Eighty Days

by Matthew Goodman

  27 a wash of familiarity came over her: Ibid.

  28 John Bisland Walker himself put the time: “Bright Bessie Bisland,” St. Louis Republic, January 31, 1890.

  29 numbered in the hundreds rather than the thousands: “Over Four Days Late,” Chicago Herald, January 31, 1890.

  30 glazed black sailor’s hat: “Bright Bessie Bisland,” St. Louis Republic, January 31, 1890; “Over Four Days Late,” Chicago Herald, January 31, 1890.

  31 “like a veteran yachtswoman”: “Bright Bessie Bisland,” St. Louis Republic, January 31, 1890.

  32 Her sister Molly was waiting: This is conjecture. Molly was the sister with whom Elizabeth Bisland was then living; it is possible that this was Elizabeth’s younger sister Maggie, who was eighteen at the time and later came to live in New York as well. The St. Louis Republic article identified the sister as “Miss Rebecca Bisland,” but there was no sister by that name. Ibid.

  33 “She has beaten you, but you did well”: Ibid.

  34 “the young woman he sent around the world”: “Very Close Guessing,” The World, January 31, 1890.

  35 7 days, 23 hours, and 17 minutes: Fox, 243.

  36 a hurricane that lasted for eight hours: “ ‘La Champagne’ among Icebergs,” Harper’s Weekly (February 8, 1890), 107.

  37 “Miss Mary Bisland”: “Miss Bisland Completes Her Long Trip,” New York Herald, January 31, 1890.

  38 “Wasn’t there a Miss Bisland”: Washington Critic, February 1, 1890.

  39 “It is the winner who wins”: St. Albans (Vermont) Daily Messenger, February 1, 1890.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: FATHER TIME OUTDONE

  1 “Bravo!”: “Verne’s ‘Bravo,’ ” The World, January 26, 1890.

  2 (“We certainly owe her some recognition”): “Nellie Bly’s Fame,” The World, January 9, 1890.

  3 “no reason to complain”: Sherard, 316. In his memoir Twenty Years in Paris, Robert Sherard described how he had visited Verne only a few weeks before his death in 1905, and the two were reminiscing about old times, and during the conversation, Verne “said that it was very strange that after he had served the purpose of the paper not a word of acknowledgment had been made to him.”

  4 second place was awarded to Nellie Bly: “New York Dog Show,” Forest and Stream 34, no. 4 (February 13, 1890), 70.

  5 “Globe Trotting Nellie Bly”: “A Song of Nellie Bly,” The World, January 12, 1890; “They Sang of Nellie Bly,” The World, January 14, 1890.

  6 in the cast-iron district: Today it is SoHo.

  7 “the public interest in the young lady”: “The Story of Nellie Bly,” The World, February 2, 1890.

  8 “I never was very sick in my life”: “Around the World,” The World, November 14, 1889.

  9 the Nellie Bly tablet notebook: American Stationer 28 (December 18, 1890), 1415.

  10 “the biggest seller of the season”: American Stationer 28 (October 30, 1890), 994.

  11 would issue a second edition: Wong, 320.

  12 the leading manufacturer of board games: See Hofer, 15–17; Wong, 320. McLoughlin Brothers would continue to be so until 1920, when it was acquired by the Springfield, Massachusetts, game company Milton Bradley.

  13 the World Building: Indeed, The World must have made a deal with McLoughlin Brothers to produce Round the World with Nellie Bly, as it was essentially a colorized version of a game offered by the newspaper on the front page of its second section on January 26, 1890, the issue celebrating Bly’s arrival.

  14 “the bad faith of the steamship people”: “Cause of Miss Bisland’s Delay,” Washington Post, January 24, 1890.

  15 “a fair race was spoiled by a foul”: New Mexican (Santa Fe), January 28, 1890, 2.

  16 “It is a fact”: “A Successful Magazine,” The Journalist 15, no. 7 (April 30, 1892), 3.

  17 “The venture turned out”: “The Cosmopolitan Magazine—Its Methods and Its Editors,” Review of Reviews 5 (1892), 608.

  18 “If, on the thirteenth of November”: Bisland (1891), 1.

  19 “I expect to go back to work again”: “What Nellie Said,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 26, 1890.

  20 “the best opportunities”: “The Winner,” The World, February 2, 1890.

  21 the most prominent theatrical promoter in the country: See, for instance, “Chat from the Theatres,” New York Times, November 6, 1885.

  22 one of the most beautiful in New York: See the description in John W. Frick, New York’s First Theatrical Center: The Rialto at Union Square (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1985), 34.

  23 “a particularly good-looking curate”: “Gossip of the Theatres,” New York Times, January 18, 1885.

  24 “It is my pleasure and privilege”: “Nellie Bly Lectures,” The World, February 10, 1890.

  25 “As Mr. Hill has said”: Ibid. Descriptions of Bly’s lecture can also be found in “Nellie Bly: The Young Lady Relates Her Experience in Going Around the World,” Boston Morning Journal, March 3, 1890; “Around the World,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 7, 1890; “Nelly Bly’s Story,” Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago), March 24, 1890.

  26 the evening’s receipts: “Nellie Bly Succeeding,” The World, February 16, 1890.

  27 “Since Nellie Bly, the journalist”: Dallas Morning News, February 20, 1890.

  28 “Nellie Bly is going on the lecture platform”: Daily Boomerang (Laramie, Wyoming), February 7, 1890.

  29 “It is to be hoped that Nellie Bly won’t lecture”: Knoxville Journal, February 12, 1890.

  30 “This is sad”: “The Chat of New York,” Philadelphia Inquirer, February 2, 1890.

  31 “She was engaged by a big newspaper”: “The Story of Two Young Women,” Chicago Journal, February 15, 1890.

  32 hotels, most of them very nice: In Philadelphia, for instance, Bly stayed at the Continental Hotel, on the corner of Ninth and Chestnut Streets; it was described by a contemporary guidebook as “one of the best hotels in America.”

  33 “Sometimes I am very unhappy”: “Around the World,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 7, 1890.

  34 “coarse-featured” and “brutal-looking”: A description of the incident can be found in “Around the World,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 7, 1890.

  35 “Miss Bly made a response”: “Gossip of New York,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 4, 1890.

  36 (“in no pleasant humor”): “Tallmadge Gets $20,000,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 17, 1890.

  37 thirty-two female journalists: An 1892 article in the Minneapolis Tribune reported that the average weekly salary for a newspaperwoman in New York was $12, though a few earned as much as $80. Kroeger, 195.

  38 she had refused to testify: Bly did subsequently testify when the case was reheard in November 1890. In the end, the original verdict was affirmed and Tallmadge awarded $6,500. See “In the Tallmadge Libel Suit,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 12, 1890; “Tallmadge’s Verdict Affirmed,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 26, 1892.

  39 “Enemies have been unkind enough to suggest”: “Gossip of New York,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 4, 1890.

  40 World never even said ‘thank you’ ”: Letter to Frank G. Carpenter, August 12, 1890, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. Carpenter—a respected journalist, photographer, and writer of geography textbooks—was conducting a survey of notable women on issues such as women in politics, women in the military, women and work, marriage, and suffrage.

  41 “he nightly read most every paragraph in the paper”: Brian, 109.

  42 “Accuracy! Terseness! Accuracy!”: Kroeger, 187.

  43 (“Accuracy … is to a newspaper what virtue is to a woman”): Barrett, 11.

  44 Something had caused Pulitzer to become suddenly parsimonious: In her biography of Bly, Brooke Kroeger suggested a similar line of reasoning, though attributed the cause to “a libel suit threatened by the seven doctors whose conflicting diagnoses and prescriptions she had published” after she went to them for treatment of migraines. This idea was suggested in a 1931 letter to a gradu
ate student from someone who had known Bly, but Kroeger indicated that “no documentation could be found” for it. Ibid.

  45 “the lecture tour has been abandoned”: “Gossip of New York,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 4, 1890.

  46 “Our famous Nellie Bly”: New Mexican (Santa Fe), March 24, 1890.

  47 “a successful lecture tour”: Cincinnati Commercial, April 20, 1890.

  48 “Nellie Bly is not a success as a lecturer”: Michigan Farmer, May 24, 1890.

  49 At the end of July: The first advertisement for Nellie Bly’s book appeared in Life magazine on July 31, 1890, and the book was reviewed in the August 9 issue of The Critic.

  50 “The only regret of my trip”: Bly (1890), 166.

  51 detective stories: In 1883, for instance, Munro began publishing the Old Cap. Collier Library, the first magazine devoted to detective fiction. J. Randolph Cox, The Dime Novel Companion: A Source Book (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000), 180.

  52 “the largest circulation of any family paper”: Kroeger, 190.

  53 more even than Julius Chambers earned: In 1889 Chambers signed a three-year contract with The World paying $250 per week, or about $39,000 for the duration of the contract. Swanberg, 187. Bly, by comparison, would make $40,000.

  54 the highest-salaried woman in the United States: “Women Money Makers,” Morning Oregonian, September 7, 1890.

  55 her older brother Charles had died: Kroeger, 186.

  56 she had earned about $9,500 from her lecture tour: Letter to Frank G. Carpenter, August 12, 1890. Her estimate of the value of the two lots is contained in this letter as well.

  57 (“She was sprightly, yet not frivolous”): McDougall, 187.

  58 “That’s perfectly easy”: Ibid., 188–89.

  59 “in the very cream of the swim”: “Women Money Makers,” Morning Oregonian, September 7, 1890.

  60 a garden party given by the Prince of Wales: Ibid.

  61 “portentous platitudes”: Elizabeth Bisland, “An American Woman’s First Season in London (III),” Harper’s Bazaar, September 6, 1890, 686.

  62 “I wonder if they fear we shall get into mischief”: Elizabeth Bisland, “An American Woman’s First Season in London (I),” Harper’s Bazaar, July 19, 1890, 23.

  63 “enough men censer-swinging under your nose”: Letter from Rudyard Kipling, January 1890, Syracuse University Special Collections Research Center.

  64 Rhoda Broughton’s house: See the description in Wood (1993), 52.

  65 “the great metropolis of the nation”: “Charles Whitman Wetmore,” Prominent and Progressive Americans: An Encyclopædia of Contemporaneous Biography, vol. 2 (New York: New York Tribune, 1904), 226.

  66 “an enthusiastic member”: “Miss Elizabeth Bisland Married,” New York Times, October 7, 1891.

  67 he had a thick mustache: See the photograph of Wetmore in Prominent and Progressive Americans, 224.

  68 (she had now become editor of the women’s section): “People in General,” Washington Post, August 21, 1891.

  69 “My dear ‘Q. O.’ ”: Letter to Erasmus Wilson, August 22, 1890, William R. Oliver Special Collections Room, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

  70 only a single story by Bly: See “Periodical Palaver,” The Newsdealer 1 (March–December 1890), 11.

  71 a five-year lease on the house: Kroeger, 191.

  72 “the cleverest parrot”: George Swetnam, “Forgotten Friendship,” Pittsburgh Press Sunday Magazine, January 15, 1967, unpaged.

  73 able to get around only on crutches: Kroeger, 188.

  74 breezy and full of flourishes: See Swetnam’s description in “Forgotten Friendship.”

  75 “I think it was awfully shabby of them”: Ibid.

  76 “the most frightful depression”: Ibid.

  EPILOGUE

  1 production of wheat: Calhoun, 262.

  2 the leading consumer of energy: Zimmerman, 25.

  3 the nation’s first three battleships: Calhoun, 263.

  4 numerous overseas bases: See the discussion in Herrick, 50.

  5 “Captain Mahan has written”: Zimmerman, 100.

  6 (“not unduly pro-American”): Letter written aboard the SS Macedonia, March 3, 1912, private collection of Sara Bartholomew.

  7 “The trade of the world”: Bartlett, 2.

  8 the Hotel Washington: Dulles, 103.

  9 fried ham or pork and beans: Plesur, 110.

  10 “vulgar, vulgar, vulgar”: Dulles, 106.

  11 “bored, patient, helpless”: Ibid., 112.

  12 (“There is really not so much for Americans to see”): “Nellie Bly,” Topeka Daily Capital, January 24, 1890.

  13 “unless travellers are willing”: Jones, 1.

  14 “wound and looped between”: Elizabeth Bisland, “The Building of Applegarth,” Country Life in America 18, no. 6 (October 1910), 657.

  15 Applegarth was designed in the Tudor style: See ibid.; Robert B. Mackay et al., 374–75.

  16 (“rejected the whole theory of feminine subordination”): Bisland (1906), 192.

  17 lived, with Bisland’s sister Melanie: Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, roll T623_1079, 5B. Bisland is misidentified as “Elizabeth Whetmore.”

  18 (“The oldest of all empires”): Bisland (1906), 189.

  19 “the passionless goddess and the greedy child”: Bisland (1910), 5.

  20 “so sane and so charmingly written”: “A Side-Saddled Hobby-Horse,” New York Times, June 11, 1910.

  21 “cruelly attacked mind as well as body”: Letter to Charles Hutson, July 1, 1919, Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore papers, Manuscripts Collection 574, Louisiana Research Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University.

  22 boughs flowered with crimson: See the descriptions in Bisland (1927), 87–88.

  23 “a heaped mass of green velvet”: Letter of August 3, 1911, private collection of Sara Bartholomew.

  24 “breathing the moist saltness of the sea air”: Bisland (1927), 88.

  25 “light, fine, frail”: Ibid.

  26 “One wouldn’t begrudge the tourist so”: Letter of April 27, 1911, private collection of Sara Bartholomew.

  27 the village of West Byfleet: “News from the Classes,” Harvard Graduates’ Magazine 28 (September 1919), 135.

  28 “especially those first gassed victims”: Letter to Charles Hutson, October 8, 1918, Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore papers.

  29 “Ever since the war began”: Ibid.

  30 “seven years of stress and strain”: Ibid., July 11, 1918.

  31 “he might need me suddenly”: Ibid., January 29, 1919.

  32 “My poor husband has had to go”: Ibid., January 19, 1919.

  33 “If you shake me hard”: Ibid., March 11, 1919.

  34 “the world grows every day ghastlier”: December 27, 1919.

  35 “with a patience and gallantry”: Ibid., July 1, 1919.

  36 sews together the fibers of two separate lives: Ibid.

  37 the Good Health Home: Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), July 14, 1920.

  38 “For these ailing women and girls”: Letter to Charles Hutson, December 27, 1919, Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore papers.

  39 Greenway Rise: Today a private school occupies the site.

  40 “a distinguished white-haired lady”: “Woman Writer’s Death Is Sudden,” Times-Democrat, January 8, 1929.

  41 (“The record of the race”): Bisland (1927), 1.

  42 “That old age may be agreeable”: Ibid., 17.

  43 “Firstly, because one suffers”: Ibid., 18–19.

  44 Stoic point of view: Letter to Charles Hutson, November 8, 1926, Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore papers.

  45 “I never can understand why”: Ibid., November 16, 1922.

  46 “The earth is a ripened fruit”: Bisland (1927), 235.

  47 “the soul of summer”: Ibid.

  48 “robs of the dear illusion”: Ibid., 238.

  49 suddenly came down with pneumonia: �
��Woman Writer’s Death Is Sudden,” Times-Democrat, January 8, 1929.

  50 obituary in The New York Times: “Mrs. E. B. Wetmore, Author, Dies in South,” New York Times, January 9, 1929.

  51 “Where is Nellie Bly?”: Kroeger, 188.

  52 Stunt girls: See the discussion in Lutes, 2, 13.

  53 She had a doctor friend put belladonna drops: Ibid., 33.

  54 Col. William L. Davis: Seitz, 170.

  55 a 16 percent decline in circulation: Morris (2010), 290.

  56 (“Every reporter is a hope”): Ibid., 33.

  57 shipped Cockerill back to his old job: Cockerill resigned rather than accept the demotion.

  58 posed as the undertaker’s assistant: Brian, 198.

  59 “receiving a better offer”: Kroeger, 226.

  60 “How I would like to see you!”: Kroeger, 241.

  61 long-term financial security: See the discussion in ibid., 264.

  62 “deeply attached”: McDougall, 189.

  63 Hetty Green: Story of Nellie Bly, 38.

  64 “the only woman in the world personally managing industries”: Kroeger, 309.

  65 twenty-five patents with her name on them: Ibid., 305.

  66 (“financial details bored me”): Ibid., 329.

  67 $15,000 in political contributions: Story of Nellie Bly, 51.

  68 “being put only for the purpose of obtaining information”: Ibid., 55.

  69 “the English chill one’s blood”: Kroeger, 422, 438.

  70 “Charmingly garbed in silks and furs”: Story of Nellie Bly, 57.

  71 Bly was little remembered: Ross (1965), 215.

  72 the pay was $100 a week: Kroeger, 452.

  73 “Relieve immediately; investigate afterwards”: Ravitch, 50.

  74 the hint of an English accent: Ibid., 55.

  75 a large hat with a veil: Ross (1936), 59.

  76 from Arthur Brisbane on down: Ravitch, 55.

  77 in the second week she suffered a downturn: Ibid., 56.

  78 buried in Woodlawn Cemetery: Bly was buried in a crowded section of the cemetery, with no headstone; a stone would not be installed until 1978, when the New York Press Club paid for one.

  79 “Nell Bly, watch over me”: Kilgallen, 32.

  80 Dorothy Kilgallen … finished second: The race was won by the World-Telegram’s H. R. Ekins; Leo Kieran of the Times was third.