Bly, Nellie (1864-1922)
- Title
- Bly, Nellie (1864-1922)
- Seaman, Elizabeth Jane Cochran
- Contributor
- Zizelmann, Evelyn
- birthday
- 1864-05-05
- Birthplace
- Cochran Mills, PA
- Death Date
- 1922-01-27
- Occupation
- Journalist, author
- Biographical Text
-
Elizabeth Cochran was born to parents Michael Cochran and Mary Jane Kennedy, as one of the youngest of 15 siblings. She enrolled in Indiana Normal School in 1879, but dropped out due to a lack of funding before moving to the City of Pittsburgh in 1880. There, she found a job as a newspaper writer; since women writers in those days were encouraged to use pen names, her editor suggested Nelly Bly. Due to an editorial error, her name became Nellie Bly soon after. Cochran worked for the Pittsburgh Dispatch and wrote about working women before turning to investigative journalism of government and factory workers. After numerous complaints, she proceeded to NYC and continued her investigations under the New York World. Her most famous attempt was when she undertook an assignment posing as a mad women and was admitted into an insane asylum. The few days she spent there became the basis of her most famous book, "Ten Days In A Mad-House." Afterwards, she set to break the record of traveling around the world in 80 days, and beat it with 72 days instead. After her travels, Cochran settled down and worked as an author. Additionally, she served as an inventor, a story writer on World War One, and was the first woman to visit the war zone.
Elizabeth Cochran married Robert Seaman, a millionaire manufacturer, in 1895. After her husband's death in 1904, she took over his business and ran it successfully until it went bankrupt. She died in 1922 to pneumonia in NYC. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1998, and was one of four women to be honored with a "Women in Journalism" stamp set in 2002.
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