The Amazing Nellie Bly

Nellie Bly was one of the most rousing characters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  In the 1880s, she pioneered the development of “detective” or “stunt” journalism, the acknowledged forerunner of full-scale investigative reporting.  While she was still in her early twenties, the example of her fearless success helped open the profession to coming generations of women journalist clamoring to write hard news. Bly performed feats for the record books.  She feigned insanity and engineered her own commitment to a mental asylum, then exposed its horrid conditions.  She circled the globe faster than any living or fictional soul.  She designed, manufactured, and marketed the first successful steel barrel produced in the United States.  She owned and operated factories as a model of social welfare for her 1,500 employees.  She was the first woman to report from the Eastern Front in World War I.  She journeyed to Paris to argue the case of a defeated nation.  She wrote a widely read advice column while devoting herself to the plight of the unfortunate, most notably unwed and indigent mothers and their offspring.  Bly’s life – 1864 to 1922 – spanned Reconstruction, the Victorian and Progressive eras, the Great War and its aftermath.  She grew up without privilege or higher education, knowing that her greatest asset was the force of her own will.  Bly executed the extraordinary as a matter of routine.  Even well into middle age, she saw herself as Miss Push-and-Get-There, the living example of what, in her time, was “That New American Girl.”  To admirers, she was Will Indomitable, the Best Reporter in America, the Personification of Pluck.  Amazing was the adjective that always came to mind.  As the most famous woman journalist of her day, as an early woman industrialist, as a humanitarian, even as a beleaguered litigant, Bly kept the same formula for success: Determine Right.  Decide Fast.  Apply Energy Act with Conviction.  Fight to the Finish.  Accept the Consequences.  Move on. Nelllie Bly is an example of possibility.  She viewed every situation as an opportunity to make a significant difference in other people’s lives as well as her own.  Not wealth or connections or position or beauty or outstanding intellect eased her way to greatness.  She never dwelled on inadequacy or defeat.  Bly just harnessed her pluck, her power to decide, and then did as she saw fit, to both impressive and disastrous ends.