Posted on 01/27/2022 8:11:21 AM PST by Borges
January 27, 2022, marks the 100th anniversary of Nellie Bly’s death. Bly, one of the first “girl stunt reporters” made an indelible impact on American journalism, despite being initially seen as clever marketing tool by the news industry.
Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864, she was one of five children between father Michael Cochran and mother Elizabeth Cochran. Her father died when she was six, and money remained a challenge for the family thereafter.
It was an article in the local Pittsburgh Dispatch where Bly got her start in writing. The piece, which suggested women were good for housekeeping and child birthing, led Bly to writing a response, and the paper’s editor, impressed with her writing, offered her an opportunity to write some more. Again impressed, the editor offered her a full-time position when he recognized that Bly’s arguments — which focused on labor reform and gender reform, among other progressive issues — and because it was customary for women to take on a pen name when publishing in a newspaper, she was given the name Nelly Bly (misprinted as Nellie, but kept as such thereafter).
(Excerpt) Read more at bookriot.com ...
been reading about her in American Muckraker. great story.
I knew the name "Nellie Bly," but knew zero about her. Very informative. This is amazing...
Bly’s work was investigative and groundbreaking, and the response that the paper received from her columns led to her career taking off. She served as a foreign correspondent at the age of 21, covering Mexican politics and culture, and her work, which was published later in a book, upset many government officials in Mexico because she sympathized with those whose voices were being suppressed by the country’s dictator.Just imagine, sending a 21 year old woman in 1885 to be a foreign correspondent!
Lots of parallels with her Mexican journalism to today...a lot of rabble rousers are upsetting the dictators (corporate and government) in the USA and Canada.
Stephen Foster wrote a song about Nellie Bly. We had a Nell at our nursing home to whom I used to sing “Nellie Bly” when I gave her her meds. lol
Might well be a great story. The article, however, is woke enough to choke a horse. I could not finish it
It was the only one I could find.
didn’t bother with the article. lol.
but here’s your excuse to get American Muckraker by James O’Keefe. her place in the history of American journalism is mentioned there.
Foster was such a great songwriter. I didn’t know he wrote one about her.
Suzy Bogguss did some great covers of his songs on her American Folk Songbook album.
The named her after the Nelly Bly Foster song, written in 1850.
In Jimmie Rodgers Frankie and Johhny, Johnny was fooling around on Frankie with a girl named Nellie Bly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kNq532Cyhu0
I’ll have to check that out! TY. I LOVE Stephen Foster songs, including much of his catalog. Wilt Thou Be True is so beautiful, among many others.
“Frankie and Johnie were lovers”
I don’t think that Stephen frequented that bar. Isn’t that a Neil Sedaka tune?
...Bly’s arguments — which focused on labor reform and gender reform, among other progressive issues...
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