For years as a performer on the stage I portrayed Nellie Bly in a monologue as Joe Wiegand does today as he impersonates Theodore Roosevelt. Many people are not familiar with Nellie Bly, other than a song with her name in the title. She was not a fictional character. She was real. This is what I told my audiences about this dare-devil woman, a World traveler:
My real name is Elizabeth Jane Cochrane. I added the "e' for distinction or what ever reason. My life's been so long ago I can't remember for sure. I was born May 5, 1864 right near the end of the American Civil War at Apollo Mills, Pennsylvania, Armstrong County along the Kiskiminetas Trail and its River. It was settled in 1790. Thia bituminous coal mine community is 95 percent Caucasian, thre percent American African and no American Indian, even though it was the Kiskiminetas nation who lived here first. In 1895 G. G. McMurry, an iron and steel industrial magnate and its presiden, ran the town. When I was young my mother dressed me in pick clothing which gave me the nickname "Pink." My father Judge Michael Cochran forced my mother Mary Jane into a rough difficult divorce, sign of the times. He was an abusive husband. When he left we were left too–quite destitude. It was a mad, mad world against females, the distaff side. I attended Indiana Normal School, later a university. But still to this day "Indiana Normal School" is printed on a brick tower, that spells out a big part of the towns's history. I went to the Normal School for one semester. I couldn't afford any more education to become a teacher. My desperate mother took my younger brother Charles and me to Pittsburgh 35 miles away. There she opened a boarding house with my help. One day I noticed an article n the town Dispatch,"What Are Girls Good for." I wrote a rebuttal letter to the editor and signed it "Little Orphan Girl." Well I told them what I thought in my article and named it "The Girl Puzzle." But the community criticized my words–of course it was the men while the women remained silent with obedience. The managing editor George Madden of the Dispatch responded with an ad to find out who was the orphan. This was followed by his offered me a part-time job, but only if I wrote under the pen name, "Nellie Bly." When he relegated my column's interest the gardening and clothes design section. I refused and resigned. But editor Madden wouldn't give up on me. He sent me on a travelogue tour to Mexico. My brother then became my mother's partner in running the family boarding house. My articles, instead of describing that nation's beautiful places for sight seeing, scathingly criticized the Mexican government. The response filled up the Dispatch news room. I especially reported President Porfirio Diaz was a "tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican peope and the press. I was thretened with arrest but managed to leave that country and returned home. My articles were titled, "Six Months in Mexico." In 1897 after four months of literary rejection, my next move was to New York City where I thought there would be more opportunity for my writing that was beginning to sound like a career in journalism. A working girl has to look out for her self in a man's World ever since Neanderthal days when men lived in caves and pulled their women around by their hair on fire. At least that's how I envisioned it. Someone once said I was too creative. Meanwhile I brazenly found the office of John Crockeran. His secretary said he was at a meeting. I didn't believe her. I may have been young naive but I had street sense. I conjured up enough nerve to open the door to his office. My hunch was right. There was no meeting, He was alone finishing a bran muffin and coffee. He a chair and even gave me some of his lunch. I suddenly realized I hadn't eaten before setting out on my journey. I could at last try to relax as he told me about his boss Joseph Pulitzer and how he demanded perfection among his employees. I was so excited . My heart was beating more than a marching band. I hoped he couldn't hear it in this New York World Newspaper office But what startled me the most were his words. "I have a lot on my mind right now. We're looking for some man to claim insanity to get into Blackwell Island Insane Asylum. But before I could think and he could react, I blurted out, "Oh, I can do it! I can do it!" He practically got down on his knees. "I can't tell you how much this means. You can fulfill the month assignment–to investigate and possibly expose this institution for our next big story. We've been hearing horrifying rumors. If we sent some of our staff to look into it, the hospital authoritarians would clean up their act and we'd never witness what really goes on behind closed doors." Yee gods, I gasped to myself, what did I just say? –a purely rhetorical statement right off my worn cuff. I knew this wouldn't be an easy task. Before I knew it I was transported to the hospital there. He told me the hospital would provide me with clothes. Yes. I imagined, a white straight jacket! The editor added, "And whatever you need. the hospital they would give you." That, too, was questionable. The first thing I learned was. no one asked me to fill out a form saying I wasn't insane. In those days this was an easy way for a family to get rid of an unwanted member. They took me into the filthiest building I've ever was in. It smelled like a zoo. I soon found out it had rotten food, too. I encountered men, women and children physically and mentally being abuses. It was so sad, These desperate people were wrapped in white with their arms tied behind them for the convenience of the staff. The doctors and nurses in dingy white uniforms treated inmates roughly and with no respect. I spent the first night talking with a poor woman who had better sense than the employees. She told me her life story of torment, trying to fight off her family that put her there. She told me how she was beaten and man-handled–even raped. She was so pitiful, as she could hardly speak with tears rolling down her cheeks. In the mornings she was dead. After what seemed like a month, began to wonder if I'd ever get out of this rat net with the patents more sane than the workers. I immediately experienced brutality when a worker told me to remove my clothes and tgeb pushed me into a cold shower and poured a bucket of freezing water over my head, I spent the nights quickly writing in my journal and managed to sleep during the days, which was fine with the warped establishment since I stayed out of their way. Then in my own desperate mind wondering if I'd ever see daylight again, an agent of the World came for me. After handing my manuscript, Ten Days in a Mad-House, to editor Madden, the next day the news of this corrupt institution hit the streets of New York City with a tone of bricks. After New Yorkers read the healines, immediate reform took action about mad-house asylums, In America these cr;uel hospitals were re-named mental institutions instead. It was a rude awakening. By 1889 I had earned my stripes as a female journalist. At that time Joseph Pulitzer sent we me around the Wold to beat Jules Verne's book Around The World In 80 Days. Actually I suggested the idea of a trip around Earth. Phileas Fogg was the fictional man who accomplished this feat. Meanwhile after stepping onto the ship Augusta Victoria, with me in my black and white gillie hat and checkered suit, I was on my way among shouts of bon voyage. Women in those days had to travel with escorts since their bags were too heavy. I only carried two small satchels. Eventually I made my way to England, Egypt, Singapore, Hong Kong, Penyang and Japan. In France I met with Jules Verne who said, "I hope you beat my fictional trip in 80 days." It was a challenge like I never had before. This was especially difficult since I bought a money in Singapore. By the way when I got home he emptied my cupboards and broke every dish in my house. I returned through San Francisco with a welcome ticker tape greeting. But so much for Joseph Pulitzer's demand for perfection of his employees. His imperfect treatment of me, never paid me for the trip, even though his circulation of the World newspaper increased substancously. He said the cost of the miraculous journey was my salary for the World foe 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 13 seconds! In the after math my name appeared on trading cards, board games and Pulitzer even had fun with people betting on how long my trip would take. I wrote a book recording my adventure. For the next three years I wrote articles for the World about corrupt police, the violent Pullman labor strike and I interviewed Susan B. Anthony, suffragette. In 1895 I married Robert Seaman, owner of the Ironclad Manufacturing Industry. After he died in 1904 I faced bankruptcy from poor management and fraud of employees thinking they could take advantage of a woman. And they did. However in 1914, the time of World War I, I became a war correspondent. I tell these information since if you don't blow your own horn, no one else will. Around that time Arthur Brisbane hired me to write for the Hearst Newspaper, The Evening Journal. When I died in January 27, 1922, when Pharaoh Tutankhamun's burial site was discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Hearst Newspaper published my obituary headline saying "NELLIE BLY WAS THE BEST REPORTER IN AMERICA.
World Enlightened News,W.E.N.
Helene C. Smith, who portrays Nellie Bly in a monoloque
