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Essay on Nellie Bly the Journalist

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Introduction To read of Nellie Bly, one would come to think the woman a pioneer in journalism; a hero for women's rights; and an American icon. These beliefs would be true if not for the fact that Bly was so much more. She was much more a woman, much more a writer, much more a hero and much more than most could ever be. Bly not only took on a world of injustice and stereotypes, but conquered it and changed the way the field of journalism works today. Elizabeth Cochran, a.k.a. Nellie Bly was the first known female reporter. Bly's life spanned Reconstruction, the Victorian and Progressive Eras, the Great War, and its aftermath (Kroeger, 1996). And, even though there remains no fully organized collection of her life's personal or …show more content…

In his column, "Quiet Observations," Erasmus Wilson portrayed the notion that women of the day were "useless outside the sphere of marriage" (Wildemuth, 1999). This infuriated Cochran, and she quickly sent a heated letter to the editor of The Dispatch, signed "Lonely Orphan Girl" (Toth, 1994). The newspaper's editor was so taken with her letter that he asked her to reveal herself, and within a week, offered her a writing position with the publication (Toth 1999). It was then, at the young age of 20, that Cochran adopted the pen name "Nellie Bly." A Star is Born: A World is Changed Bly was not content to just write columns for the Dispatch and confronted her editors about engaging in a new kind of journalism. This new type of undercover journalism, nicknamed "stunt" at the time, was risky enough for a reporter, let alone a female one. Bly's first "stunt" assignment was to disguise herself as a destitute woman and get a job at a local copper cable factory (Wildemuth 1999). Bly's illustrative descriptions of the factory's hazardous conditions not only forced the public to take interest in the workers' issues but also increased the paper's circulation. In 1887, Bly moved to New York to continue her journalistic ambitions. At first, no one wanted to hire the outspoken reporter, but Joseph Pulitzer, editor of The New York World, saw greatness within the young writer and quickly hired her. It was with his help that Bly embarked on one of her

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