Nellie Bly
Elizabeth Jane Cochran, who would eventually become the journalist known as Nellie Bly, spent her career writing mostly about the plight of the underdog, especially working women and girls. She had a lot of experience in that situation herself, with her father’s death leaving her, her mother, and her siblings with little financial security. Bly put herself on the map by writing a fiery letter to a newspaper after it published an extremely sexist column about women belonging in the home. The paper was was so impressed with her response that it gave her a job. Eschewing the fashion-centric, frilly stories women were expected to write, she decided to pretend to be suffering from amnesia so she could write about the conditions in a mental institution, and the result was one of her most famous works, 10 Days in a Mad-House, which shocked the public and led to some much-needed reforms. Bly also traveled around the world in an effort to break the record of the fictional protagonist of Around the World in 80 Days. She did it in 72, setting an actual world record and becoming famous in the process. She also interviewed some of the most famous people of her time, such as boxer John L. Sullivan, and suffragist Susan B. Anthony. Hers is a life that begs for a big budget Hollywood treatment, especially since she wrote about issues that are sadly still prevalent today.
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