You're Down And Can't Get Up Again? Harness Your Courage Inspired by Nellie Bly
Think you’re down and can’t get up. Harness your courage inspired by Nellie Bly.
Have you ever felt as if you’re lacking in the courage department? Perhaps you’ve stalled on something, or have felt sullied by past failure, or unable to tap your inner gumption to strive again. Don’t freak out, though. It happens. There are other people who have been there, too, and still lived on to realize a dream.
Case in point: Meet history hero Nellie Bly, a woman who didn’t let personal limitations hold her back from becoming the first investigative female journalist. Not only did she make a name for herself, along the way she grasped life as her own and made a lasting impact for others. Here, you’ll get acquainted with this spunky woman and glean inspiration for some can-do courageous action of your own.
WHEN THINGS GET TOUGH
At first glance, Nellie seemed destined for an idyllic life. She was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran, May 5, 1864 in the town of Cochran Mills, Pennsylvania to Mary Jane and Michael Cochran. Her father was a prominent judge in the community and a wealthy man. Both her parents had lost a previous spouse, and Michael came to the union with 10 children from his first marriage. Together, he and Mary Jane had an additional 5 children and lived a lavish life in a mansion built shortly after Nellie arrived.
Like any “pick yourself up by the bootstraps story,” things took a dramatic turn for the worse when Nellie age 6, lost her father suddenly. Even though Michael was a judge he didn’t leave a will, so Mary Jane and her small children had little protection from the older children who wanted more than their share of the estate. Mary Jane was forced to sell the family home and move into modest accommodations with limited financial support.
THE VICTORIAN ERA: BASICALLY, SUCKED FOR EVERYONE…EXCEPT WEALTHY MEN
The Victorian age was a dark and oppressive period in society if you were anyone other than a wealthy white male. At the time of Nellie’s birth, the U.S. was entrenched in the Civil War, already in its third year. Conditions were untenable for African Americans, but also terrible for women, children, and the poor. Women were relegated to home and church with no political or legal rights. They couldn’t expect to earn a fair wage or claim independence, if necessary, from a bad marriage.
Nellie realized the plight for women firsthand. After her father died, Mary Jane needed to earn income, and did so by turning her home into a boarding house. When Nellie was 9, her mother remarried to a man named Jack Ford who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic, but she was forced to endure the marriage for 5 years before achieving divorce.
Nellie’s formal education consisted of only a couple of months of schooling per year at a village school. She long wanted to become a teacher—and decidedly not get married—so as a young adult Nellie approached her family’s attorney for funds and began college. However, before even completing her first term, the attorney told there was no more money for her education.
Nellie returned to help her mother with the boardinghouse and tried several types of work including tutoring, nannying and housekeeping, but nothing suited her interests or paid well enough to earn her financial independence. During this period, the family moved to Pittsburgh, where Nellie became an avid reader of the Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper. She especially followed the column of the “Quiet Observer” (Q.O.) penned by Erasmus Wilson.
Wilson wrote a series of articles expressing his opinions regarding the limitations of women, stating they were best suited to domesticity, and a woman who worked outside the home was a “monstrosity.” In one column he stated, “In China they sell girl babies because they can make no good out of them. Who knows but this country might have to resort to this sometime.”
Wilson’s comments so incited 18-year-old Nellie that she wrote a letter to the editor laying out a long and passionate rebuttal to his diatribes. She made it clear in her writing that many women do not have the option to flit about like butterflies tending to housekeeping duties. She signed her piece, “Little orphaned girl.”
Her letter—filled with poor spelling and grammar—demonstrated an adept skill for writing to a subject with such fervor that managing editor, George Madden, of the Pittsburgh Dispatch found it noteworthy. He then submitted a notice in the paper asking to meet with the orphaned girl, and Nellie came in and won writing assignments during her initial interview. Since most people wrote under an alias, Madden assigned her the name Nellie Bly based on a popular tune of the day.
ONE STEP FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK, KEEP GOING!
Nellie wrote articles addressing the state of women’s issues with researched and detailed articles describing the inequalities for women including legal rights, low wages, and unfair marriage law. Nellie then did an eight-part series on the conditions of the working women of Pittsburgh. With dogged determination she reported on the plight of the women laboring in the factories, providing an intimate look into lives—which was unusual for the culture of the day. Nellie’s honest and straightforward descriptions were so unorthodox that they captured attention and raised the unapproving eyebrows of the local Christian ladies in the community.
Nellie’s response to their offense proved representative of her courageous attitude: “The belief infuses our soul that one girl saved given a lift on life’s rough road is more creditable than a lifetime spent in prayer,” she wrote. “Work, not prayer, practical assistance, not judgement.” Soon after that Nellie’s column was canceled, and she was relegated to garden and fashion writing, which did not seem worthwhile to her.
Within nine months of her employment with the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Nellie, with her mother along as chaperone, took off for Mexico. Once there, she worked as a foreign correspondent sending the paper posts about the culture of the country.
Nellie didn’t care for the food but sent along segments of other subjects including burial customs, bullfighting, and attire. She continued to write and submit a series of travel logs for nearly six months when she became engrossed in the political conditions in the country as well.
Mexico operated under a dictatorship at the time, and Nellie wrote about the unrest occurring, particularly relating stories such as the arrest of a local journalist. Soon after her article was published, she was forced to leave Mexico, but continued reporting about the Mexican government from the safety of Pittsburgh.
A BIG LEAP
With her reports about Mexico coming to a close, Nellie was once again relegated to writing for the women’s section of the paper. Convinced she could find better work given her experience, Nellie headed to New York.
After more than 4 months of searching and nearly out of money, Nellie was determined she wanted to work for Joseph Pulitzer of New York World and fenagled an appointment with editor John Cockrell. She pitched several ideas to Cockrell including traveling to Europe and riding back in steerage to report about the experience.
Intrigued enough by her presentation, Cockrell hired Nellie on the spot but declined her story ideas. He told her to wait until they offered her another assignment. A month later, Cockrell asked Nellie if she would be willing to go undercover into the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum and report on what she discovered of the conditions for patients there.
The plan was a precarious one. Nellie would set up in a boardinghouse under the name Nellie Brown, pretend to be mentally ill to an extent that the authorities would be notified, and she would be committed into Blackwell’s Island. After a week in the asylum, Cockrell promised that the paper would facilitate her release although they weren’t sure how it would be done.
Would the plan work? Would Nellie get into Blackwell’s, and more importantly (given she was a woman on her own), would she really be freed after a week?
Nellie Bly on the journalist’s beat in the city.
Look for more of Nellie’s story in the next installment of this hero history! In the meantime, check out our latest history hero cutout of Nellie Bly. She was drawn by artist David Borzo with the use of Prisma colors pencils to show of the checkered pattern of her outfit. You can print and paste her image to firm cardboard or matt board to create your own stand-up history hero to display wherever you’d like a reminder that courage is within your grasp.
Sherry and Alexandra Borzo together in Lima, Peru
Sherry is the founder of Storied Gifts a personal publishing service of family and company histories. She and her team help clients curate and craft their stories into books. When not writing or interviewing, Sherry spends loads of time with her grandchildren and lives in Des Moines, Iowa.
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