Nellie Bly in the Press

 

Nelly Bly In The Press

    There's no doubt in my mind that people loved Nellie Bly- she has an entire amusement park named after her! People admired her for her undercover work, and for how she stood up for misrepresented and mistreated women. Bly was the first journalist ever to use investigative journalism - and for that she has gone down in history.

In this article  we get to dig a little bit deeper about the fascination over Nellie Bly. As a Pennsylvania native herself, if Bly were to come back to life she would be more than satisfied with the state of Pennsylvania. In 2015, Bly was the subject of a virtual program called "Trailblazing Women in Journalism: The Legacy of Nellie Bly," presented by the Senator John Heinz History Center and the Women's Press Club of Pittsburgh. 

The people of Pennsylvania honor her for her investigative reporting that pioneered a new approach of documenting social problems (going undercover in the insane asylum) and being able to raise public awareness through her writing.

Bly's legendary status was confirmed after a lifelike statue of her was placed next to George Washington and Franco Harris at PIA (Pittsburgh International Airport). Think about that - next to a Steelers legend and founder father and first President of the United States. It was fitting for Bly to be gifted this honor because she made history as an innovative journalist and advocate for all women to look up too for the future.

Nellie Bly added to the art and culture program at Pittsburgh International Airport!

Read more about it here!

Rewind to the Past

Nellie Bly was making headlines. She was gaining attraction because of her writing

In the journal entitled Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl Stunt Reporting in Late Nineteenth Century America, I got the chance to dig deeper on how the press treated Nellie Bly during her prime era.  

Bly became a national phenomenon during a formative moment in American mass culture - "girl stunt reporters" became a thing in the late nineteenth century. It became so popular that it grown as recognizable in the popular press in the late 1880s and early 1890's. These newly-created 'stunt reporters' would get down and dirty when investigating, similar to Bly. They would visit dens, fake faint on the street to get admitted to hospitals, begged on the streets etc. These reporters were investigating the way Bly was renowned for.

Bly's name became synonymous with adventurous women. 

Another reason Bly became so popular was because American newsrooms at the time typically portrayed a masculine bastion - and many narratives that these 'stunt doubles' were creating were getting turned down. They were still not seen as "typical". 

"Given the visibility of women like stunt reporters, this characterization of journalism as single-mindedly male has obvious shortcomings. It has encouraged literary historians to misread news writing as a masculine antidote for women's influence on fiction, Moreover, it has obscured a national public venue for women's voices, created by female journalists who imaged themselves as vehicles of publicity, a dual role in which women acted simultaneously as both objects and agents."

    Let's talk about this... what do YOU think?

   - claims that "the stunt reporter's popularity may even have inspired a misogynist backlash against women's growing in newsroom"

- "they redefined reporting and used their bodies not just as a means of acquiring the news but as the very source of it" 

While Bly and her followers were sometimes scorned by what was considered more "traditional journalist" like Ida Tarbell, they were the first newspaperwomen to move, as a group, from the women's page to the front page, to criminal news, to political news. They were growing as people and their potential was skyrocketing.

In conclusion, Nellie Bly introduced a new type of journalism that was never before seen and she will always be remembered for it. People are never going to completely agree on anything, but people will always look up to Bly as a voice for woman and admire her for putting herself in situations that later started social movements. If the amusement park and statue doesn't say enough - I don't know what will.

Bly was remarkable for her time and the press showed HER  a positive light- but what came after is debatable.

Lutes, J. (2002). Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl Stunt Reporting in Late Nineteenth-Century America. American Quarterly, 54(2), 217-253. Retrieved April 1, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30041927