Eighty Days
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34 the railroad was itself the single largest consumer: See Tony Judt, “The Glory of the Rails,” New York Review of Books, December 23, 2010, 60.
35 three-quarters of all the steel produced in America: Chandler, 22.
36 The Pennsylvania Railroad employed more workers: Ward, 129.
37 “The railroad kings have of late years”: In Peter d’A. Jones, ed., The Robber Barons Revisited (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1968), 29.
38 they delivered “ultimatums”: Ward, 153.
39 “I, of all people, know the problems of empire”: Robert Sobel, The Entrepreneurs (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1974), 113.
40 “The world of to-day differs from that of Napoleon”: Ambrose, 25.
41 a traveler on a stagecoach or canal boat: Ward, 108.
42 could now be measured in hours and minutes: Ibid., 111.
43 had moved no closer to Philadelphia: Ibid., 112.
44 “local mean time”: See Trachtenberg, 59.
45 twenty-seven different time zones: Boardman, 64.
46 The B&O Railroad: Cashman, 27.
47 (ran trains in opposite directions): Ward, 107.
48 the mean sun time at the meridians: Cashman, 27.
49 the president, the Congress, or the courts: Trachtenberg, 60.
50 “People will have to marry by railroad time”: Cashman, 27.
51 “nameless, undefined apprehensions”: Bisland (1891), 23.
52 the lilies of the field: “Miss Bisland’s Story,” San Francisco Examiner, November 20, 1889, 1.
53 even one hundred fifty miles an hour: Bisland (1891), 23.
54 the fine white dust seeped through the windows: See the description in Fogg, 21.
55 “peace and composure”: Bisland (1891), 19.
56 four days, fifteen hours, and fifteen minutes: The mail train, which left New York after her, made it in an even shorter time—four days, twelve hours, and forty-five minutes.
57 the Palace Hotel: See James R. Smith, San Francisco’s Lost Landmarks (Sanger, California: Word Dancer Press, 2005), 215–19.
58 on the front page: “Miss Bisland’s Story,” San Francisco Examiner, November 20, 1889, 1.
59 The plan now was for her to sail: “Phineas [sic] Fogg’s Rivals,” San Francisco Examiner, November 21, 1889.
60 the North German Lloyd ship Prussian: The Norddeutscher Lloyd company called the ship the Preussen.
61 “a delegation”: Bisland (1891), 29.
62 How old are you?: “Phineas [sic] Fogg’s Rivals,” San Francisco Examiner, November 21, 1889.
63 “a sort of inexpensive freak show”: Bisland (1891), 29.
64 she would conduct herself in such a way: Ibid., 4.
CHAPTER SEVEN: A MAP OF THE WORLD
1 thought she had run away from home: “Nellie Bly’s Story,” The World, February 2, 1890, 10.
2 “If she attempts any description at all”: “Nellie Bly’s Trip,” The World, December 8, 1889, 1.
3 “How are these streets”: Bly (1890), 27.
4 no word spoken against her country: Rittenhouse, 154.
5 a Vandyke beard: See Sigma Chi Quarterly 24 (1904–1905), 250–51.
6 McCormick asked Greaves to please stand: That, in any case, was how Nellie Bly recalled the incident; in Tracey Greaves’s account it is Bly herself who “lures Mr. McCormick into a corner so that I shan’t hear what she has to say.” “Nellie Bly’s Trip,” The World, December 8, 1889, 3.
7 “There is one question”: Bly (1890), 27.
8 “I remember once”: Ibid., 28.
9 first to the World offices near Trafalgar Square: “Nellie Meets Verne,” The World, November 24, 1889, 1. In her book about the trip, Bly indicated that the stop at the World offices had preceded the visit to Robert McCormick. Bly (1890), 27.
10 Not until many years later would it be discovered: On her passport application Bly gave her date of birth as May 5, 1867. She had actually been born exactly three years earlier. See Kroeger, 145.
11 “Have I been slaving?”: Lynch, 54.
12 on the stone wall that ran along the ancient quay: Waltz, 13.
13 he would travel only in his imagination: Evans, 21.
14 “I may become a good writer”: Costello, 44.
15 the merchant steamer they have hired: The 1956 movie version takes liberties with the novel in having Fogg and Passepartout triumphantly cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hot-air balloon. This scene appears nowhere in the book, and in fact Verne’s narrator explicitly dismisses the notion of a balloon trip across the Atlantic as “highly risky and, in any case, impossible.”
16 noticed a newspaper advertisement: Some versions of the story refer to it as a brochure.
17 “one of the most eccentric men in America”: Thomas W. Herringshaw, The Biographical Review of Prominent Men and Women of the Day (Chicago: W. H. Ives, 1888), 178.
18 alternating lines of red and blue: McDougall, 173.
19 the liberator of France: “George Francis Train,” The Bookman 19 (March–August 1904), 8.
20 (“When I found ‘Fogg’ ”): Costello, 120.
21 more than a hundred thousand copies: Ibid., 118.
22 “Between ourselves, a success?”: Ibid., 124.
23 much less than his fair share for the play: See Butcher’s discussion in Verne, 207.
24 finally secured his fortune: Costello, 123.
25 placed by the door exactly at seven: Waltz, 142.
26 The paper’s managing editor: According to Julius Chambers, the idea for the meeting with Jules Verne had originally come from the paper’s publisher, George W. Turner. “The suggestion was Mr. Turner’s; but most of the details of the journey fell to me. I arranged for the call of the young lady on M. Verne, at Amiens.” Chambers, 315.
27 “it would give a good advertisement”: Sherard, 315.
28 About to meet one of the world’s most famous men: For descriptions of Nellie Bly’s meeting with Jules Verne, see Bly (1890), 33–40; “Nellie Meets Verne,” The World, November 24, 1889; “Nellie Bly’s Trip,” The World, December 8, 1889; “The Visit to Verne,” The World, February 9, 1890.
29 “There they are”: “Nellie Bly’s Story,” The World, February 9, 1890.
30 “a girl reporter”: Sherard, 315.
31 matching oil portraits of the Vernes: Butcher, 270.
32 “the nose of a sleuth”: Ibid., 239.
33 “My line of travel”: Bly (1890), 37.
34 “I am more anxious to save time”: This is the version from Bly’s book. Tracey Greaves remembered her as saying, “People who cross India in these expeditions come back married and that is just what I do not want to do.” “Nellie Meets Verne,” The World, November 24, 1889.
35 his wife frequently burst into tears: Butcher, 270.
36 “he piles the problems”: Ibid., 173.
37 “an immense and irreparable folly”: Ibid., 270.
38 “If Monsieur Verne would not consider it impertinent”: Bly (1890), 37.
39 Sans dessus dessous: The book was published in English under the title The Purchase of the North Pole.
40 “I entirely rewrite the whole work”: “Nellie Meets Verne,” The World, November 24, 1889.
41 “If you do it in seventy-nine days”: Bly (1890), 40.
42 “Good back”: “The Visit to Verne,” The World, February 9, 1890. In his account of the trip, Tracey Greaves remembered Verne as saying “Good duck.”
43 “for once I was able to control my mischievousness”: Ibid.
44 “what took the hearts of both myself and Mrs. Verne”: “Nellie Bly’s Admirer,” The World, December 26, 1889.
45 “My God, what a shame”: Butcher, 211.
46 eventually as far as Japan: When Nellie Bly arrived in Japan, she was interviewed by a reporter from Tokyo, whose newspaper “had translated and published the story of my visit to Jules Verne.” Bly (1890), 160.
47 “Nellie did nothing but talk”: “Nellie Bly’s Trip,” The
World, December 8, 1889.
48 it cost more to travel from Calais to Brindisi: Ibid.
49 a washstand piled high with dirty towels: This was described by S. W. Wall, who took the India mail train with George Francis Train shortly after Bly’s trip. Wall, 237.
50 nothing more than coffee and bread: Ibid.
51 “If you hurry”: Bly (1890), 50.
52 “Can you run?”: Ibid.
CHAPTER EIGHT: “ET EGO IN ARCADIA”
1 “the ship which makes possible the concept”: Johnson, 54.
2 “424 coolies on board”: “The Oceanic Sails for China,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 22, 1889, 5.
3 a foaming flood of emerald water: Bisland (1891), 40.
4 float forever in those soundless depths: Ibid., 45.
5 a late-night excursion: The scene is described in ibid., 33–39.
6 gutted houses and reconstructed the interiors: Ibid., 35.
7 feeling that she understood: See “Miss Bisland’s Trip,” Daily Picayune, February 9, 1890, 12.
8 “a place that left a sinister, menacing impression on my mind”: Bisland (1891), 33.
9 nearly one in three of San Francisco’s workers was Chinese: Gyory, 7.
10 Chinese miners were forbidden access: See Ambrose, 150. Much of the discussion in this section is derived from Ambrose, 150–62.
11 A Chinese-English phrase book of the period: Benoni Lanctot, Chinese and English Phrase Book, with the Chinese Pronunciation Indicated in English, Specially Adapted for the Use of Merchants, Travelers and Families (San Francisco: A. Roman, 1867). See also Ambrose, 151.
12 “They built the Great Wall, didn’t they?”: Ambrose, 150.
13 meals involving oysters and cuttlefish: Ibid., 161–62.
14 “has a sort of hydrophobia”: Ibid., 162.
15 “Good engineers”: Ibid., 156.
16 used by both Union and Confederate armies: Ibid., 158.
17 even a few thousand votes swayed by fear and hatred: See Gyory, 15.
18 characterized Chinese immigrants as “vicious”: This and the following quotations are from ibid., 3–5.
19 “we are to keep our hand on the door-knob”: Ibid., 254.
20 “Everyone has been charming to me”: Wm. S. Walsh, “In the Library,” The Cosmopolitan, January 1890.
21 “Society people are much interested”: “Society Topics of the Week,” New York Times, November 24, 1889, 11.
22 “Her home is with her sister”: Town Topics, December 5, 1889, 7.
23 Yure brave gurl: “Around the Whirled in 60 Seconds,” Town Topics, November 21, 1889, 14.
24 “The blue deepens and deepens”: Bisland (1891), 44.
25 strolling from promenade deck to saloon deck: William Rideing, “The Crew of a Transatlantic Liner,” The Cosmopolitan 12, no. 6 (April 1892), 682.
26 “quite content with boiled rice”: Ballou, 24.
27 “seems afraid to breathe or move”: Bisland (1891), 49.
28 the figures marked every day at noon on the map: “The noon position of the ship is—next to dinner—the great event of the day, and many are the pools and bets made on the figures of the run.” Lieutenant J. D. Jerrold Kelley, “The Ship’s Company,” in Chadwick et al., 179.
29 “A ship is a world”: Knox, 67.
30 “Our small, circumscribed world”: Bisland (1891), 47.
31 the ancient storehouse of nautical jokes: See Hoyt, 111.
32 “The more complete the transformation”: Campbell, 178.
33 “That is Japan”: Bisland (1891), 51.
34 The green hills that sloped down to the water: Curtis, 65.
35 chanting a strange song as they walked: Ibid., 69.
36 “will not be winded at all”: Bisland (1891), 61.
37 rarely lasted more than five years: John D. Ford, An American Cruiser in the East (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1905), 60. John Donaldson Ford was a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy long stationed in the Far East. He refused ever to ride in a jinrikisha.
38 officially designated as the first foreign port: Hammer, 11.
39 Fish à la Chambord: The hotel menu can be found in George Moerlein, A Trip Around the World (Cincinnati: M. & R. Burgheim, 1886), 25.
40 “busy, attentive, hurrying little fellows”: Ibid.
41 “the bravest and freest race in Asia”: Bisland (1891), 71.
42 a train to Tokyo: As was the style of the time, Bisland spelled it “Tokio.”
43 “The homes and the habits”: Henry T. Finck, Lotos-time in Japan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1895), 16.
44 a porcelain vase standing in the corner: Caine, 158.
45 the shopkeepers always bowed in greeting: See ibid., 156–58.
46 “Garments of the Dawn”: Bisland (1891), 74. The gown is also described in “Celestial Triumphs: A Most Beautiful Fabric Miss Bisland Brought from Japan,” Macon Telegraph, August 28, 1890, 2.
47 “Let there be a gown”: “Miss Bisland’s Trip: Her Story of Circling the World,” New Orleans Daily Picayune, February 9, 1890, 12.
48 “the country of common-sense”: Bisland (1891), 55.
49 an agreement between the steamship lines and the Six Companies: See “Dead Chinamen as Freight,” Medical Record 48 (October 26, 1895), 612.
CHAPTER NINE: BAKSHEESH
1 in operation since 1837: Peninsular and Oriental, 13.
2 Victoria, Britannia, Oceania, and Arcadia: Collectively the ships were known as the “Jubilee class.”
3 “a rather dampening effect”: “From Jersey Back to Jersey,” The World, January 26, 1890.
4 twelve cubic yards in size: Marlowe, 169.
5 two hundred tons per hour: Chadwick et al., 266.
6 “having an idea”: Bly (1890), 61.
7 “The men in the party used their sticks”: Ibid., 62.
8 “Here’s Mrs. Maybrick!”: In April 1889, Florence Maybrick, an American socialite living in Great Britain, was charged with poisoning her husband with arsenic. The case caused a sensation in Great Britain. Florence Maybrick was convicted of murder and sentenced to death; she ended up serving fourteen years in prison.
9 bouncing up and down in the saddles: Bly (1890), 63.
10 the town wore the gray, greasy look: See Wall, 208.
11 “indicating a colony from Europe’s far West”: T. G. Appleton, Syrian Sunshine (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877), 6.
12 “I do not think that any one of us knew anything about the game”: Bly (1890), 63.
13 the barge in the fading light: Ibid., 65. See also the description in Richard Harding Davis, The Rulers of the Mediterranean (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893), 92–95.
14 “How suddenly it has gotten dark”: Seitz, 177.
15 “Find a breeze”: Ibid., 24.
16 never adequately diagnosed: One of Pulitzer’s biographers, W. A. Swanberg, suggested that Pulitzer was manic depressive and may have suffered from Tourette’s syndrome. Swanberg, 131.
17 world-renowned specialists: Among them was Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, whose “rest cure” for the writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman would inspire her classic story “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
18 “His face is repulsive”: Swanberg, 162.
19 “a renegade Jew”: Ibid.
20 “Jewseph Pulitzer”: Brian, 88.
21 a one-story annex: See Swanberg, 360; Seitz, 14; Milton, 19.
22 “The room was so still as to be uncanny”: Seitz, 14.
23 a will of iron: Brendon (1983), 90.
24 prizes for the best news ideas: Swanberg, 130.
25 bag of gold: Ibid., 162.
26 fear of being ruined: McDougall, 103; Swanberg, 130.
27 hired office spies: Brendon (1983), 92.
28 “a condition of suspicion”: McDougall, 107.
29 “It was a strange complex”: Craven, 125.
30 it required a ton of coal per day to heat: Morris (2010), 257.
31 the Whitney mansion: See Craven, 281–84.
32 “the very carmagnole of display”: Logan, 193.
33 commuted to his Manhattan office: Painter, xxvii.
34 “authority ought not to rest”: Mott (1962), 423.
35 “a spitefulness that is peculiarly feminine”: Milton, 17.
36 the top 12 percent of American families: Painter, xx.
37 “you realize that a change has taken place in The World”: Swanberg, 81.
38 “a complete antithesis to that splendid thoroughfare”: M. F. Sweetser, The Middle States: A Handbook for Travellers (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Company, 1874), 18.
39 on which no church would ever be built: Sante, 12.
40 Four out of five people in New York: Emery and Emery, 259.
41 “Condense! Condense!”: Burrows and Wallace, 1151.
42 “The first object of any word”: Juergens, 58.
43 much as a display window did for a department store: Arthur Brisbane, a former World editor who later went on to edit the New York Journal, once said: “Perhaps headlines do take up too much space. The display windows of the big stores take up too much space also. But in a busy nation the first necessity is to attract attention.” Ibid., 48.
44 his American Museum: Barnum’s museum burned down in 1865 and was replaced on the site by the new office building of the New York Herald.
45 oddities and wonders from the world over: Some, of course, had been created by Barnum himself.
46 the paper’s Sunday circulation stood at 15,770: On May 10, 1885, The World published a week-by-week breakdown of its circulation for the previous two years.
47 it had increased tenfold, to 153,213: Juergens, 50.
48 frescoed ceilings and leather-covered walls: Burrows and Wallace, 1051.
49 “Laffan, that begins to look serious”: Seitz, 173.
50 down by more than 51,000 from September: On September 8, 1889, The World gave its weekly circulation figure as 2,312,370; on November 10 the corresponding number was 2,261,270.
51 a building that would ultimately cost $2 million: Landau and Condit, 197.
52 “who think that night is the best part of the day”: Bly (1890), 14.
53 “Our passengers are mostly English people”: “Under Summer Skies,” The World, December 29, 1889.
54 “How much time have you spent in studying the United States?”: See ibid.; “Round the World,” Chicago Tribune, January 27, 1890.