Nellie Bly was a journalism pioneer, not just for women, but for all reporters. She had burst into the public view with her account of ten days in a mental asylum for women. But in 1889, another one of her projects attracted even more attention: a trip around the world by train, steamship, rickshaw, horse and donkey, all accomplished in 72 days.
At 2:30 am on Sunday morning, Nellie Bly stepped off the SS Augusta Victoria into the European darkness. After spending nearly eight days crossing the stormy Atlantic, she now began the leg of her journey that may have been more hectic than any other. The London correspondent for the New York World told her that he had received a letter from Jules Verne, author of “Around the World in Eighty Days,” inviting Bly to visit his wife and him at their home in Amiens, France.
Bly naturally jumped at the chance. Joe Pulitzer’s correspondent warned her that to visit Verne without losing all-important time, she would have to be moving for the next 24 hours. She responded that she would not “think about sleep or rest.”
Part of Nellie’s magic was created by her, but can you imagine the impact on young women across America? This is when the magic of her adventure was transferred to our family, and our Nellie, with the idea that a woman could do anything she set her mind to accomplish.
A tugboat took Bly from her landing place on the English Channel to the run-down docks of Southampton, UK. From there, she took a special mail train to London. That great city was a blur. She traveled from Waterloo Station to the London offices of The World, and from there to the American legation building on Victoria Street in Westminster. She ate breakfast at Charing Cross Station before leaving and heading east.
She found British trains to be much slower than those in America and slept through the journey of several hours to Folkestone, in the extreme southeast of England. At that point, she took a ferry across the Channel to Boulogne, France, a journey of only about 30 miles across waves of gray! There she took her first major detour, traveling about 65 miles south to the city of Amiens.
Verne was supportive at their meeting and wished Nellie good luck, saying, “If you do it in seventy-nine days, I shall applaud with both hands.”
Bly continued east through Europe and across the Mediterranean to Egypt and the Suez Canal only to discover she was now in a competition. On the same day she departed for London, another woman reporter had started around the globe. Her name was Elisabeth Bisland, and with Nellie and our own great aunt made the third Liz in the hunt for fame- direct or indirect. She left New York headed West in the opposite direction of Nellie and sponsored by Cosmopolitan magazine.
The competition provides contrast to Nellie’s voyage. According to an account in the Public Domain Review, Bisland “reveled in gracious hospitality and smart conversation, both of which were regularly on display in the literary salon that she hosted in her small apartment, where members of New York’s creative set gathered to discuss the artistic issues of the day.”
A tall and elegant lady, she had said “No!” to challenging Nellie because she had guests coming for dinner, had nothing to wear on the journey and no desire to cultivate the notoriety she was sure would come with such a race. But her editor buffaloed her into going on the trip. There was the potential for both fame and fortune.
The story of two daredevil “girl reporters” has now faded from the history books, but it lived on in our family with our Great Aunt Bly. Nellie’s detailed reports traveled slowly back to New York by ship for publication, so the World would “string out the story to maintain the public’s interest.” Her editors began taking bets on the time Bly would arrive back home, down to the minute. They also ran accounts of the Great Race from papers in the countries she visited.
It was electrifying. When Bly arrived in Hong Kong on Christmas day, she reported to the office of the “Oriental and Occidental Steamship Company” to set up her departure for Japan. The man in the office there told her she was going to lose her race. Bly wrote:
“Lose it? I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I demanded, beginning to think he was mad.
“Aren’t you having a race around the world?” he asked, as if he thought I was not Nellie Bly.
“Yes; quite right. I am running a race with Time,” I replied.
Bly was shocked to discover that Bisland was traveling as well, but she pressed east as her competitor went west. Bly made steady progress toward Japan, but allocated precious time to make a detour to purchase a monkey while awaiting for a steamship to be ready to sail east. After the long journey across the Pacific to San Francisco, she was greeted in America with delirious celebration.
The World chartered a single-car train to speed her across the country, a trip she wrote was “one maze of happy greetings, happy wishes, congratulating telegrams, fruit, flowers, loud cheers, wild hurrahs, rapid hand-shaking and a beautiful car filled with fragrant flowers attached to a swift engine that was tearing like mad through flower-dotted valley and over snow-tipped mountain, on–on–on! It was glorious! A ride worthy of a queen.”
Bisland had tougher travels. A rough east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic from England back to America cost her time and ultimately made her lose the race by four days. Much to Bisland’s dismay, she also arrived home famous and was appalled enough to spend a year in the United Kingdom and never discussed the details of her trip.
This remarkable trip made Nellie Bly so famous that her pen name was bestowed by our family on our Elizabeth, and it was engrained so deeply that she used it in preference to her actual given “Elizabeth Socotra” name for the better part of her long life. She used “Nellie Bly” to convey her sense of adventure, determination and lively wit. Nellie’s by-line carried through our lives as well as hers for decades.
Cheers, Aunt Bly! You will not be forgotten while we live! Of course, there was more for both the actual Nellie and our Aunt Bly, but we will cover that tomorrow. In the meantime, spare a thought for some remarkable ladies whose time has come alive again!
Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com