bly joined the staff of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York newspaper The World with an exposé that set the city on fire. Her articles detailing the Dickensian cond...

  • The Alchemy of Murder synopsis, comments

    The Alchemy of Murder

    Carol McCleary

    The world's most famous reporter, the intrepid Nellie Bly, teams up with science fiction genius Jules Verne, the notorious wit and outrageous rogue Oscar Wilde, and the greatest mi...

  • Spider Dance synopsis, comments

    Spider Dance

    Carole Nelson Douglas

    Opera singer. Adventuress. American abroad. Irene Adler is all of this...and is also the only woman to ever have outwitted the great man, Sherlock Holmes. In Carole Nelson Douglas'...

  • Essential Novelists - Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    Essential Novelists - Nellie Bly

    Nellie Bly & August Nemo

    Welcome to the Essential Novelists book series, were we present to you the best works of remarkable authors. For this book, the literary critic August Nemo has chosen the two most ...

  • Eighty Days synopsis, comments

    Eighty Days

    Matthew Goodman

    NATIONAL BESTSELLEROn November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break ...

  • Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    Nellie Bly

    Kathy Lynn Emerson

    "Emerson makes her come alive without contriving events or dialogue." The Book ReportAimed at young readers, Nellie Bly is the story of the groundbreaking investigative reporter wh...

  • The Daring Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    The Daring Nellie Bly

    Bonnie Christensen

    From the awardwinning picture book biographer of Woody Guthrie comes the inspirational story of Nellie Bly. Born in 1864, during a time in which options were extremely limited for ...

  • Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    Nellie Bly

    Luciana Cimino

    En 1885, au Pittsburgh Dispatch, un journal de Pennsylvanie, une missive amère envoyée par une jeune femme de 21 ans. Dans un courrier ...

  • Ten Days a Madwoman synopsis, comments

    Ten Days a Madwoman

    Deborah Noyes

    Work for a New York newspaper Fall in love Marry a millionaire Change the world   Young Nellie Bly had ambitious goals, especially for a woman at the end of the nineteenth cen...

  • Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    Nellie Bly

    Virginie Ollagnier-Jouvray & Carole Maurel

    Pour mener son enquête, elle se fera passer pour folle.Nellie Bly est complètement folle. Sans cesse, elle répète vouloir retrouver ses « troncs ». Personne n’arrive à sa...

  • The Nellie Bly Collection synopsis, comments

    The Nellie Bly Collection

    Tri Fritz

    Years before she shocked the world with her "MadHouse" and "Around The World" stories, Nellie Bly began her journalism career in her hometown of Pittsburg, PA. In this volume of (i...

  • Femme Fatale synopsis, comments

    Femme Fatale

    Carole Nelson Douglas

    Irene Adler is the only woman ever to have outwitted Sherlock Holmes... and the one who has come closest to stealing his heart.She has competed (and sometimes cooperated) with the ...

  • Following Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    Following Nellie Bly

    Rosemary J Brown

    The remarkable story of one of the great pioneering women adventures of the 19th century.Intrepid journalist Nellie Bly raced through a ‘man’s world’ alone and literally with just...

  • The Incredible Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    The Incredible Nellie Bly

    Luciana Cimino, Sergio Algozzino & David Randall

    A visual biography of the groundbreaking investigative journalist Born in 1864, Nellie Bly was a woman who did not allow herself to be defined by the time she lived in, she rewrote...

  • Women in Journalism - The Best of Nellie Bly synopsis, comments

    Women in Journalism - The Best of Nellie Bly

    Nellie Bly

    First published between 1887 and 1890, Women in Journalism – The Best of Nellie Bly is an insightful volume containing all of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman’s best journalistic works, i...

  • The Collected Works of Nellie Bly. Illustrated synopsis, comments

    The Collected Works of Nellie Bly. Illustrated

    Nellie Bly

    Nellie Bly (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran) was an American journalist, writer, and entrepreneur. She made a name for herself and pioneered the field of investigative journalism by wr...

  • A Race Around the World synopsis, comments

    A Race Around the World

    Caroline Starr Rose

    Best Picture Books of 2019, The Christian Science MonitorA Mighty Girl's 2019 Books of the YearKirkus Reviews' Best Indie Picture Books of 2020The true story of two women who raced...

  • Nellie Bly, Woman of Wonder synopsis, comments

    Nellie Bly, Woman of Wonder

    Kate O'Dell

    This book is all about Nellie Bly, the reporter who dared to take on all sorts of social issues during the Victorian era. Nellie Bly was the pseudonym for Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman...

  • The Nellie Bly Collection synopsis, comments

    The Nellie Bly Collection

    Nellie Bly

    Karpathos publishes the greatest works of history's greatest authors and collects them to make it easy and affordable for readers to have them all at the push of a button.  Al...

  • Ten Days in a Mad-House synopsis, comments

    Ten Days in a Mad-House

    Nellie Bly (elizabeth Jane Cochrane Seaman)

    Ten Days in a Madhouse is Nellie Bly’s (Elizabeth Jane Cochrane Seaman) account of her ten days in a madhouse in New York in 1887. Bly, in an act of stunt journalism that wold make...

  • Nellie Bly and Investigative Journalism for Kids synopsis, comments

    Nellie Bly and Investigative Journalism for Kids

    Ellen Mahoney

    A Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People 2016 In the late 1800s, the daring young reporter Elizabeth Cochraneknown by the pen name Nellie Blyfaked insanity so she could...

  • The Mystery Of Central Park synopsis, comments

    The Mystery Of Central Park

    Nellie Bly & David Blixt

    Available for the first time in 125 years, the Lost Novels Of Nellie Bly!Pioneering undercover journalist Nellie Bly is rightly famous for exposing society's ills. From brutal insa...

  • Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and Other Writings synopsis, comments

    Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and Other Writings

    Nellie Bly & Jean Marie Lutes

    The first edited volume of work by the legendary undercover journalistBorn Elizabeth Jane Cochran, Nellie Bly was one of the first and best female journalists in America and quickl...

  • Miss Bly und die Wette gegen Jules Verne synopsis, comments

    Miss Bly und die Wette gegen Jules Verne

    Eva-Maria Bast

    1889. Von New York um den gesamten Globus – und das schneller als in Jules Vernes Roman »In 80 Tagen um die Welt«! Reporterin Nellie Bly zeigt, was sie kann.Als Journalistin mit ei...

  • The Mad Girls of New York synopsis, comments

    The Mad Girls of New York

    Maya Rodale

    One of Amazon’s Best Books of 2022 So Far! “Gloriously recommended.” Historical Novel Society A gripping and compelling novel based on the true story of fearless reporter...