i am sassa

Nellie Bly’s first published writing was an annoyed letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch, who had previously published a letter called “What Girls are Good For” by Some Butthole Guy (I’ll just let you go wild imagining the content of such a letter by such a person in the late 1800s). Her letter was so impressive that it was published along with a request for the author to reveal herself. Nellie (then Elizabeth Jane Cochran) had signed the letter “Anonymous”. When she went to meet the editor, he offered her a job as a reporter, and she took Nellie Bly as her pen name.

When she got bored of the fancy “women’s articles” to which she was assigned ( I can only imagine…tea? flowers? the tragedy of the corset?), Nellie left for New York, leaving her boss a letter that said: I’m off for New York. Look out for me. -Bly. That is so badass.

In her first year reporting for the New York World, Nellie basically invented the field of investigative journalism. She faked a mental illness to get committed to Blackwell’s Island Asylum, and upon her release ten days later, she wrote a horrifying exposé about the mistreatment she experienced and witnessed. Less than a month after she published that work, the asylum began cleaning up its act. All the Nurse and Dr. Ratcheds were canned, they started feeding people real food, and hired translators who would help them discover that many of the immigrant patients weren’t crazy after all; they just had a language barrier.

Nellie went on to do more daring acts of badass journalism, including her record-breaking 72-day trip around the world that included all the typical forms of travel, like trains and donkeys. And because she liked blasting through gender norms like the Kool-Aid Man through a brick wall, she also later decided to be president of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company. Oh yeah, and invented the leak-proof steel oil drums that are still used today. Whoa, Nellie.

You have no idea the amount of restraint it took for me to wait that long to say that.

Sadly for Nellie, being ahead of one’s time doesn’t come with equally progressive health care, and she died of pneumonia when she was only 57 years old. I can’t imagine what else she may have accomplished had she lived longer.

Thank you, Nellie Bly.