'Amazing' and true

 

“Onthe wagon sped, and I, as well as my comrades, gave a despairing farewellglance at freedom as we came in sight of the long stone buildings.”– Nellie Bly
That quote came from the beginning ofone of the most harrowing experiences a writer can put herself into –undercover reporting in a dangerous setting.  And while itmarked the start of a two-week living nightmare, it also marked the beginningof a reporting career that would catapult her into the role of the most famousreporter of her day.
Born on this date in 1864as Elizabeth Jane Cochran, Bly set the standards for how undercoverjournalism should be done and excited the imagination of the nationand the world with the things she was willing to do, putting her body on theline to “get the story and bring the truth to the world.”
The opening quote above came fromher smuggled notes out of the infamous Blackwell’s Island, a New York insaneasylum in the 1880s. Her reporting from there blew the lid off the terribleways the inmates were treated and led to vast reforms.  It was just the first of many, many thingsthat this diminutive and imaginative reporter would do, including traveling aroundthe world alone to attempt to break the record of the fictional Phileas Fogg inJules Verne’s book Around The World in 80Days.  She did it in just over 72days. 
Bly is a key character in my book And TheWind Whispered, set in 1894.  I’vestrived to keep her character true to the fortitude and actions she displayed.  The Amazing Nellie Bly was her title in thosedays.  It still applies today, and the reportingworld can be thankful that she was there to pave the way. 
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