Nellie Bly Baker

Nellie Bly Baker (May 5, 1864[1] – January 27, 1922) was the pen name of American journalist Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman.[2] She was also a writer, industrialist, inventor, and a charity worker 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 faked insanity to study a mental institution from within.[3] She was a pioneer in her field, and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.[4]

Early life, education and early career

Nellie Bly working in a factory producing boxes

At birth she was named Elizabeth Jane Cochran. She was born in "Cochran's Mills",[5] today part of the Pittsburgh suburb of Burrell Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania.[6][7][8] Her father, Michael Cochran, was a laborer and mill worker who married Mary Jane. His father had immigrated from County Londonderry, Ireland in the 1790s. Cochran taught his young children a cogent lesson about the virtues of hard work and determination, buying the local mill and most of the land surrounding his family farmhouse. As a young girl Elizabeth often was called "Pinky" because she so frequently wore the color. As she became a teenager she wanted to portray herself as more sophisticated, and so dropped the nickname and changed her surname to "Cochrane".[9] She attended boarding school for one term, but was forced to drop out due to lack of funds.

In 1880 Cochrane and her family moved to Pittsburgh. An aggressively misogynistic column entitled "What Girls Are Good For" in the Pittsburgh Dispatch prompted her to write a fiery rebuttal to the editor under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl".[10][11][12] The editor, George Madden, was impressed with her passion and ran an advertisement asking the author to identify herself. When Cochrane introduced herself to the editor, he offered her the opportunity to write a piece for the newspaper, again under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl".[12] After her first article for the Dispatch, entitled "The Girl Puzzle", Madden was impressed again and offered her a full-time job.[11] Women who were newspaper writers at that time customarily used pen names. The editor chose "Nellie Bly", adopted from the 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.

As a writer, Bly focused her early work for the Dispatch on the plight of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on women who were factory workers, but editorial pressure pushed her to the so-called "women's pages" to cover fashion, society, and gardening, the usual role for women journalists of the day. Dissatisfied with these duties, she took the initiative and traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent. Still only 21, she spent nearly half a year reporting 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 leave the country. Safely home, she denounced Díaz as a tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican people and controlling the press.

Asylum exposé

Bly being examined by a psychiatrist

Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. 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.

After a night of practicing deranged expressions in front of a mirror, she checked into a boardinghouse. She refused to go to bed, telling the boarders that she was afraid of them and that they looked "crazy". They soon decided that she was "crazy", and the next morning summoned the police. Taken to a courtroom, she pretended to have amnesia. The judge concluded she had been drugged.

Several doctors then examined her; all declared her insane. "Positively demented," said one, "I consider it a hopeless case. She needs to be put where someone will take care of her."[13] The head of the insane pavilion at Bellevue Hospital pronounced her "undoubtedly insane". The case of the "pretty crazy girl" attracted media attention: "Who Is This Insane Girl?" asked the New York Sun. The New York Times wrote of the "mysterious waif" with the "wild, hunted look in her eyes" and her desperate cry: "I can't remember I can't remember."[14]

Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced its conditions firsthand. The food consisted of gruel broth, spoiled beef, bread that was little more than dried dough, and dirty undrinkable water. The dangerous patients were tied together with ropes. The patients were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. Waste was all around the eating places. Rats crawled all around the hospital. The bathwater was frigid and buckets of it were poured over their heads. The nurses behaved obnoxiously and abusively, telling the patients to shut up, and beating them if they did not. Speaking with her fellow patients, Bly was convinced that some were as sane as she was. On the effect of her experiences, she wrote:

What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.[13]

...My teeth chattered and my limbs were ...numb with cold. Suddenly, I got three buckets of ice-cold water...one in my eyes, nose and mouth.

After ten days the asylum released Bly at The World's behest. Her report, later published in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation and brought her lasting fame. While embarrassed physicians and staff fumbled to explain how she had deceived so many professionals, a grand jury launched its own investigation into conditions at the asylum, inviting Bly to assist. The jury's report recommended the changes she had proposed. Its call for increased funds for care of the insane prompted an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections. The grand jury also made sure that future examinations were more thorough so that only the seriously ill went to the asylum.

Around the world

A publicity photograph taken by the New York World newspaper to promote Bly's around-the-world voyage

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 into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days' notice,[15] she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line,[16] and began her 24,899-mile journey.

She took with her the dress she was wearing, a sturdy overcoat, several changes of underwear, and a small travel bag carrying her toiletry essentials. She carried most of her money (£200 in English bank notes and gold, as well as some American currency) in a bag tied around her neck.[17][18]

The New York newspaper Cosmopolitan sponsored its own reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, to beat the time of both Phileas Fogg and Bly. Bisland would travel the opposite way around the world.[19][20] To sustain interest in the story, the World organized a "Nellie Bly Guessing Match" in which readers were asked to estimate Bly's arrival time to the second, with the Grand Prize consisting at first of a free trip to Europe and, later on, spending money for the trip.[18][21]

A woodcut image of Nellie Bly's homecoming reception in Jersey City printed in Frank Leslie's Illustrated News on 8 February 1890.

During her travels around the world, Bly went through England, France (where she met Jules Verne in Amiens), Brindisi, the Suez Canal, Colombo (Ceylon), the Straits Settlements of Penang and Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. The development of efficient submarine cable networks and the electric telegraph allowed Bly to send short progress reports,[22] although longer dispatches had to travel by regular post and thus were often delayed by several weeks.[21]

Bly travelled using steamships and the existing railroad systems,[23] which caused occasional setbacks, particularly on the Asian leg of her race.[24] During these stops, she visited a leper colony in China[25][26] and, in Singapore, she bought a monkey.[25][27]

As a result of rough weather on her Pacific crossing, she arrived in San Francisco on the White Star Line ship RMS Oceanic on January 21, two days behind schedule.[24][28] However, after World owner Pulitzer chartered a private train to bring her home, she arrived back in New Jersey on January 25, 1890, at 3:51 p.m.[22]

Just over seventy-two days after her departure from Hoboken, Bly was back in New York. She had circumnavigated the globe, traveling alone for almost the entire journey.[16] Bisland was, at the time, still crossing the Atlantic, only to arrive in New York four and a half days later. She also had missed a connection and had had to board a slow, old ship (the Bothnia) in the place of a fast ship (Etruria).[15] Bly's journey was a world record, although it was bettered a few months later by George Francis Train, who completed the journey in 67 days.[29] By 1913, Andre Jaeger-Schmidt, Henry Frederick, and John Henry Mears had improved on the record, the latter completing the journey in fewer than 36 days.[30]

Nellie's Career as an Actress

Nellie’s career as an actress was not what made her so widely known during her life, even though she performed in many films. Her acting career took place from 1921-1934 and she starred in 13 films. Nellie was never the star or main role in any films; mainly playing minor or side supporting characters. Many of these films fell under the same few companies which were Associated First National Pictures, First National Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. Most of the films she performed in were also silent films.

The Red Kimono

Nellie had a minor role in 1925 the silent film "The Red Kimono" produced by Dororthy Davenport and starring Priscilla Bonner under Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions, however the film itself was not minor. Nellie played as the neighbor of the main character, Clara. The focus of the silent film was a real story that had taken place around prostitution. It was popular enough that a copy of the film became available in DVD format in the early 2000s. It was also special in that it was one of the few independent films written and produced by women. In 1926, the film was banned in the United Kingdom.

Working With Charlie Chaplin

Around 1926/1927, Nellie was noticed by Charlie Chaplin, a very famous slapstick comedian who did many silent films, when he called her up while she was working as a studio phone operator. Nellie worked in Charlie’s First National Studio as a phone secretary. He needed a women to fill a role in the film Charlie was currently working on "A Woman of Paris" and Nellie tried out for it. Nellie gave an incredible performance as a masseuse in this film that she has received offers from several other studios as well. In total, Nellie performed in two of Charlie Chaplin’s films, "The Kid" and "A Woman of Paris."

Charlie Chaplin’s "The Kid" produced by Associated First National Pictures, was a full-length film and became a huge success in 1921. Nellie performed as the slum Nurse in this film.[31] His "A Woman of Paris" was another full length silent film that came out in 1923.[32] Nellie Baker performed in both of these silent films, however her role was small and is not shown in the main cast listings. However, it was good publicity for Nellie to work alongside Charlie Chaplin in not one, but a few of his films as well as be a part of one that became a huge hit. "A Woman of Paris" was the film that kick started Nellie’s career as an actress, as her role as a masseuse impressed other film companies who gave her offers for acting jobs.

Small Film Roles 1924-1926

Nellie played the role of Ellen in "The Goldfish" (1924) produced by Associated First National Pictures, a love film based around presenting a goldish to the other if they decide to part ways. It is assumed this was a very minor role since there is no information on what role Ellen played in the film.[33]

Also in the year 1924 came the film "How to Educate a Wife", where Nellie played Katinka.[34] The film was a silent movie and is presumed to be a lost film. It was produced by Warner Brothers Pictures, making it a big deal for Nellie.

In 1926, Nellie performed in the film produced by Academy Photoplays, "The Salvation Hunters", playing the role as The Woman. The film shooting took place in Chinatown and San Fernando Valley. It was a drama film directed by Joseph von Sternberg who was later noticed by Charlie Chaplin for this film and invited to work with him in his film studio. The film is also given the credit of being the first American independent silent film, also becoming a success with very limited funds. The film centered around realism, it was very basic but had a deep message that produced a reaction from the audience.

Also in 1926 Nellie plays a beautician in "That Model from Paris", a silent film produced by Tiffany Productions Inc.[35] Nellie’s significance as the beautician is not known.

Starring as a Maid

Nellie played the role of a maid in four films, "The Snob" (1924), "Breakfast at Sunrise" (1927), "Love and the Devil" (1929) and "The Bishop Murder Case" (1930). "The Snob", produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, is considered a lost film and did not get much press release or popularity. It was about a married couple who part ways when the husband changes into a human consumed by status and money.[36] Nellie’s role in this film is again a minor one, as it is not listed under the main cast. In "Breakfast at Sunrise", produced by First National Productions, she plays the maid of Madeline, who was one of the main characters.[37] In "Love and the Devil", produced by First National Productions, she plays a maid who plots with Barotti, a lead character, against the main characters in the film.[38] In 1930 she again played a maid and minor character in "The Bishop Murder Case", a black and white drama and detective film about solving a murder by ‘the bishop.’ The film was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Corp. There is not much about Nellie’s role in this film other than she was a maid and the name of her character was Beedle.[39]

The End of Nellie's Film Career

In 1929 Nellie played a character named Sippie in "The Painted Angel", a film about a nightclub hostess. It was produced by First National Productions;[40] Nellie performed in a handful of films produced by this company.

Nellie performed in her last documented film role as a laundress in "Sadie McKee" (1934).[41] While there is a good amount written on the plot of this film, nothing is written about Nellie’s role as a laundress.

Later years

Patent for an improved Milk-Can

In 1895 Bly married millionaire manufacturer Robert Seaman. Bly was 31 and Seaman was 73 when they married.[42] She retired from journalism and became the president of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co., which made steel containers such as milk cans and boilers. In 1904, her husband died. In the same year, Iron Clad began manufacturing the steel barrel that was the model for the 55-gallon oil drum still in widespread use in the United States. Although there have been claims that Bly invented the barrel,[43] the inventor is believed to have been Henry Wehrhahn, who likely assigned his invention to her. (U.S. Patents 808,327 and 808,413).[44] Bly was, however, an inventor in her own right, receiving U.S. patent 697,553 for a novel milk can and U.S. patent 703,711 for a stacking garbage can, both under her married name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman.[45] For a time she was one of the leading women industrialists in the United States, but embezzlement by employees resulted in the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co. going bankrupt.[46] Back in reporting, she wrote stories on Europe's Eastern Front during World War I[47] and notably covered the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. Her headline for the Parade story was "Suffragists Are Men's Superiors", but she also "with uncanny prescience" predicted in the story that it would be 1920 before women in the United States would win the vote.[48]

Death

Bly died of pneumonia at St. Mark's Hospital in New York City in 1922 aged 57.[5] She was interred in a modest grave at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx,[49][50] coincidentally in the same cemetery as Bisland, who died in 1929, also of pneumonia.[51]

References

  1. ↑ Kroeger 1994 reports (p. 529) that although a birth year of 1867 was deduced from the age Bly claimed to be at the height of her popularity, her baptismal record confirms 1864.
  2. ↑ Bill DeMain. "Ten Days in a Madhouse: The Woman Who Got Herself Committed". mental floss. Retrieved 2010-05-10.
  3. ↑ "Five Reasons why a Google Doodle Tribute to Nellie Bly is justified". news.biharprabha.com. 5 May 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
  4. ↑ "American Experience". pbs.org.
  5. 1 2 "Nellie Bly, Journalist, Dies of Pneumonia". The New York Times (The New York Times Co.). 28 January 1922. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  6. ↑ "Nellie Bly" (PDF). Pittsburghclo.org. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  7. ↑ "Nellie Bly Historical Marker". Explorehistory.com. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  8. ↑ "Cochran's Mill Rd over Licks Run - Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, PA". Pghbridges.com. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  9. ↑ Kroeger 1994, p. 25.
  10. ↑ "Young and Brave: Girls Changing History". National Woman's History Museum. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
  11. 1 2 Arthur Fritz. "Nellie Bly, (1864–1922)". Nellie Bly Online. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
  12. 1 2 Jone Johnson Lewis. "Nellie Bly". About.com. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
  13. 1 2 Bly 1887.
  14. ↑ Kroeger 1994, pp. 91–92.
  15. 1 2 Ruddick, Nicholas. "Nellie Bly, Jules Verne, and the World on the Threshold of the American Age." Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 29, Number 1, 1999, p. 4
  16. 1 2 Kroeger, Brooke. Nellie Bly – Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. Times Books Random House, 1994, p. 146
  17. ↑ Kroeger, Brooke. Nellie Bly – Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. Times Books Random House, 1994, p. 141
  18. 1 2 Ruddick, Nicholas. "Nellie Bly, Jules Verne, and the World on the Threshold of the American Age." Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 29, Number 1, 1999, p. 5
  19. ↑ Barcousky, Len. "Eyewitness 1890: Pittsburgh welcomes home globe-trotting Nellie Bly", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 23, 2009, accessed January 30, 2011
  20. ↑ "Society Topics of the Week.", The New York Times, November 24, 1889, accessed January 30, 2011
  21. 1 2 Kroeger, Brooke. Nellie Bly – Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. Times Books Random House, 1994, p. 150
  22. 1 2 Ruddick, Nicholas. "Nellie Bly, Jules Verne, and the World on the Threshold of the American Age." Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 29, Number 1, 1999, p. 8
  23. ↑ Ruddick, Nicholas. "Nellie Bly, Jules Verne, and the World on the Threshold of the American Age." Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 29, Number 1, 1999, p. 6
  24. 1 2 Bear, David. "Around the World With Nellie Bly." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 26, 2006
  25. 1 2 Ruddick, Nicholas. "Nellie Bly, Jules Verne, and the World on the Threshold of the American Age." Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 29, Number 1, 1999, p. 7
  26. ↑ Kroeger, Brooke. Nellie Bly – Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. Times Books Random House, 1994, p. 160
  27. ↑ Kroeger, Brooke. Nellie Bly – Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. Times Books Random House, 1994, p. 158
  28. ↑ "Daily Alta California 22 January 1890 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". Cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  29. ↑ "William Lightfoot Visscher, Journal profile, part one". Skagitriverjournal.com. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  30. ↑ The New York Times, "A Run Around the World", August 8, 1913
  31. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  32. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  33. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  34. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  35. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  36. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  37. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  38. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  39. ↑ "The Bishop Murder Case". www.basilrathbone.net. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  40. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  41. ↑ "Abrreviated View of Movie Page". www.afi.com. Retrieved 2015-12-14.
  42. ↑ "Nellie Bly, Journalist, Dies of Pneumonia". The New York Times.
  43. ↑ "The Remarkable Nellie Bly". AOGHS. 1905-12-26. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  44. ↑ "Industries - Business History of Oil Drillers, Refiners". Businesshistory.com. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  45. ↑ "Google". Google. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  46. ↑ Garrison, Jayne (March 28, 1994). "Nellie Bly, Girl Reporter : Daredevil journalist". articles.latimes.com. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 5, 2015. But her ignorance of accounting and blind affection for her cheating factory manager brought her down. The business went bankrupt, and Bly resorted to hiding her books from the courts, withholding information and warring with her family.
  47. ↑ The remarkable Nellie Bly, inventor of the metal oil drum, Petroleum Age, 12/2006, p.5.
  48. ↑ Harvey, Sheridan (2001). "Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913". American Women. Library of Congress. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  49. ↑ Dunning, Jennifer (23 February 1979). "Woodlawn, Bronx's Other Hall of Fame". The New York Times (The New York Times Co.). Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  50. ↑ Nellie Bly at Find a Grave
  51. ↑ "Elizabeth Bisland". Nellie Bly in the Sky. Retrieved 29 November 2015.


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