Round the world in 72 days

NELLIE Bly was the name of a song by Stephen Foster and the name of a character in the song Frankie and Johnny recorded by, among others, Elvis. The name was also used as a pen name by an American journalist Elizabeth Cochran.
In her late teens, she was angered by a column in the Pittsburgh Dispatch and wrote an irate letter to the editor under the name Lonely Orphan Girl. He was so impressed that he invited the writer to work for the paper but when he saw that it was a girl, he withdrew the offer. She managed to change his mind and it was he who choose the pen name for her.
She started writing about the plight of working women but was soon forced into covering fashion, gardening and society. Dissatisfied she went to Mexico and worked as a foreign correspondent writing on the lives of the Mexican people. When the government threatened to arrest her, she was forced to leave. Back in Pittsburgh she was again reporting on the arts and theatre, so she left and succeeded in getting a job with the New York World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer.
She agreed to pretend insanity in order to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum. After being examined she was declared insane and admitted.  What she found was far worse than anything reported – rat infested, dirty rooms; hunger, patients tied together with ropes, made sit all day and beaten if they spoke. She was convinced that many were as sane as she was. After 10 days, The World got her released. Her report caused a sensation and brought her lasting fame.
She next persuaded the editor to send her on a round the world trip to attempt to repeat Jules Verne’s story Around the World in 80 Days. On November 14, 1889 she left New York on her 25,000 mile journey with a strong overcoat and a small travel bag. She also had £200 in sterling notes and gold and some US dollars which she carried in a purse round her neck.
A rival paper Cosmopolitan sent their own reporter round the world in the opposite direction in an effort to beat Bly.
She basically used the route which Pineas Fogg used in the book and when she reached France, Bly actually met Jules Verne She travelled on through the Suez Canal, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. The development of the telegraph allowed her send short progress reports to the paper. However because of rough weather in the Pacific, she arrived in San Francisco two days behind schedule. The World chartered its own train and got her back on time.
She left journalism following her marriage but when her businesses failed she was back reporting and true to her origins, covered the Women’s Suffrage Movement. When America entered the First World War she became a war correspondent and covered the Eastern front in Europe. She was the subject of a book, a Broadway musical and a film and was later featured on a US postage stamp.
Nellie Bly completed her round the world trip in 72 days, six hours and eleven minutes when she arrived back in Hoboken, New Jersey on January 25, 1890 – 122 years ago this week.