Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist

by Brooke Kroeger

Now in paperback--the acclaimed biography of Nellie Bly, the "thrilling account of a trailblazer" (Pat Morrison, Los Angeles Times Book Review). "Kroeger's biography of Nellie Bly moves at almost as fast a pace as did Bly's remarkable life."--Mindy Spatt, San Francisco Chronicle. Photos & illustrations.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Journalism, Feminism, Womens, Biography Memoir

631 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1994

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading about unorthodox, adventurous, Victorian-era women and had recently wanted to know more about Nellie Bly.

Kroeger's portrait of Bly is both thorough and balanced. I came away with less respect for Bly than I thought I would, but I learned more about her than I had hoped. I also came away with respect for the author.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nellie Bly: Professional Badass" could have been the title. This is an exhaustive biography, sometimes too exhaustive, of a woman who has been predominantly ignored by history. Kroeger's writing is mostly engaging, though it gets dry and perhaps TOO in depth in parts.

This book left me wanting to know more about the lost history of amazing women in the United States.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought out this biography of Nellie Bly because I had recently read Bly's Ten Days in a Mad-House and that left me curious to know more about her. According to author Brooke Kroeger's introduction, this is the first biography ever of Bly that was written for an adult audience. (There have been a number of children's books about her famous trip around the world.)

Bly led an interesting life; she was a pioneering female journalist and also an initially successful industrialist. The journalism chapters were very interesting -- for whatever reason, I have something of a fascination with the history of newspapers -- but the lengthy chapter on her business affairs, titled "Bankruptcy" sucked a lot of the air out of the book. It was a significant part of her life. It made her wealthy. It made her broke. It involved betrayals by employees and family members. But the details about accounting matters and tax law and court proceedings became tedious after a while. I was thinking of this book getting a four-star rating until I slammed into that chapter, so I had to drop the rating down to three.

But there's a lot of good stuff in this book. It's intriguing to think of what Nellie Bly would have been in the 21st Century. There's a lot of talk about how charming and dazzling she was. And there's a lot of evidence of her empathy. It seems she would have been a natural for television. It's hard, though, to gauge how charming she actually was, since most of the accounts of her charm came from Bly herself. (She wasn't at all modest, she left many accounts of her pretty hair and her smile.)

Anyway, her vanity aside, there's quite a bit to admire about Nellie Bly. She tenaciously built two careers during an era when the deck was very much stacked against women. She built her own niche in the field of journalism. Late in her career, she leveraged her fame, and her newspaper column, into becoming an advocate for unwed mothers and abandoned children. (However, she refused to help any young mothers who had a trace of an English accent. Bly had a life-long hatred of everything about England, and the book provides no explanation for this. I have to assume that if Kroeger had uncovered a reason, she would have documented it. There is evidence of this bias of Bly's throughout the book.)

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the author makes it clear that she has a huge appreciation for Nellie Bly, she isn't blind to Ms. Bly's faults. This is one of the most detailed and clear sited biographies that I've read about America's most famous pioneering female reporter.

Elizabeth "Pink" Cochrane (aka Nellie Bly) saw first hand what happened to women when they had no control over their own lives - they were completely dependent on men, and when those men made disaterous decisions, their wives and children suffered. As a result, Pink was determined to make her own way in the world and through force of personality and attitude, she succeeded. In today's world, her methods of obtaining a story, including herself in the story and doing as she liked without considering future consequences would not make her a "star" today, but in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was acceptable.

I reccommend this book to anyone interested in: the early days of American journalism, biographies of American pioneers and women who defied the odds and became leaders in their field.

[Andrea Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was my selection for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge Prompt #5: Read a book by a journalist or about journalism.

When I think of famous journalists Nellie Bly is the first to pop into my mind. She was such a larger then life character -- she lived her life in such a remarkable way; I admired her curiosity, her drive to experience as much as possible in life, and how she never backed down from a challenge. Brooke Kroeger does an amazing job of highlighting all of this and more in her well researched book. It was great to learn about how Bly got her start in journalism, how she developed and wrote the stories she was most known for, and how she earned respect in a field that was at the time mostly male-dominated. However, I also enjoyed learning about the other aspects of Bly's life -- her running of a huge and profitable company, her war correspondence years, and in her later life, her work with children. I also appreciated the author's candor in highlighting some of Bly's faults as well. Nellie Bly was more then just a journalist, and her life was truly remarkable.

This book is long and by no means any kind of "light reading." However, it was still a really enjoyable read and very well written. It rarely dragged. The only time I struggled was when the author went into a lot of detail regarding Bly's legal issues with her company. Otherwise, there were no slow parts and it was very well paced.

Nellie Bly deserves to be remembered by history and her story (her whole story) deserves to be told. This book accomplishes this with integrity. It is a written work I think Bly would have been proud of herself.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A VERY long biography of a very interesting woman. This book details different stages of Nellie Bly's life in intricate detail. It also delves deeply into the history of women reporters. In the beginning sections, I found it quite compelling reading. I especially enjoyed the verbatim snippets of her actual articles, which give a picture of her as well as a good feel for the times. However, my interest flagged as it got bogged down in the intricate details of her legal struggles surround her businesses, and there were LOTS of legal struggles. I found myself skipping pages, which I rarely do. Nellie Bly was an amazing woman, so this is a worthwhile read even if you have to slog through bits here and there.

[Glen Pekin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to recommend this one to anyone interested in newspaper reporting during the 1890's. I thought Ms. Kroeger did a great job researching. The only chapter that flagged was the one on lawsuits but I bet someone interested in the specifics of how bankers could steal companies would find it very interesting. Quite a tale of corporate takeover. The snippets of Bly's writing make one want to look up some of her articles and read them. The remarkable life a young determined lady turning into a stuffy old lady who could believe in both sides of any argument without dropping a beat. A true American Character. Why should a great woman be a saint or a sinner. She was no different that the boys!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because I like biographies, and books about journalists and pioneering women, this book was perfect for me, plus it was well researched and well written. I would like to own a copy to pass down to my daughters and granddaughters.

[Alice Vachss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every New Yorker who loves investigative journalism has heard the story of the long-ago woman reporter brave enough to fake insanity, get committed to the New York Women's Lunatic Asylum, and expose from the inside the cruelty and abuse prevalent on that infamous island in the East River. Until I started this book, I didn't remember that her pen name was Nellie Bly nor about the rest of her outrageous life. Brooke Kroeger is an imminently fair biographer. She lets her subject speak for herself so that the reader comes away understanding a hugely flawed but courageous and daring and admirable character who very much deserves the place in history the author assures her. As much as it is impossible not to admire Nellie Bly and to recognize her as a trail blazer for women's rights, I was horrified by much of what she said or did. It was Kroeger's unfailing admiration coupled with unvarnished reporting that allowed me to see this larger than life character as a full human being. The book lacks some narrative force but perhaps with a main figure so overstated, an understated biographer is a good thing. You have to be fascinated by a character who writes of her early job-seeking days in New York: "I was penniless [but] I was too proud to return to the position I had left in search of new worlds to conquer. Indeed, I cannot say the thought ever presented itself to me, for I never in my life turned back from a course I had started upon."

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first heard about Nellie Bly because of Drunk History but hadn't given her much thought since then. Recently, I found out about a podcast called History Chicks and a related book club here on goodreads.com. One of the episodes was about Nellie Bly and this biography was the most recent book of the month. I am not a nonfiction reader, no matter how much I want to be. To me, reading nonfiction takes too much concentration and it is, by definition, reality. As I tell people, I live in reality and books are my escape.

At any rate, I plunged into this one and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I felt like I was reading any old story and was eager to gather more details about her life. In the past, biographies I've tried to read tended to have too many details. It would take longer to read about John Adams' journey from MA to DC than it did for him to actually travel it. Bly's biography did eventually get a little bogged down in details, in my opinion, especially went it got to all of the dealings with her business and family later in life. I found myself not caring that much about so many details about court cases and such.

Altogether, I think the book was pretty good and I am glad that I read it. Nellie Bly's life was truly something to read about.

[Stine Diamond-owens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Impressively researched. Writer committed a major information dump that made you wonder where her editor had gone when this went to publish. Despite the author's note professing her long-admiration for Ms Bly she presented as if Bly were constantly on trial, failing by oceans to create any connection with the reader and main character. Not good for a book club. Mine wanted to lynch me, and frankly I was ready to give them the rope.

[Nicolle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was definitely interesting to read of the life of Nellie Bly and what she did for women in reporting. I found her story sad because she was so often taken advantage of. Though to me it did come off as if she were a little to trusting and willing to let family or other people take over management of important aspects of her life. Is that merely a sign of her times and how hard it was for women to control anything about their own lives?

[Linda]

It's just too long (over 500 pages) and SO much of it is the minutiae of newspaper life and everything she wrote about in the papers she wrote for. I realize the author had to read everything Bly wrote in the papers since she didn't keep a diary and there aren't really any surviving letters, but that doesn't mean you need to put it all in your book. It's pretty readable style-wise and I kind of wish I could just power through because there's interesting stuff here, but it's just too much.

[Fypast · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty straight-forward review of Bly's career without much analysis of the life of the woman. Benefit of the doubt, this is due to the source materials being limited as the author prefaces. Also, benefit of the doubt, it's unfair to read this at the same time as the Power Broker. Lots of heavy lifting done through quotes. Also, weird to dislike the subject of a biography more after reading and be unable to tell if that is Bly's fault or the author's.

[Hailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read certain chapters that interested me. Highlights: ‘The World’ chapter discussing her stay in the insane asylum. Her travels around the world in 75 days. Her manufacturing and patenting of the design of industrial steel barrels. And overall, her spirit to help right the wrongs of those who are disenfranchised.

[Lorissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few humans have ever been as fearless as Nellie Bly. Kroeger's biography is truly the first to encompass the whole of Bly's exceptional life. With stirring prose and in depth research, she gets to the heart of Bly's extraordinary accomplishments and the motivations behind them. Truly a compelling portrait of an incredible woman, a trailblazing journalist, and a fascinating figure.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Nellie Bly: Daredevil; Reporter; Feminist,” by Brooke Kroeger (Times Books, 1994). Kroeger could have included “industrialist” and “inventor” in that subtitle. Before reading this book, all I knew about Nellie Bly was that it was the name of an amusement park on the water side of the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, between Coney Island and Fort Hamilton. Turns out that Nellie Bly (born Mary Jane Cochran in 1864) was, on her death in 1922, declared “the best reporter in America” by Arthur Brisbane, who had been, in turn, editor of Pulitzer’s “World” and Hearst’s “Journal,” the two greatest newspapers during the golden age of yellow journalism. During a time that journalists were hungry, competitive, far from objective and hungering for sensation, Bly—barely educated, from an impoverished family in Pennsylvania---led them all in stunts, scoops and daring. She had already made a small name for herself in Pittsburgh, but for four months could not find any way of getting hired by any of the newspapers in New York. She got some attention by writing a first-person piece in the Pittsburg Dispatch about why New York editors refused to hire women reporters. She interviewed them and reported their answers, which were absurdly out of touch. Still nothing. So she talked her way into the office of John A. Cockerill, editor of Joseph Pulitzer’s “The World,” and eked out an assignment to get herself committed to the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum to write about conditions there. She pretended she was crazy. Journalism was really wide open then: other reporters wrote about this mysterious young woman who had been committed to Blackwell’s Island. Ten days later, Cockerill got her released, and she wrote a two-part Page One series headed “Behind Asylum Bars,” beginning Oct. 9, 1887. She was 23 years old. Bly’s writing was both extremely detailed and very personal. She described everything she saw, everything she heard, and everything she felt. It was a sensation. She became the first of the “stunt girl” reporters who did all sorts of absurdly daring stories. Bly wrote about the appalling working conditions for women and children in factories, the suffering of striking mill workers. When sensation began to pall, she went on a race around the world, trying to outdo Jules Verne’s “80 Days” by doing it in 72, chronicling everything for the World. Within a short time, Nellie Bly was one of the most famous, if not the most famous reporter in the USA. Her motto:
“Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything.” She had big, bright eyes in a round face, a tiny waist, and a direct, bold look that seemed to mesmerize almost everyone she spoke with. She was audacious, persistent, indefatigable, intensely curious and frank. But beyond her career as a reporter (there was a period when many women worked as journalists, although they had to fight to stay off the society and garden pages), she became an industrialist by marrying a man named Robert Seaman when she was 31 and he was 70. He was the owner of the Iron-Clad Manufacturing Company, which made tanks and other metal containers from a huge plant in Brooklyn. He died seven years after their marriage, but not before willing everything in his estate to her. She went on to build the company to greater business, created another company to build steel barrels, and engaged in running battles with some of her in-laws over the company. She earned patents for various manufacturing processes, and understood everything about how her factory worked. But she didn’t pay attention to the bookkeeping. So some of her most trusted employees began stealing her blind. Meanwhile, off she went to Europe, to cover World War One from inside Austria-Hungary. Completely cut off from developments in the US, she wrote movingly of the suffering of Austrian troops and people, of the horrors of the warfare, and the courtesy and civility of those she met. I could go on and on. By the time she got back to the US, the Iron-Clad was bankrupt, she was suspected of being if not a spy then definitely pro-German, and she wound up penniless, defrauded of her company and her fortune. But she was indomitable and began writing again, what became one of the first advice columns. Her favorite subjects were the plight of working women and suffering children. She was a committed suffragist, fighting for women’s rights and the vote. She never gave up, although by the time she died her style was very much out of fashion. Kroeger put the story together not so much like a detective but like a jigsaw puzzler, piecing together information from old clippings, letters, journals, etc etc. She even found Nellie Bly’s one surviving “adopted” daughter, Dorothy Coulter, in 1991. Coulter came out of her Alzheimer’s enough to describe a good deal about her life with Bly. An incredible, wonderful, almost forgotten story. Kroeger’s was the first full biography, nearly a century later, of one of the greatest journalists in American history. Though I do wonder why she never examines the relationship or lack thereof with the great muckrakers, such as Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair or Ida M. Tarbell.

http://brookekroeger.com/nellie-bly-d...

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. A lot of detail I couldnt find anywhere else. Lengthy in some parts but otherwise a very good read. Took me a while. I'm very happy to have read about a woman with so much gumption and who basically spearheaded investigative reporting.

[Adrian Eisermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a ot of joy reading about this facinating woman. Nellie Bly is a true inspiration for everyone. Brooke Kroeger does a great job of summarizing her life.

I can recommend this book to anyone intressted in Nellie Bly and getting a thorough look at her story

[Meagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, lovely. The author writes with an amused kindness that encompasses the faults and the virtues. You love Nellie without being blinded to problematic stances or actions. The picture of her life is so completely painted that you understand her faults, and you're fond of her all the same.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a well researched biography. I look forward to sharing it with my granddaughter when she is older.

[Julie Butcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's really (really) long but if you want to know (everything there is to know) about Nellie Bly, this is the book! (I love her, still.)

[Siri Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting!

[Susan O · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until recently, my knowledge of Nellie Bly was limited to her 10 days in a mental institution and her race around the world, both stunts she performed for the sake of newspaper articles. Then I read a blurb which listed some of her other accomplishments. Of course in typical fashion, I can't remember where that was, but it prompted me to read a biography to learn more about her.

Kroeger's book is well-written, very well-researched, and full of details, in some cases more than I wanted. Bly seems full of contradictions, especially when it comes to calling her a feminist, but her articles are full of information about her and her feelings about the person or topic she is writing about. Kroeger makes good use of quotes to give us a feel for these contradictions.

Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran and called "Pinky" by her family and friends. (The "e" was added to the last name later.) Her father, an immigrant from Ireland, worked his way up from mill worker to owner and left the family reasonably well-off when he died. But a disastrous second marriage by her mother, Mary Jane, and mismanagement of the children's trust funds left Elizabeth with a distrust of some men, and a need to make her own way.

She didn't, however, set out to become a reporter. In response to a column in the Pittsburgh Dispatch, Elizabeth wrote a letter to the editor signed "Lonely Orphan Girl." The editor then wrote an ad asking the author to identify herself; she did and her career began. He chose the name Nellie Bly for her and judiciously edited her early articles. Throughout her twenties, Nellie Bly wrote for women's pages (although she hated it) and did "stunt" journalism, such as the "around the world" articles (which she loved).

Journalism was something that Nellie always returned to. By the time she was 30, she had such name recognition that she could always find work. But her life took a different turn when at the age of 31, she married 73 year old millionaire Robert Seaman. The relationship is intriguing and Kroeger does a good job describing the interaction between the two. Through Seaman, Bly became a businesswoman, eventually becoming the President of his business, the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company. She also became an inventor and was issued a number of patents related to the business.

There were three major elements which consumed the rest of Bly’s life after Robert’s death: litigation regarding the company, her coverage of World War I from Austria, and her final years writing a column which led into a type of social work. All of this was unknown to me and I found it very interesting, with the exception of the extensive litigation. This did, however, give a lot of insight into Bly’s relationships with her family, her return to journalism, and her attitudes toward women and women’s issues at the end of her life.

The parts I enjoyed most were about Bly’s childhood and her time in Austria during the war and its aftermath. I found it astounding how uninformed she was about the war overall and specifically the stance of the United States. Never one to let what other people think affect her opinion of herself, she was convinced that she had information that President Woodrow Wilson desperately needed. With a decidedly pro-German outlook, she was definitely of interest to Military Intelligence.

Overall, the book is well worth the read. Nellie Bly was certainly much more than a “girl” reporter.

[Andrea Blythe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nellie Bly was all kinds of awesome and apparently was the basis for the character Lois Lane (according to Sarah Rees Brennan in her blog, which is quite entertaining and inspired me to read more about Nellie). Bly virtually invented and became known for "stunt reporting" in which she would go undercover in dangerous situations and then tell all. For example, she tricked hospital staff into thinking she was insane and then wrote and expose on conditions inside. She accepted the challenge of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days and beat the record of the fictional character, making her world wide journey in a mere 72 days. She went to Mexico to report and was nearly arrested by the dictatorship. She journeyed to Austria and became one of the first female war correspondents during the beginning of WWI.

Keep in mind, her life spanned from 1864-1922, so not exactly a world that was used to or stoked on such feminine versions of strength.

Kroeger tracked down letters, strained her eyes looking at news paper microfiche, and trolled through dusty back rooms at libraries to compiled this in-depth look at Bly, while also offering a look at the newspaper industry in general. Bly was far from perfect, but she believed strongly in her own strength of will, claimed a place for herself in man's world, and never gave up standing for what she thought right.

[JMM · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nellie Bly was a daredevil! She feigned insanity to gain admittance to a notorious insane asylum, then wrote about its horrors. She packed a handbag and went around the world in 72 days to best the fictional Jules Verne character's journey. She reported from the eastern front of World War I. She changed the world of journalism almost purely by the force of her very strong nature. I was glad to learn more about this woman who so strongly influenced American opinion in the late-19th/early-20th century but was disappointed in this recounting of her life. I wanted a better understanding of Bly's character (for example -- the author states that Bly hated England, a fact that slanted her war reporting. The author never explores or even speculates on the reasons for that hatred). For an account of such a lively character, this book was surprisingly dull.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

When my children were little, we read the Value Tale about Nellie Bly, the intrepid reporter who began her career in the 1880s--going undercover posing as an inmate to expose abuses in a women's insane asylum and then traveling around the world in 72 days (beating the fictional record set in the Jules Verne novel). Brooke Kroeger's biography illuminates these accomplishments and provides a fascinating look at the early years of Bly's life and how her experiences shaped her approach to her varied careers as journalist, businesswoman, and philanthropist (all while battling the sexism of the time along with seemingly endless lawsuits).

I was interested, too, to learn more the changes in the field of journalism, including "stunt reporting" coming in and out of vogue. Bly not only reported news, she made news--and certainly shared her opinions!

[Kaye · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fairly complete portrait of Nelly Bly (at least in my uneducated opinion), but the chief problem is that Bly did not keep a diary, or many personal records. The result is that the author's portrayal of Bly centers around her news articles and litigation cases, which starts to get a bit old a couple of hundred pages into the book. I find it disappointing when I read about heroes, and read about their reputations being raked through the mud, and there is plenty of that here.

[Abbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this for a biography for a school project, and it was pretty interesting, as she climbed her way up in the world. not content with the traditional role of female reporter, she was one of the first "muckrakers" and became a leading journalist. the problem with the book was it began to drag at the end, when her exploits consisted mostly of business endeavors. but overall, an interesting read.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well researched book on a fascinating and not well-documented woman. Every young woman should read about her life. She was, as we all are, flawed but a remarkable person for what she accomplished at that time. In my eyes she was a success because she had a very interesting life and you can't get better than that. In the book they describe her winning smile again and again but there is not one photo of her smiling in it. The photos of the time I guess. Too bad.