Why care about Nellie Bly?
As you’ll learn next week in Stephanie’s column, she was a pioneer in investigative reporting in the late 1800s—not to mention her gender-busting role as a world-famous woman journalist, proving defiantly that women could “do” journalism often better than men! Among her investigations, she helped to expose abusive conditions within mental asylums. (More next week from Stephanie on that.) Today—we want to share excerpts of her world-changing report from circling the Earth in record time. Thanks to the University of Pennsylvania, you can read Nellie’s entire book about her global adventures. Remember that she was an American zooming around the world in 1889, so some of her language and attitudes toward global cultures look sadly flawed, 120 years later. But, overall, she optimistically fueled global excitement for cross-cultural travel. For example, she came back with a glowing report on the Japanese, which was not always a popular American attitude. Here are samples of Nellie’s unique f
