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Nellie Bly Facts & Worksheets

Nellie Bly pioneered investigative journalism. She did some undercover reporting for Pittsburgh Dispatch and New York World.

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Nellie Bly pioneered investigative journalism. She did some undercover reporting for Pittsburgh Dispatch and New York World. She was known for her undercover work at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, where she exposed the mistreatment of patients and where she traveled around the world in 72 days.

See the fact file below for more information on the Nellie Bly or alternatively, you can download our 24-page Nellie Bly worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

  • Elizabeth Jane Cochran, popularly known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was born on May 5, 1864, in the small town of Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania.
  • She later added an “e” to the end of her name, making her official name Elizabeth Jane Cochrane.
  • Her father was Michael Cochran, the town’s founder, a judge, and a mill owner.
  • Both her parents were widowed when they got married. She had ten half-siblings from her father’s first marriage and none from her mother. She had four full siblings.

EARLY LIFE

  • When she was six years old, her father suddenly died without a will, which caused Bly’s family financial difficulties. His estate was divided among the ten half-siblings, leaving Bly’s mother with little money.
  • Her mother, Mary Jane, remarried an abusive and violent man. She filed for divorce in 1878.
  • Nellie Bly briefly attended college in 1879 at Indiana State Normal School to prepare to be a teacher. However, her family’s financial difficulties forced her to leave in the middle of her first semester.
  • She convinced her mother to move to Pittsburgh and look for work, and her two brothers settled and tried to find a job there.

WRITING CAREER

  • Bly discovered a talent and interest for writing and tried to look for jobs related to it. However, pursuing this interest was more difficult for a woman like her at the time.
  • In 1880, Bly read an article in the Pittsburgh Dispatch called “What Girls Are Good For,” which undermined women’s abilities. Erasmus Wilson, also known as the “Quiet Observer”, asserted in the article that girls are best at performing domestic duties and called the working woman “a monstrosity“.
  • Deeply affected by the article, she wrote a fiery rebuttal letter to the editor, signing it with the name “Lonely Orphan Girl”.
  • Her letter impressed the editor, George Madden, and he offered her a position in his newspaper.
  • She wrote her first article about working women in Pittsburgh using her previous nom de plume. She changed her pen name to Nellie Bly in her second article about divorce. The name came from the then-popular Stephen Foster song.
  • Most of her articles were about human experiences, especially women’s. Bly attacked sexist ideologies and raised the significance of women’s rights. She became more popular because of her investigative and undercover reporting about poverty and discrimination in Pittsburgh, such as women’s poor working conditions in sweatshops.
  • Because of her rising fame, the local leaders pressured her editor to reassign her to cover fashion and society.
  • Due to the limitations given to her at work, she strived to find a more meaningful career. In 1885, she traveled to Mexico and wrote about Mexicans’ lives and customs in her articles. She republished these articles in a book titled “Six Months in Mexico”.
  • The Mexican government ousted Bly because of her criticism of Mexico’s most powerful leader and dictator, Porfirio Diaz. She returned to Pittsburgh and temporarily worked at Pittsburgh Dispatch before moving to New York in 1887.

TEN DAYS IN THE MADHOUSE

  • In 1887, She got a job at Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper “New York World”, where she was assigned to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island.
  • An expert in undercover reporting, she feigned mental illness to get inside the asylum and get first-hand experience of the officials’ treatment of their patients.
  • After a ten-day stay at the asylum, she reported the horrifyingly terrible conditions of the asylum patients. The disturbing mental picture she painted in her articles was an eye-opener for the general public on the patients’ living conditions, physical abuse, and the neglect on the part of the authorities
  • Her work was reprinted and published as a book titled “Ten Days in a Mad-House”. It spurred a large-scale investigation of the institution. She became part of the expert team enlisted to improve the living conditions in the asylum.
  • The book’s massive success gave Nellie Bly immense fame and recognition as a writer and civil rights advocate. Nellie Bly did not stop at the asylum. She continued her investigative work and exposed improper treatment in jails and factories in New York and corruption in the state legislature.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 72 DAYS

  • Nellie Bly continued to gain international stardom in 1889. Inspired by the book “Around the World in Eighty Days”, she decided to turn this fantasy into reality and try to beat the faux record of the book’s protagonist, Phileas Fogg. The New York World fully supported her ambitious project and covered her travel diaries.
  • Bly started her journey on November 14, 1889, boarding the ship Augusta Victoria at Hoboken, New Jersey, taking only two dresses and one bag.
  • She used a horse, rickshaw, sampan, donkey, and other vehicles in her travels and completed the trip after 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds.
  • Nellie Bly’s daring moves inspired women of her time to follow in her footsteps. Unfortunately, as women were doing undercover stories, their brave work was dismissed as “stunt reporting”. Today we call it investigative journalism.

RETIRING FROM THE PUBLIC EYE

  • Bly married a millionaire industrialist and owner of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company, Robert Seaman, in 1895. She retired from journalism and lived a happy life with her husband, who was 40 years her senior.
  • Her husband died in 1904, and Bly took over his company. Under her management, the company began manufacturing the first practical steel oil drum, which evolved into the standard one we use today. She also invented a novel milk can and a stacking garbage can, holding a patent for both.
  • Having exposed other companies’ poor working conditions, she put her social reforms into action. She provided the Iron Clad employees several perks such as gyms, libraries, and healthcare. However, these benefits ultimately decreased and drained her inheritance.
  • Due to dwindling finances, she decided to re-enter the newspaper industry and work for the New York Evening Journal in 1920. This time, she reported on numerous events, including the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 and Europe’s Eastern Front during World War 1.
  • Nellie Bly died on January 27, 1922, from pneumonia, two years after reviving her writing career. A famous reporter, Arthur Brisbane, published a column the day after she died, calling her “The Best Reporter in America”.

Nellie Bly Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Nellie Bly across 24 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Nellie Bly worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Nellie Bly who pioneered investigative journalism. She did some undercover reporting for Pittsburgh Dispatch and New York World. She was known for her undercover work at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, where she exposed the mistreatment of patients and where she traveled around the world in 72 days.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Nellie Bly Facts
  • Nellie’s Bio
  • Bly Flying High
  • Nellie’s Time
  • Missing Facts about Nellie
  • Nellie Inquiry
  • Bly’s Circle
  • Undercover Journalists
  • Fight for Equality
  • Bly’s Words of Wisdom
  • Role Model

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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