16 Rousseau’s Confessions: She was inspired to read the Confessions because George Eliot had called it the most interesting book she knew. Bisland (1906), 7.
17 “and to this notoriety I most earnestly objected”: Bisland (1891), 4.
18 “a wild, crooked, shrieking hodge-podge”: Bisland (1910), 140.
19 known to frequent O’Rourke’s saloon: Sante, 117.
CHAPTER ONE: A FREE AMERICAN GIRL
1 “It is not necessary to be a city of the first class”: Henry, unpaged.
2 “So active was the child’s brain”: The World, February 2, 1890, 5.
3 “acquired more conspicuous notice”: Haughton, 95.
4 Judge Cochran suddenly fell ill and died: See Kroeger, 9–12.
5 “without exception, the blackest place which I ever saw”: Graham, 31.
6 nearly five hundred factories: Ibid., 7.
7 including as a kitchen girl: Bly herself made reference to this. “How Bly Was Discovered,” Pittsburg Commercial Gazette, January 25, 1890, 1.
8 may also have found work as a nanny: Kroeger, 33.
9 corresponding clerk: Ibid., 30.
10 ten daily newspapers: Writers Program of the Works Projects Administration in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State, University of Pennsylvania, 1940, 142.
11 Pittsburg Dispatch: At the time, the newspapers of Pittsburgh spelled the city’s name without the final h. See the discussion in Kroeger, xix.
12 “who think they are out of their spheres”: Ibid., 35.
13 her hair, which she had not yet taken to wearing up: Ravitch, 13.
14 “Can they that have full and plenty of this world’s goods”: Kroeger, 41.
15 “neat and catchy”: Ibid., 43.
16 It was late in the afternoon: Ravitch, 12.
17 12,308 Americans listed as journalists: Beasley and Gibbons, 10.
18 “A man must examine minutely a woman’s costume”: “Women Journalists,” Pittsburg Dispatch, August 21, 1887, 9.
19 “I think there is no class of employment”: J.L.H., “A Woman’s Experience of Newspaper Work,” Harper’s Weekly, January 25, 1890, 74.
20 “one long-drawn-out five o’clock tea”: Flora McDonald, “The Newspaper Woman,” The Journalist, January 26, 1889, 13.
21 “A woman—never!”: “Young Women in Journalism,” Review of Reviews 6, no. 34 (November 1892), 452.
22 “I have never yet seen a girl enter the newspaper field”: Edward Bok, “Is the Newspaper Office the Place for a Girl?” Ladies’ Home Journal 18, no. 3 (February 1901), 18.
23 “Young womanhood”: Ibid.
24 “A great deal of the practical training”: The Epoch 5, no. 126 (July 5, 1889), 347.
25 “He was much surprised”: Ross (1936), 323.
26 “They plough, harrow, reap”: Marzolf, 15.
27 “Women enjoy a reputation for slipshod style”: Bennett, 15.
28 “gush and a tendency to hysteria”: Ibid., 20.
29 “women of fluent pen and chaotic mind”: Julia Ward Howe, “Of Journalism and Woman’s Part in It,” The Epoch 5, no. 126 (July 5, 1889), 350.
30 “jelly-like inaccuracy of thought and expression”: Nelly Mackay Hutchinson, “Woman and Journalism,” The Galaxy 14, no. 4 (April 1872), 503.
31 the Women’s Press Club was not founded until 1889: Ross (1936), 46. The club was founded by Jane Cunningham Croly (“Jennie June”). In 1891 Croly sponsored Nellie Bly for membership.
32 “Women in absolutely every other line of work”: Edward Bok, “Is the Newspaper Office the Place for a Girl?” Ladies’ Home Journal 18, no. 3 (February 1901), 18.
33 paid in “compliments” rather than cash: Agnes Hooper Gottlieb, “Grit Your Teeth, Then Learn to Swear: Women in Journalistic Careers, 1850–1926,” American Journalism 18, no. 1 (Winter 2001), 63.
34 wrote for more than two years: Ibid.
35 “any well-balanced woman”: Flora McDonald, “The Newspaper Woman,” The Journalist, January 26, 1889, 13.
36 “a place that will offer and give assistance”: Kroeger, 55.
37 “too impatient to work along at the usual duties”: Bly (1889), 5.
38 listening to two of her family’s boarders: Ravitch, 15.
39 either working or married: Her older brothers Albert and Charles were working and married; her younger sister Catherine May married at the age of sixteen and had a child the following year. It is not clear what her younger brother Harry’s status was at this time.
40 “a free American girl”: Bly (1889), 113.
41 fifteen dollars a week: Ross (1936), 49.
42 four goals in life: Ross (1965), 205.
43 “I am off for New York”: Pittsburg Commercial Gazette, January 25, 1890, 7.
CHAPTER TWO: THE NEWSPAPER GODS OF GOTHAM
1 One and a half million people: The 1890 federal census placed New York’s population at 1,513,501; the city’s own census put the number at 1,710,715. Kobbé, 12.
2 one-fifteenth of the population: Sun’s Guide, 1.
3 Half of all the commerce: Kobbé, 15.
4 more than a billion letters: Sun’s Guide, 202; Zeisloft, 430.
5 “the crush of carriages”: New York Illustrated, 9.
6 “Immense injury is done”: Still, 208.
7 he had been lifted sixty-two stories: Landau and Condit, 110.
8 a currently debated etiquette question: The consensus seems to have been that removing one’s hat was not required. An elevator, it was decided, was not so much a room as it was a form of public transportation, like a streetcar.
9 “forever rising to a higher plane of perfection”: Seitz, 171.
10 spit on the Sun: Burrows and Wallace, 1051.
11 wearing a flowered hat: Ross (1965), 205.
12 West Ninety-sixth Street: Kroeger, 79.
13 (the perfect home for one-sided newspapers): Golding, 3.
14 whose influence could not have been as great: Indeed, other than this single biographical detail Edward Dulzer has been entirely lost to history.
15 writing freelance articles for the Dispatch: Kroeger, 81.
16 “to obtain the opinion of the newspaper gods of Gotham”: Ibid.
17 the third-floor city room: A description of the Sun’s city room can be found in Churchill, 12–13.
18 “If I could have my way”: Dana, 32.
19 a daily testimonial to correct English usage: Churchill, 15.
20 The room was small and cluttered: A description of Dana’s office can be found in O’Brien, 161–64.
21 “there the poor editor is left”: Dana, 95.
22 “I think if they have the ability”: All of the editors’ quotes are from the Pittsburg Dispatch, August 21, 1887, 9.
23 “We have more women now than we want”: “Among the Mad,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, January 1889, 20.
24 “Miss Nellie Bly … came here from Pittsburg[h]”: Kroeger, 84.
25 her purse had been stolen: This is how Bly herself described the incident. Some later, unsubstantiated accounts describe the purse as having merely been lost. See Rittenhouse, 55; Ross (1936), 49.
26 borrowed ten cents’ carfare: This was an extraordinary act of generosity on the landlady’s part, as Bly was already twenty dollars behind on her board bill. “Among the Mad,” 20.
27 “I had to do a great deal of talking”: Ibid.
28 a hundred compositors: The descriptions of The World’s processes of production are from The History of the World, 11–18.
29 she found herself standing before the desk: This is the story as Bly herself presented it in “Among the Mad” (20), subsequently supported in a World story of February 2, 1890. Several later biographical accounts give far more colorful versions. Mignon Rittenhouse wrote that after three hours of waiting, the city editor took Bly to Joseph Pulitzer’s office, where he was with Cockerill. Rittenhouse, 55. Ishbel Ross included the detail about a three hours’ wait, but had B
ly first meeting with Cockerill, who then took her to see Pulitzer; in this account, Pulitzer himself gave her the $25. Ross (1936), 50. Emily Hahn also has Cockerill bringing her in to meet Pulitzer. Hahn, 43.
30 ashes accumulated like snowdrifts: Jordan, 20.
31 “My Dear Sir”: Smith (1983), 50.
32 the crackling of a piece of paper: Milton, 19.
33 Exalted Ruler of the Elks: McDougall, 207.
34 the Slayback scandal: See King (1965), 100–109.
35 “so coolly killed”: McDougall, 104.
36 “the best man in the world”: Smith (1983), 50.
37 “unquestionably the best news editor in the country”: The Journalist, May 8, 1886, 3.
38 The World had received a tip: Brian, 124.
39 Blackwell’s Island: In 1921 Blackwell’s Island was renamed Welfare Island; in 1973 it was given the name Roosevelt Island, by which it is known today.
40 “Do you think you can work your way”: “Among the Mad,” 20.
41 On the morning of September 23, 1887: The incidents that follow are recounted in “Among the Mad” and Bly (1887).
42 her real name was Nellie Moreno: “Nellie Moreno” was thus a pseudonym that cloaked a pseudonym that cloaked a pseudonym.
43 long-standing abuses had been miraculously corrected: In the final sentence of her book Ten Days in a Mad-House, published shortly after her articles appeared in The World, Bly wrote, “I have one consolation for my work—on the strength of my story the committee of appropriation provides $1,000,000 more than was ever before given, for the benefit of the insane.” In fact, more than $1.24 million in additional funds had already been requested for the Department of Public Charities and Corrections in that year’s city budget, of which $850,000 was eventually allocated, and only $50,000 of which was specifically earmarked for the Blackwell’s Island asylum. Kroeger, 97.
44 “very bright”: Ibid., 95.
45 “When a charming young lady comes into your office”: Puck, November 7, 1888, 166.
46 West Seventy-fourth Street: Trow’s New York City Directory, Vol. CII, for the Year Ending May 1, 1889 (New York: Trow City Directory Company, 1888), 346. The entry is listed under her mother’s name: “Cochrane Mary J. wid. Michael.”
47 West Thirty-fifth Street: Trow’s New York City Directory, Vol. CIII, for the Year Ending May 1, 1890 (New York: Trow City Directory Company, 1889), 347.
48 “Dress is a great weapon”: Kroeger, 283.
49 “the enterprising and remarkable member”: The Epoch, March 22, 1889, 113.
50 the satirical magazine Life: Life was published weekly until 1932; it continued as a monthly until 1936, when Henry Luce purchased the name for his new weekly magazine. Flautz, 14.
51 “When first you dropped upon the pave”: Rittenhouse, 219.
52 raised and lowered by hydraulic pressure: Morris (1996), 182.
53 they shared picnics: Hahn, 71.
54 an editor had counseled: Ibid., 66.
CHAPTER THREE: THE SECRET CUPBOARD
1 (“I’ve been having chuck steak”): Caldwell, 154.
2 scented with patchouli: Sloat, 25–26.
3 at Thirty-second Street in genteel Murray Hill: The apartment was at 475 Fourth Avenue, on the east side of the street, between Thirty-first and Thirty-second Streets. The entry is listed under her sister Mary Louise’s name: “M. L. Bisland.” Trow’s New York City Directory, Vol. CIII, for the Year Ending May 1, 1890 (New York: Trow City Directory Company, 1889), 111.
4 located above a candy store: According to Wilson’s Business Directory of New York City 1889, the store belonged to A. Davot and C. Stoerckel.
5 the stucco work alone: Homberger, 260.
6 “filled with a better class”: New York Illustrated, 20.
7 “probably the best location for a magazine”: The Journalist, November 30, 1889, 2. If John Brisben Walker wanted to impress an out-of-town advertiser, he needed only to bring him around the corner to Delmonico’s, the city’s most venerable and expensive restaurant, where French food was served in a vast dining room swathed in mahogany, with gleaming parquet floors and silver chandeliers hanging from frescoed ceilings.
8 a manufacturer of office equipment: “A Successful Magazine,” The Journalist, April 30, 1892, 2–3.
9 “her talents have realized for her”: The Journalist, December 8, 1888, 3.
10 sizzling down into white foam: This memory, like many others from her childhood, was recounted by Elizabeth Bisland in her autobiographical novel A Candle of Understanding, published in 1903.
11 the baby Thomas Pressley: It was later decided that the boy should be named Thomas Percival Bisland, and the old family name of Pressley was given to a younger brother, born in 1868. Note by Pressley Bisland, February 20, 1944, to the transcript of a letter written by Thomas Shields Bisland to his wife, Margaret Brownson Bisland, October 11, 1864, provided to the author by Elizabeth Shields McGehee. Pressley Bisland would eventually become the adoptive father of the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
12 whom everyone called Pressley: Thomas Bisland wrote in a letter to his wife (see ibid.), “You must call him Pressley for I detest the name of Thomas.”
13 Elizabeth Ker: Ker was the surname of Margaret’s brother-in-law, David Ker.
14 pillared portico: See the description of Fairfax in Verdery, 5767.
15 served as the base of operations: Scarborough, 42. For a full account of the events leading up to the Battle of Fort Bisland, see Taylor, 120–34.
16 Confederate general Richard Taylor: Taylor’s father, Zachary, was president of the United States.
17 Elizabeth Bisland would remember: See Bisland (1903), 29.
18 much more interesting than the North: Ibid.
19 fled with the two girls in an army ambulance: Verdery, 5768.
20 her parents’ home in Brooklyn: Elizabeth Shields McGehee, “A Record of the Descendants of John Bisland and Susannah Rucker, with Emphasis on the Family of Their Son William Bisland,” unpublished document, February 1993, 16–17. Margaret’s father, John Brownson, was a wealthy attorney in New York. The home was on Sidney Place in Brooklyn Heights.
21 serving as a quartermaster sergeant: Hall, 153. Thomas Shields Bisland was captured when Union forces took Vicksburg after the long siege; he would later be released in a prisoner exchange and rejoin his regiment for the remainder of the war. Scarborough, 43.
22 a semblance of order was restored: Bisland (1903), 30.
23 in Attakapas: Margaret Brownson’s grandparents settled in Attakapas (also spelled Attackapas) in 1805. McGehee, 16.
24 It was strange: Bisland (1903), 145.
25 Leicester baronets: Verdery, 5767.
26 land grant from the Spanish governor: Scarborough, 27. 45 six plantations and nearly four hundred slaves: Ibid., 24.
27 Thomas Shields Bisland had left medicine: Verdery, 5767.
28 in 1858 he had spent $112,000: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, Historical and Archeological Investigations of Fort Bisland and Lower Bayou Teche, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, Cultural Resources Series Report Number COELMN/PD-90/12, June 1991, 51.
29 “big hominy”: Verdery, 5768.
30 “The conversation impressed me”: Bisland (1903), 159.
31 Like many of their neighbors: Family attitudes in the rural South of the 1860s, Bisland recalled in her essay “The Child in Literature,” “still strikingly resembled that of England in the eighteenth century under the Georges.” Bisland (1910), 73.
32 The British Poets: Ibid., 90.
33 “I was quite old enough to realize”: Bisland (1906), 251.
34 In 1873: Historical accounts differ about the date of the family’s move to Mount Repose. Katherine Verdery wrote that the move occurred in 1873 (Verdery, 5768). Elmo Howell suggests that the family moved two years later than that, in 1875 (Howell, 139). Elizabeth Shields McGehee gives the date as 1879 (McGehee, 18). However, Elizabeth Bisland’s younger sister Melanie was b
orn in 1874, and U.S. Census records state that her birthplace was Mississippi, which would seem to indicate that the move to Mount Repose occurred earlier than 1874. Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900, roll T623_1079, p. 5B.
35 her father inherited the house: Verdery, 5768; Howell, 139. Elizabeth Shields McGehee says that Bisland “bought” Mount Repose from his sister Leonora Goode, but gives no details as to price. In any case, the price could not have been much. McGehee, 18.
36 a desk once used by Aaron Burr: Howell, 139.
37 William had vowed: Howell, 139.
38 pushed a grandfather clock down the stairs: McGehee, 17.
39 the couple separated: Ibid.
40 a newspaper that had recently been founded in New Orleans: The New Orleans Times-Democrat was established in 1881 as the result of the merger of two existing papers, the Times and the Democrat.
41 writing in the remotest parts of the garden: This is conjecture, based on a passage in A Candle of Understanding. See Bisland (1903), 13.
42 she stored her work in a secret cupboard: Verdery, 5767.
43 When she was twenty years old: In her entry about Elizabeth Bisland in the Library of Southern Literature, Katherine Verdery claimed that Bisland was sixteen years old when she submitted her Christmas sonnet to the Times-Democrat (Ibid., 5768). However, the New Orleans Times-Democrat did not begin publication until 1881, when Bisland was twenty.
44 under the nom de plume of B.L.R. Dane: What led Elizabeth Bisland to choose this particular name is no longer known.
45 “O fierce wild wind”: Tinker, 176.
46 “exquisite”: Ibid.
47 she was a great admirer of his poetry: In a later essay Bisland referred to the “thrilling vibrations” of Poe’s poetry, “those sonorous undertones, that velvety, muffled music.” Bisland (1910), 131.
48 the one entitled “Caged”: The poem in its entirety can be found in Tinker, 179–80.
49 “considerable curiosity was aroused”: Ibid., 176.
50 Page M. Baker: It is conjecture on my part that the letter writer was Page M. Baker, as none of the historical sources provide the identity of the writer. However, Katherine Verdery and subsequent sources refer to the writer as “the editor” of the paper, which would seem to indicate the editor in chief rather than a subeditor; Baker himself was a very hands-on editor, and a great lover of literature, so it is not a stretch to suppose that he would have involved himself in this issue. The only other possible letter writer is Lafcadio Hearn, the paper’s literary editor, but Hearn and Bisland later became close friends and correspondents, and no mention was ever made of his having written this letter.
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