NELLIE BLY, Pioneering Journalist ~ by Tara Kingston

Bold...Brilliant...Brave...Heroines Throughout History ~

Nellie Bly

Today, I’m taking a look at the fascinating reporter known as Nellie Bly, a pioneer of investigative journalism. In an era when women were expected to tend home and hearth, Nellie Bly’s undercover investigations exposed corruption, inhumane conditions in a mental health facility, and poor working conditions in factories.

Five Facts about Nellie Bly:

~ In November 1889, Nellie Bly embarked on a journey around the world. Striving to travel the globe in less than the eighty days that it took fictional character Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, Nellie Bly employed an assortment of transportation, including ship, horse, rickshaw, and burro to accomplished the feat. Her journey took seventy-two days and six hours, which at that time was a world’s record.

~ Working for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, Nellie Bly’s daring undercover investigation of a mental institution exposed deplorable treatment of the mentally ill. Feigning amnesia and insanity, she was committed to the Women’s Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York for ten days. Her subsequent exposé prompted an investigation of the asylum and reforms to the treatment of patients.

~ Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864 in Pennsylvania. The third of her mother’s five children, she was considered the most rebellious child in her family.

~ In 1885, her rebuttal to a column in the Pittsburgh Dispatch that criticized working women brought her to the attention of the paper’s editor, who hired her and gave her the pen name, Nellie Bly.

~ Working for the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Nellie Bly published articles on the experiences of factory girls and traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent. After her return, she was assigned to the women’s page, covering subjects such as fashion and gardening, prompting Nellie to leave Pittsburgh to New York.

These are only a few facts about Nellie Bly’s trailblazing life and journalistic accomplishments. Next month, I’ll take a more detailed look at her experiences on her travels around the world.

To learn more about Nellie Bly, check out these sources:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/world/peopleevents/pande01.html

http://www.biography.com/people/nellie-bly-9216680

https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/youngandbrave/bly.html

Photographs of Nellie Bly used in this post are in the public domain.

  

Click here to learn more about When A Lady Deceives

News About My New Release, When A Lady Deceives.

I’m thrilled that my Victorian romantic thriller, When A Lady Deceives, is now available. Like Nellie Bly, the heroine of When A Lady Deceives is a crusading investigative journalist. Jennie Quinn, star reporter for a London paper, is a daring woman who will overcome daunting obstacles to get the facts and fight for justice. She anticipates the danger of her investigation of an informant’s murder. But she doesn’t expect to fall in love, especially not with a very dangerous man. Here’s a little about the story:

A woman with a secret and a dangerous man forge an undeniable passion.

In Victorian London, reporter Jennie Quinn employs deception as a weapon. Going undercover to seek justice for a murdered informant, she’s drawn into a powerful criminal’s seductive game of cat and mouse. Enigmatic former lawman Matthew Colton is as dangerous as he is clever, but the passion in his kiss is too tempting to resist. She aches to trust him, but she will not abandon her quest for the truth.

Colton is a man with secrets of his own. Thirsting for vengeance, the disgraced Scotland Yard detective has infiltrated the criminal world he’s vowed to destroy. Jennie intrigues him, even as she breaks down the barriers around his heart. He yearns to uncover her secrets—in and out of his bed. Driven to shield her, he’ll risk everything to protect the woman whose love heals his soul.

To read more about When A Lady Deceives and enjoy an excerpt, please click here.