by Kim Todd
Bly was well out of reporting at the time of the Spanish-American War and the backlash against yellow journalism, but tumultuous life circumstances dragged her back into the profession. For a while, everything seemed to be going her way. After she and Seaman reconciled, he put the Manhattan mansion in her name, made her president of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company, and willed her all his assets, so that when he died in 1904, her money problems finally seemed to be over.
She attempted to parlay her energy and newspaper experience into running Iron Clad and a second business she launched, the American Steel Barrel Company, modernizing and innovating, adding electricity, acquiring patents, building modern offices. In factories, whose conditions she knew intimately from her journalism, Bly paid a salary rather than by the piece, installed showers with free towels, added a library and bowling alley. But the company was soon mired in financial scandal. The manager, chief cashier, and their allies had forged checks for up to $1.6 million dollars, draining Iron Clad to pay for gambling debts, saloon bills, a yacht. Creditors demanded repayment. During four long years of protracted legal battles, Bly fought for the company, an experience that turned her definitively into a suffragist, as she saw the only help men might offer women in business was the kind predators might offer prey. Iron Clad declared bankruptcy.
At this low point, Arthur Brisbane, a friend from when they were both Pulitzer’s protégées at the World, and now Hearst’s star editor, stepped up. He had hired her back after her marriage seemed about to crumble in 1896. Even when she left the profession, they had remained on good terms. In one letter he recalled a harrowing car trip and signed off with appreciation for her “kind, courteous, and persistent effort to kill me last Saturday.” In the middle of the lawsuit, Bly turned to him for advice on lawyers and support from Hearst’s editorial pages, but when she lost the company anyway, he offered a different kind of opinion. With her talent, she could be “doing much more useful work than making tin cans,” he suggested. So Bly, as she seemed destined to do, returned to reporting, covering political conventions and suffrage marches for Brisbane. When World War I broke out, she went to Europe and took readers into military encampments. She often shared the editorial page of Hearst papers with Winifred Black. In illustrations, she hadn’t aged at all.
When Bly died of pneumonia in 1922, Brisbane wrote her obituary. He had always admired her round-the-world trip, her Pullman strike coverage, her compassion and audacity. With his affection for all caps and for the intrepid girl reporter, he concluded, “Nellie Bly was THE BEST REPORTER IN AMERICA.”
Acknowledgments
A book is a monument to an obsession and a tribute to those who helped in the building. Thanks to Hedgebrook for the time to write, the radical hospitality, and the blackberries; and to the Talle Faculty Research Award and the Hawkins Professorship at the University of Minnesota for generous funding in support of this work.
A book is also a conversation, and this, more than my others, was the result of a wide-ranging discussion about writing, about the female body, about efforts to combine the two. For reading drafts and scraps of drafts, and the willingness to point out sentences of particular awfulness, much appreciation to Erica Olsen, Shala Erlich, Jason Albert, Frank Bures, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Emily Sohn, Tanya Barfield, Susan Thurston-Hamerski, and William Souder. In particular, thanks to Mara Hvistendahl and Jessica Nordell, for not just the critiques but the vital digressions. And to Karen Hartman for housing me on research trips and for launching a particularly informative Facebook thread about female comics, what they have to do to succeed, and the backlash that often greets them once they break through. And for the hikes (with Shala, too). Here’s to several decades of talking things through on the trail.
For research assistance, I owe a debt to Kristin Collier and Eleanor Garran for combing through the vast troves of articles by stunt reporters and likely wondering, “Must they be so prolific?” And also to Tamsen Glaser for tracking down court records in Chicago. And to Benjamin Wiggins and Cody Hennesy for their attempts to identify the Girl Reporter using stylometrics, and their research assistants, Janelle Ruth, Kamilla Ruppman, Ella Haugesag, Benjamin Schroeder, Chae Hong, Alyssa Miller, and Molly Bostrom. And to archivists at Minnesota History Center, the Widener Library at Harvard, the YMCA collection at the University of Minnesota, the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, the New York Public Library, the University of Tulsa, Syracuse University, Columbia University, the Library of Congress, the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, San Francisco Public Library, and University of Chicago.
This kind of work stands on what has come before. I am grateful to writers whose books and articles I found particularly influential, some of whom let me interview them about their projects: Brooke Kroeger, Jean Marie Lutes, Leslie Reagan, Paula Giddings, Suki Kim, Rachel Boyle, and Steve Kramer.
Thanks to Alice Whitwham at Elyse Cheney Literary; Sofia Groopman, and Sarah Haugen at HarperCollins for seeing the possibilities in this project; and to Thomas Frail at Smithsonian magazine for excellent editing on the article that was the seed of this book. I also have much appreciation for my former students in the creative writing program at Penn State Behrend. Bly’s story is inextricable to me from the isolating western Pennsylvania winters that formed her, the same dense snows that heaped outside our classrooms. Your astute responses to the stunt reporters’ exploits helped me articulate the contradictions of these writers and the roles they played.
And many thanks to my family: Pete and Gail Todd for careful reading, Ben and Peregrine for their curiosity and optimism, and Jay for his boundless support.
And, finally, my appreciation for everyone who discovers a hidden door of opportunity, slips through, then props it open behind her.
Notes
Prologue: The Case of the Girl Reporter (1888)
“You must not be scared about it”: Girl Reporter, Chicago Times, December 15, 1888, 1.
“Remember how to take it tonight”: Girl Reporter, Chicago Times, December 17, 1888, 1.
“Inflammation might set in”: Girl Reporter, Chicago Times, December 16, 1888, 9.
“There are enough ways”: Ibid.
“It will not do for you to feel”: Girl Reporter, Chicago Times, December 15, 1888, 1.
“If I were a girl”: Ibid.
“Don’t prate of virtue”: Girl Reporter, Chicago Times, December 18, 1888, 1.
“Today I have been wondering”: Girl Reporter, Chicago Times, December 22, 1888, pp. 1, 5.
“prostitution of the brains”: the Journalist, January 26, 1889, 13.
by 1900, papers were publishing: Lutes, Front-Page, 4.
“The natural and proper timidity”: Renfroe, “Editor’s Introduction,” x.
“the ink-stained Amazons”: Hawthorne, “Mrs. Hutchinson,” 18–19.
“A careful examination of”: Brann, “Women in Journalism,” 383.
“semipornographic titillation”: Lang, Women Who, 1999, 37.
“cast a spell of infamy”: Ibid., 36.
“she had thought of something”: Woolf, “Professions,” 152.
“telling the truth”: Ibid., 153.
they found a 25/75 split: “The 2010 VIDA Count,” VIDA Women in Literary Arts, May 16, 2011, https://www.vidaweb.org/vida-count/the-count-2010/.
Chapter 1: Trials of a Working Girl (1885–1887)
“City of Smoke”: Muller, “Pittsburgh,” 49.
“If women would just let up on this sphere business”: Wilson, Quiet Observations, 140.
“her home a little paradise”: Ibid.
“Now what am I to do”: Pittsburg Dispatch, January 17, 1885, 4.
“abnormal” and “a monstrosity”: Wilson, Quiet Observations, 167.
“Your ‘Quiet Observer’ is a fool”: Ibid., 173.
“We don’t wish to wear”: Ibid., 171.
“whore” and “bitch” and other details of the stepfather’s behavior: divorce testimony in M. J. Ford vs. J. J. Ford, 1879, Armstrong Coun
ty Courthouse.
“Wanted—manager for art publications” and other notices: Pittsburg Dispatch Want Ads, January 11–17, 1885.
“If the writer of the communication”: Pittsburg Dispatch, January 17, 1888, 4.
“a strain of sound”: San Francisco Examiner, January 22, 1890, 1.
“Girls are just as smart”: Pittsburg Dispatch, January 25, 1885, 1.
“attracted considerable attention here”: Pittsburg Dispatch, March 1, 1885, 10.
“sparkling, breezy, good-natured tone”: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 25, 1883, 8.
“chambermaid’s delight”: James Palmer, “Albert Pulitzer: Notes on the Lesser-Known Pulitzer Brother,” The Pulitzer Prizes, https://www.pulitzer.org/page/albert-pulitzer-notes-lesser-known-pulitzer-brother.
“not only large but truly democratic”: World, May 11, 1883, 4.
between 1870 and 1900, 12 million immigrants: Arnesen, Encyclopedia, 523.
jumping from thirty thousand in 1883: Journalist, September 10, 1887, 10.
“which appeals to the people”: Quoted in Procter, Hearst, 41.
“Look out for me”: Quoted in Kroeger, Nellie Bly, 75.
“Editor and popular author wants”: Journalist, September 17, 1887, 8.
“I think if they have the ability” and the rest of this conversation: Pittsburg Dispatch, August 21, 1887, 9.
“get a bachelor and form a syndicate” and the rest of this conversation: Ibid.
“I cannot write the utter rubbish”: Jane Cunningham Croly “Jennie June” to Pulitzer, January 7, 1884, Box 1, CUWP.
“Their dress, constitution and habits” and the rest of this conversation: Pittsburg Dispatch, August 21, 1887, 9.
“the public demands a different kind”: Ibid.
“Dr. Hepworth, I want a position” and the rest of this conversation: Ibid.
“the empty glory and poor pay”: Ibid.
“Woman understands women”: Ibid.
“No editor would like”: Ibid.
“I don’t know what I can do until I try”: Bly, “Among the Mad,” 20.
Chapter 2: Opportunity in Disguise (1887)
“naked ugliness and horror”: Dickens, American Notes, 37.
“assumed the look”: World, October 9, 1887, 25.
“I can see it in your face” and the rest of this conversation: Ibid.
“Who Is This Insane Girl?”: Sun, September 25, 1887, 1.
“Poor child” and the rest of this scene: World, October 9, 1887, 26.
“A good woman can do without blemish”: San Francisco Examiner, December 18, 1892, 13.
“hysterical mania”: Sun, September 25, 1887, 1.
“the sight of licentious paintings” and following list of descriptions: Hayes, Physiology, 252–65.
“As a general rule, all women are hysterical”: Quoted in Grossman, Spectacle, 92.
“dissolve the paroxysm”: Hayes, Physiology, 256.
“nervous debility” and most of the rest of the asylum account: Bly, Ten Days, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html.
“I can’t see”: World, October 17, 1887.
“Nellie Bly’s Experience in the Blackwell’s Insane Asylum”: World, October 16, 1887.
“Can Doctors Tell Insanity?”: Sun, October 14, 1887, 11.
“New York wild with excitement”: Salt Lake Herald, December 9, 1887, 4.
“Smarter Than All of Them”: Hazel Green Herald, December 9, 1887, 5.
“Miss Bly has undoubtedly performed”: Ohio Democrat, December 17, 1887, 4.
“made a sensation from Maine to Georgia”: Iola Register, December 30, 1887, 3.
“I answered the summons with pleasure”: Bly, Ten Days, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html.
“I was astonished to find”: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 6, 1947, 14.
“weak mutton broth” and the rest of the workhouse scene: Greenwood, Night in a Workhouse, pamphlet, reprinting of original articles.
“He Dug Her Grave”: Daily Arkansas Gazette, October 15, 1887, 1.
“Mrs. Robinson’s Fatal Leap”: New-York Tribune, October 10, 1887, 1.
“A Bride Choked with Gas”: Evening World, October 15, 1887, 1.
“I began to have a smaller regard”: World, October 9, 1887, 26.
“In ancient times”: Pall Mall Gazette, July 6, 1885.
“Could I pass a week” and the rest of the asylum article quotations in this chapter: World, October 9, 1887, 25–26, except where noted.
“Some people have since”: Bly, Ten Days, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html.
Chapter 3: Detective for the People (1888)
“a terrible tomboy”: Reminiscences of Eva MacDonald Valesh: Oral History, CUL.
“go do something else”: Ibid.
“Don’t know. What do you want”: St. Paul Globe, March 25, 1888, 10.
“when she learned some of the qualifications”: St. Paul Globe, May 13, 1888, 13.
“If your foreman insults you”: St. Paul Globe, March 25, 1888, 10.
Knights of Labor’s membership increasing from 104,000: Galenson, United Brotherhood, 43.
“petticoat detective” and “Statesmen Shaking at the Knees”: Buffalo News, April 3, 1888, 1.
“the spectacle of a brilliant young woman”: Times-Picayune, March 25, 1888, 10.
“If we do go back”: St. Paul Globe, April 19, 1888, 3.
“SHOTWELL, CLERIHEW & LOTHMAN, 6 CENTS” and the rest of this scene: St. Paul Globe, May 11, 1888, 4.
“charges of ungentlemanly conduct”: St. Paul Globe, May 12, 1888, 3.
“no character, no principle”: St. Paul Globe, June 3, 1888, 11.
“made by a body of men” and following quotations from the same article: Minneapolis Tribune, May 13, 1888, 4.
“What is a boycott?”: St. Paul Globe, April 29, 1888, 11.
“never indulging in laughter” and other quotations from this speech: Duluth Daily News, June 8, 1888, 4.
“The greatest little ‘Labor Agitator’”: Note in the margins of Eva McDonald to Sarah Stevens, January 5, 1891, MHSVP.
“The Firm of Shotwell, Clerihew & Lothman Embarrassed”: St. Paul Globe, June 14, 1888, 3.
“one of the most responsible in the city”: Minneapolis Tribune, May 13, 1888, 4.
“large Bankrupt Wholesale Dry Goods”: St. Paul Globe, October 4, 1888, 2.
“a crusade for women”: St. Paul Globe, April 1, 1888, 9.
“Well, we’ve come to a fine pass”: Valesh, Oral History, CUL.
“joyfully made my escape”: St. Paul Globe, May 6, 1888, 9.
Chapter 4: Hunger for Trouble (1888)
“silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances”: Quoted in Wendt, Chicago Tribune, 189.
“Scandals in private life”: Wilkie, Reminiscences, 130–31.
“one of the ablest and handsomest journals in the world”: Chicago Times, April 22, 1888, 4.
“a particularly caustic pen”: A.S.A., Indianapolis News, 1.
“pretty blonde secretary” and other quotations from this encounter: Chicago Times, July 30, 1888, 1–2.
“They stuck in my woolen waist”: Chicago Times, August 7, 1888, 1.
“the sleeve of my ‘never-rip’ jersey” and other quotations from this encounter: Chicago Times, August 2, 1888, 1–2.
“miserable bullet-headed sapling”: Chicago Times, August 1, 1888, 1–2.
“I don’t think I can tell you”: Chicago Times, August 2, 1888, 1–2.
“But worse than broken shoes”: Chicago Times, August 1, 1888, 1–2.
“Aren’t you from the Times?” and other quotations from this encounter: Chicago Times, August 10, 1888, 1–2.
“the true knight errant of today”: Chicago Times, August 3, 1888.
“If they prefer working at starvation”: Ibid.
“made himself obnoxious to me” and “insolent”: Chicago Times, August 5, 1888.
/> “an anti-Semitic crusade”: Ibid.
“The highest compliment paid”: St. Paul Globe, December 24, 1888, 3.
“I think I shall always be”: Times Union, October 20, 1888.
“Occasionally her stories”: Buffalo Sunday Morning News, October 7, 1888, 5.
“she suffered the penalty paid”: McDougall, Life, 187.
“Hangman Joe at Home” and other quotations from this article: World, September 30, 1888, 17.
“Should women propose?” and other quotations from this series: World, November 11, 1888, 12, and World, November 18, 1888, 17.
“Horrors of a Slop Shop” and other quotations from this article: World, September 30, 1888, 18.
“They Work in an Inferno” and other quotations from this article: World, October 7, 1888, 17.
Chapter 5: Reckoning with the Evil of the Age (1888)
“yellowest”: Chapin, Chapin’s Story, 134.
“bright man and a woman reporter”: Ibid., 135.
“Chicago Abortioners”: Ibid., 136.
“parade her shame” and “a young woman of intelligence”: Chicago Times, December 15, 1888, 1.
“but a step toward divorce”: Chicago Times, December 6, 1888, 9.
“Thousands are doing it”: Chicago Times, December 15, 1888, 1.
“I felt that there was some big”: Chicago Times, December 19, 1888, 1.
“Tonight as I write this”: Chicago Times, December 17, 1888, 5.
“I manage somehow or other”: Chicago Times, December 22, 1888, 1.
one in five pregnancies: Mohr, quoted in Lahey, “Birthing,” 486.
“They have both been excommunicated”: Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, November 3, 1837, 2.
“the infernal plot”: Buffalo Courier, May 24, 1843, 3.
“Genuine French Female Monthly Pills” and “astonishing success”: New-York Tribune, September 30, 1841, 4.
“Female’s Friend” and “relieving and removing”: New-York Tribune, September 28, 1841, 4.
“Dr. Van Hambert’s Female Renovating Pills, from Germany” and “They must not be taken”: New York Daily Herald, October 26, 1837, 4.