The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E3: Nelly Goes Undercover

Summary

The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer - Season 3, Episode 3: "Nelly Goes Undercover"

Release Date: April 14, 2025
Host: Anna Sinfield
Guest: Kim Todd, Researcher and Author of "Sensational: The Hidden History of America's Girl Stunt Reporters"

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Introduction

In the third episode of Season 3 of "The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer," host Anna Sinfield delves into the riveting tale of Nellie Bly, the pioneering female investigative journalist whose fearless undercover work in the late 19th century reshaped American journalism. This episode, aptly titled "Nelly Goes Undercover," explores how Bly's daring exploits not only exposed systemic abuses but also ignited a revolution among female journalists across the nation.

Nellie Bly: Early Life and Determination

Timestamp: 07:00 - 10:08

Anna Sinfield introduces Nellie Bly, born Elizabeth Cochran in the mid-19th century in small-town western Pennsylvania. Facing a tumultuous childhood marked by her father's early death and her stepfather's abusive behavior, Bly developed a fierce desire for independence. As Kim Todd explains, Bly's upbringing instilled in her the determination to forge her own path, leading her to pursue journalism despite the societal constraints of her time.

Notable Quote:

"Nellie Bly was born in the mid-19th century... the idea of marriage wasn't particularly attractive to her."
— Kim Todd [07:04]

Breaking into Journalism

Timestamp: 09:36 - 11:54

Bly's entry into journalism began with a bold letter to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, advocating for better job opportunities for women. Her impassioned plea caught the attention of the newspaper's editor, leading to her first article, "The Girl Puzzle." Despite initial assignments to societal and fashion writing—a common relegation for female journalists at the time—Bly's ambition drove her to seek more substantial and impactful stories.

Notable Quote:

"We need better jobs for women... instead of gathering up the real smart young men, gather up the real smart girls."
— Kim Todd [09:39]

The Asylum Undercover Assignment

Timestamp: 11:14 - 16:33

Determined to make a significant impact, Bly secured a position at the prestigious New York World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer. Here, she proposed and undertook one of her most audacious stunts: going undercover in the notoriously harsh women's lunatic asylum on Blackwell's Island. Despite the inherent risks, including potential drugging and sexual assault, Bly's resolve to uncover the truth about the asylum's conditions never wavered.

Notable Quote:

"I will literally do anything to write for the world."
— Nellie Bly [11:54]

Inside Blackwell's Island: Exposing Abuse

Timestamp: 16:47 - 25:07

Bly meticulously chronicled the appalling conditions within the asylum. From witnessing physical abuse by nurses to observing the deplorable living conditions, her reports painted a grim picture of systemic mistreatment. She detailed the everyday horrors faced by the inmates, many of whom were wrongfully institutionalized due to societal prejudices or personal circumstances.

Notable Quote:

"They were people without any recourse or without any friends who they had power over."
— Kim Todd [20:33]

The Impact of "Inside the Madhouse"

Timestamp: 30:24 - 34:01

Bly's groundbreaking article, "Inside the Madhouse," ignited public outrage and led to tangible reforms. Her vivid descriptions and fearless reporting prompted a grand jury investigation, resulting in increased funding for the asylum and recommendations for better treatment of patients. Moreover, Bly's success inspired a new wave of female journalists eager to pursue investigative reporting.

Notable Quote:

"If I could not bring them that boon of all boons, Liberty, I hoped at least to influence others to make life more bearable for them."
— Nellie Bly [32:07]

Revolutionizing Female Journalism

Timestamp: 37:11 - 42:05

Bly's pioneering efforts laid the groundwork for what came to be known as "girl stunt reporting." Her fearless approach encouraged hundreds of women to emulate her methods, resulting in widespread investigative journalism that addressed critical social issues. Reporters like Nell Nelson and Caroline Lockhart followed in Bly's footsteps, tackling topics from factory abuses to illegal abortions, thereby expanding the scope and influence of female journalists in the United States.

Notable Quote:

"They belong all around the world."
— Kim Todd [35:17]

Personal Life and Legacy

Timestamp: 36:46 - 43:50

Despite her professional success, Bly maintained a private personal life. She experienced various personal challenges, including failed relationships and business setbacks. Nonetheless, her commitment to journalism never faltered, continuing her work until her death. Bly's legacy is one of courage, innovation, and unwavering determination, inspiring future generations to pursue truth and justice through fearless reporting.

Notable Quote:

"Nellie Bly was literally a Persona. It was a pseudonym."
— Kim Todd [36:46]

Conclusion: Continuing the Legacy

Timestamp: 43:50 - End

Anna Sinfield reflects on Nellie Bly's enduring influence, highlighting how her work not only brought about immediate reforms but also established a lasting legacy for female journalists. The episode underscores the importance of female solidarity and the transformative power of journalism in advocating for societal change.

Closing Remarks:

"I just hope that people will see past my seasonal hat collection too, as fabulous as it is."
— Anna Sinfield [44:47]

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Key Takeaways

• Nellie Bly's Pioneering Spirit: Bly's determination and bravery set the stage for modern investigative journalism, particularly for women in the field.

• Exposing Systemic Abuse: Her undercover work in Blackwell's Island unveiled the harsh realities faced by women unjustly institutionalized, leading to significant reforms.

• Inspiring Future Generations: Bly's success inspired a generation of female journalists to pursue impactful and daring investigative work, expanding the horizons of journalism.

• Personal Resilience: Despite personal and professional challenges, Bly's unwavering commitment to journalism highlights the resilience required to drive meaningful change.

Supporting Information

• Book Mentioned: Kim Todd's "Sensational: The Hidden History of America's Girl Stunt Reporters" provides an in-depth exploration of Nellie Bly and her contemporaries who revolutionized journalism.

• Charity Support: This episode supports Womankind Worldwide, a charity dedicated to advancing women's rights globally. Donations can be made at womankind.org.uk.

Final Notes

"The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer" masterfully intertwines historical narrative with contemporary reflections, showcasing the power of female friendship and solidarity in driving societal change. Through the lens of Nellie Bly's extraordinary career, the episode celebrates the indomitable spirit of women who dare to challenge the status quo and advocate for justice.

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Produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.

Transcript

[Anna Sinfield]

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[Anna Sinfield]

Hey listener. In this episode we'll be mentioning themes like physical and sexual abuse, but we'll also be talking about probably the most kick ass female journalist you've ever heard of. And in the spirit of the show there's also going to be some inevitable bad language. Oh, well, I was having dinner with some of my oldest friends the other night. The kind of old friends who you don't ask about work because we're not entirely sure what the other one does. But at some point in the evening, after saying I was still jet lagged from one of my recent reporting trips to New York, one of them actually asked what I was doing there. And so I told them I was interviewing some convicted murderers and for safety reasons, I was assigned a chaperone. My friend, who is a therapist, audibly sighed. The last time I think she sighed at me like that. I'd just described the moment I was on an industrial estate at night, the sound of gravel being poured into a pit behind me while a prolific gangster threatened to kill me and my family. Or actually, was it the time that an interviewee insisted I fired their AK47 at a gun range? Or when someone suddenly changed route and drove me without warning out into the Alaskan abyss where there's no electricity or plumbing? I forget. She sighs at me a lot. And so does my mum. And occasionally so do I. Because in all of those moments, I've been truly fucking terrified. And yet I keep on doing it, chasing my story like some crazed dog following a rabbit into a burrow and getting stuck. The scary thing is, I think I actually even like that feeling, knowing I'm on that knife's edge of things going really horribly wrong. This is the point where my therapist friend would sigh me again. As a journalist, I thought I'd seen some shit. But then I heard about someone who blows all of that out of the water. Nellie Bly, the original female investigative reporter. The more I read about her, the more I realized I'm part of a long lineage of stubborn women obsessed with chasing their story no matter what. And that all started with Nelly. In this episode, we're going back to the 1800s on the trail of Nelly's dazzling and groundbreaking career. I want to find out how Nelly, as a woman in the notoriously unemancipated 19th century, did something so brave so you could argue stupid that she changed journalism forever. You see, really, Nellie Bly was pretty punk. For her first ever story, Nelly literally risked her life by going undercover in an insane asylum. She was drugged, half starved, manipulated by doctors. As the screams of other patients echoed around the corridors, Nelly didn't know if she would ever get hammered. I'm Anna Sinfield, and from the teams At Novel and iHeart podcasts, this is the Girlfriend Spotlight where we tell stories of women winning. Today, Nelly goes undercover. I got you. I got you. As soon as I heard about her, I knew Nellie Bly would be the perfect guest for the girlfriends. But unfortunately, not even extreme levels of girl power could keep someone alive for 150 years. So instead, I turned to Kim Todd. Kim is a researcher and author who wrote the definitive book about Nelly and the revolution that she started. So, Kim, I'm fascinated to learn all there is about Nelly. She sounds so cool. She was, like, the first original female investigative journalist, wasn't she?

[Kim Todd]

Yeah, she really was.

[Anna Sinfield]

So what do we need to know about Nelly? What's her story? Who is she?

[Kim Todd]

So Nellie bly was born in the mid-19th century and grew up in small town, western Pennsylvania. Her father died when she was pretty young, and her stepfather was really horrible and very abusive. So she, in this household where she was, you know, watching him choke her mother, call her mother, like, whore, call her mother bitch. So the idea of marriage wasn't particularly attractive to her. And also the idea that, like, she was gonna need to pay her own way and find a job and support herself and not have to depend on a man was really instilled in her.

[Anna Sinfield]

From very young, Nellie was determined to lead an independent life. That meant she needed to find a career for herself. And one of the most common routes available to women at the time, in the late 1800s, was teaching. She tried to get her teaching certificate, but she ran out of money before she could even finish the training. When Nellie surveyed what other options were available to her as a young woman, tumbleweeds rolled past her and then a newspaper.

[Kim Todd]

She was reading the local newspaper, the Pittsburgh dispatch, and there was a debate at the time about, you know, where do women belong? Should they be at home taking care of kids, you know, making it a little paradise on earth, or should they be out in the world? And she wrote in to the Pittsburgh dispatch and said, you know, we need better jobs for women. And she signed this letter, lonely orphan girl. And there was something about the letter that really intrigued the editor of the Pittsburgh dispatch. And he put a notice in the paper and said, you know, lonely orphan girl. Come by the office, and, you know, we might have something for you. And her first article is called the girl puzzle. And it's elaborating on the case that she made in her letter where she says, you know, we really need better jobs for women. Not all women marry. They're still gonna need money. So she says, you know, well, why? Why can't we let girls do better things that will get them a better start in the world. And then this is one of my favorite quotes from this very early piece of hers. When she's still figuring out how to write. Instead of gathering up the real smart young men, gather up the real smart girls, pull them out of the mire, give them a shove up the ladder of life.

[Anna Sinfield]

I love that one. That one's so good.

[Kim Todd]

And so she has to do that for herself, though. She's given herself this shove. And then she goes to work as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Dispatch for the next couple of years.

[Anna Sinfield]

It wasn't totally unusual for a woman to be a journalist when Nelly was starting out, but the opportunities for female journalists kind of mirrored what was available to women in the general society. You know, like, they weren't expected to worry their pretty little heads about complicated, manly stuff like politics or societal injustice.

[Kim Todd]

She kind of gets shunted into the writing that most women who worked for newspapers did at the time. The society writing, the fashion writing. And she wasn't really interested in that.

[Anna Sinfield]

After a while, Nellie got frustrated with the work she was allowed to do at the Pittsburgh Dispatch. She set her sights on much bigger goals.

[Kim Todd]

She's very ambitious and has, like, a great sense of what she might do in the world. So after two years, she goes to New York and. And she anticipates fame and fortune and tells her friends of the Pittsburgh Dispatch to watch for her as she, you know, makes a splash in the big city, which she completely does not. She spends months there, like, trying even to get in the door at various editors. There's lots of people who want to work as reporters, and not many people want to hire women. But finally, she talks her way into the office of the editor of the New York World, which is the biggest, splashiest paper at the time.

[Anna Sinfield]

The New York World. This was the big leagues at the time. When Nellie stomped her way into the editor's office, the paper was owned by Joseph Pulitzer. Yes, the one the prize is named after, the New York World. Circulation was nearly 1 million copies a day. Standing in front of the editor was the biggest opportunity Nellie would probably have in her entire career. She was determined to land a job and to prove to those hacks in Pittsburgh what she was really worth. She tells the editor, I will literally do anything to write for the world.

[Kim Todd]

And he says, well, do you think that you can get yourself committed to the insaneness for women on Blackwell's island, which is this notoriously bad insane asylum, which there's just been rumors of mistreatment there for years and years. And she answers, I don't know what I can do until I try. And the editor says, well, you can try, but if you can do it, it's more than anyone would believe.

[Anna Sinfield]

Just a few weeks later, Nellie Bly's first ever article for the New York World is published. It splashed all over the front pages, being flogged by newsboys across the city. The headline reads, Inside the Madhouse.

[Kim Todd]

In the first paragraph, she writes, could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would and I did.

[Anna Sinfield]

Okay, Ms. Bligh. Up next. Next we find out how Nelly smuggles herself into the asylum and tries not to get stuck there forever.

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[Anna Sinfield]

Got you. I've got you. Got you. I've got you. Okay, so how on earth does Nelly manage to get inside this notorious insane asylum, the women's lunatic asylum.

[Kim Todd]

So she books herself into this boarding house for women and starts to act very odd. She keeps asking for her trunks and she doesn't know where her trunks are and is very concerned about them. And she doesn't go to sleep at night. Like she is acting very what we described today as paranoid and afraid. And she says that people are looking at her very oddly and eventually the other women in the boarding house just start to get very disturbed by her behaviors. And that's at the point where the matron calls the police and has her taken away.

[Anna Sinfield]

Wow, that is such a courageous and scary and maybe slightly stupid thing to do. I mean, how old was she at this point?

[Kim Todd]

So she was in her early 20s.

[Anna Sinfield]

Okay, so that's amazing. And was this sort of big stunt, you know, going and getting yourself committed to an insane asylum? Was that something that was Going on generally in journalism at the time, perhaps obviously by male reporters. Or was this a whole new genre?

[Kim Todd]

I mean, people did do undercover work at the time, but the particular way that Nellie Bly did it was really not something that had ever been done before.

[Anna Sinfield]

And I guess, like, I know she was asked to do it by her editor, but did she also have a personal reason for wanting to cover this story?

[Kim Todd]

I think that she really wanted to do meaningful work, which is what she had been arguing for from the beginning. So I do think that she saw great value in helping out these women and reforming the system. And that was something that would be important to her throughout her life.

[Anna Sinfield]

So can you tell us a little bit about her story with this insane asylum? Like, how did it go? What did she uncover?

[Kim Todd]

Yeah, so when she gets committed to the asylum, she gets put on a boat across the East River. And on the boat, she meets another woman consigned to the asylum, Tilly Maillard. And this is sort of a clue as to what she would find in the asylum when she gets there, because Maillard seemed actually sane. She just seemed very sick. And she thought that she was being sent to, like, a place that would help her get better. And she was really devastated when she found out that she was on her way to the asylum. Bly describes being driven in what was some sort of ambulance from the. Where the boat docked to the asylum. And then they go up this rather grand entrance to this white building called the Octagon, which is where the asylum was. And when they arrive, Bly hears Maillard pleading her case. You know, she's. Maillard is saying, you know, test me for insanity. I'm not insane. But she's ignored. Then they're checked in and they're processed and given these freezing cold baths and had their usual clothes taken away from them and transformed into patients at the asylum.

[Anna Sinfield]

And so what sort of things did Nellie Bly witness inside the asylum?

[Kim Todd]

Bly sees women getting slapped. They're being fed rancid food. They're being bathed in freezing water and not given warm enough blankets and nightclothes. And like Maillard, like most of the women that Bly talked to, did not seem to be mentally ill. They seemed to be sick or they were poor and didn't have relatives to take care of them, or they had committed adultery and their husbands wanted to get rid of them, or they didn't speak English.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah. I mean, it's so depressing, isn't it, that this is how they were using mental illness at the time as a Sort of handy tool to just remove and imprison women who didn't fit into the mold of society. What does Nellie say about what sounds like very common abuse of the patients by the staff?

[Kim Todd]

She makes it clear that many of them, the nurses in particular, enjoyed tormenting the patients. You know, they were people without any recourse or without any friends who they had power over.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah, I mean, it's a perfect place for abuse to manifest, isn't it?

[Kim Todd]

Yeah. The idea is that no one's watching, right? And then all of a sudden, there's someone watching.

[Anna Sinfield]

In the article, Nellie quoted one of the women, Mrs. Cotter, describing how she'd been beaten because she'd been crying. The nurses beat me with a broom handle and jumped on me, injuring me internally so that I shall never get over it. Then they tied my hands and feet and throwing a sheet over my head, twisted it tightly around my throat so I could not scream, and thus put me in a bathtub filled with cold water. They held me under until I gave up every hope and became senseless. Nellie writes that Mrs. Cotter then showed her, and I quote, the dent in the back of her head and the bare spots where the hair had been taken by the handful. But it seemed that the treatment Nellie was uncovering wasn't even the worst of it. You see, Nellie was placed with the general population. But she soon learned that there were other wings, too.

[Kim Todd]

The most severely mentally ill patients were kept in separate areas called the Lodge and the Retreat. And Bly said that she didn't even attempt to get herself committed there because she thought it'd be too dangerous. But she talks about hearing the sounds from the patients there and how much distress it like they were in.

[Anna Sinfield]

All of these women were locked away on Blackwell island without any real recourse, just out of reach of their old lives, which used to unfold on the.

[Kim Todd]

Other side of the east river from the island. You know, you can look over and see New York City. You can see Manhattan. You can see, like, the lights of people who are still embraced by society playing out, but feel so isolated and feel so shunned to be put on this island.

[Anna Sinfield]

Nellie, who, remember, was in her 20s and who had never done anything like this before, had to stay focused on the task at hand.

[Kim Todd]

One of her big struggles was how to report this story while she was there being treated as a patient. And she smuggled in a pencil and a notebook so she can take notes and do her work, and they are confiscated. When she gets into the asylum and she asks about It. It had been in her. And she's told, you can't have it, so shut up. And when she asks about it again, the doctor tells her that she hadn't brought a pencil and that she should.

[Anna Sinfield]

Stop hallucinating at all times. Nellie was dancing on the line of losing herself, losing her sanity to the darkest recesses of the asylum.

[Kim Todd]

She was very much at risk. She was at risk of being drugged, she was at risk of staying there. She was at risk of sexual assault, which isn't something that she plays up, but kind of hints around a little bit in the. And was certainly something that happened to women who had been discarded by mainstream society. And there's this one instance where they give her a drug, and she knows that she needs to keep her wits about her while she's there. And so as soon as the nurse is gone, she throws it up.

[Anna Sinfield]

Throughout her time in the asylum, Nellie remains close to Tilly Maillard, the woman she met on the boat at the very start.

[Kim Todd]

One of the saddest things in her. She just talks about how Maillard really declines rapidly under the strain of the cold and the terrible food. One day they're sitting together on a bench and Maillard just collapses into a fit. And when the superintendent comes in, Bly describes later he caught her roughly between the eyebrows or thereabouts and pinched her until her face was crimson. And Bly said that when, you know, Maillard came to, she was never really the same after.

[Anna Sinfield]

And for the women who were committed to the asylum, what was their fate? Would a lot of them just kind of languish there for years on end or were they actually being treated to be released?

[Kim Todd]

I think that they just languished there for years on end. Very notably, Bly describes the asylum as a human rat trap and wrote that it's easy to get in, but once there, it's impossible to get out.

[Anna Sinfield]

By now, Nellie had spent 10 days in the human rat trap. It was time to attempt that impossible feat, her escape. How did Nellie actually manage to get herself out of the asylum?

[Kim Todd]

So Nellie spent 10 days there, and then the world's lawyer came and said that he was a relative and that he would take care of her and got her released.

[Anna Sinfield]

It turns out that actually if one of the most powerful media entities in New York or, you know, a long lost uncle came to your rescue, it wasn't actually so difficult to leave the women's lunatic asylum, which just sort of underlines the level of abandonment most of the women on the inside were facing. Once out, Nellie got to writing.

[Kim Todd]

She worked incredibly quickly because it was just a few weeks later that she published. It is the first of two very long pieces in the world detailing her experience at the Asylum.

[Anna Sinfield]

Coming up How Nelly's article shook the City of New York and made Nelly into a superstar.

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[Kim Todd]

Ooh.

[Anna Sinfield]

What happens to Nelly and her article once it gets out? Does it have a big impact?

[Kim Todd]

It has a huge impact. It's this explosive story and it's not just the story of what happened in the asylum. It's also the story of this young woman being able to sneak her way into the asylum. And she tells it very vividly. She tells it through this engaging, funny, descriptive narrator herself, the character of Nellie Bly, and she just makes people really feel like they're there.

[Anna Sinfield]

Here's Nellie's fantastic description of having dinner at the asylum. We were marched into a long narrow dining room where a rush was made for the table. The table reached the length of the room and was uncovered and uninviting, placed close together. All along the table were large dressing bowls filled with a pinkish looking stuff which the patients called tea. By each bowl was laid a piece of bread cut thick and unbuttered. A small saucer containing five prunes accompanied the bread. One fat woman made a rush and jerking up several saucers from those around her, emptied their contents into her own saucer. Then, while holding to her own bowl, she lifted up another and drained its contents at one gulp. This she did to a second bowl in a shorter time than it takes to tell it. The article didn't just make for breathless reading. The outrage it caused among the people of New York led to a grand jury being called probing the conditions of the asylum and debating solutions. When testifying in front of the jury, Nellie said this great line about what she hoped her work could do for the women inside.

[Kim Todd]

If I could not bring them that boon of all boons, Liberty, I hoped at least to influence others to make life more bearable for them. And she visits the facility with people from the grand jury, and it's determined that the asylum should get an extra $50,000 to care for patients. And the grand jury also recommends the hiring of more female doctors to eliminate that possibility of abuse.

[Anna Sinfield]

That's amazing that after her first article like this, Nelly managed to create so much real impact. What kind of impact did it have in terms of her being like a female reporter?

[Kim Todd]

The secondary impact was that Bly's work was so popular that editors all over the country thought, I would like to hire somebody to do this kind of work and run these kind of articles.

[Anna Sinfield]

And.

[Kim Todd]

And it was a genre that became known as girl stunt reporting. And lots of women all over the country who, like Bly, were looking for meaningful work thought, I would like to be one of these kinds of reporters. And launched this entire decade of female investigative journalism.

[Anna Sinfield]

I can totally imagine if I was around back then, if I read this article, that would have been me done. I would have been writing into newspapers and saying, can I please be a girl stunt reporter? That sounds great.

[Kim Todd]

No editors describe being besieged by women showing up at their offices.

[Anna Sinfield]

The revolution started. I guess that means that also Nellie's career must have taken off at that point, too.

[Kim Todd]

Oh, hugely. It's very interesting to watch. Originally her articles are signed on the bottom, but soon she is in the headline like she is the news. It's Nellie Bly Investigates Orphanages or Nellie Bly Goes around the World.

[Anna Sinfield]

Tell me about that, because that sounds like the best job ever. And the budgets just aren't there anymore.

[Kim Todd]

They definitely aren't. So she's been working at the world for a number of years at this point, and she's wondering what her next big thing is going to be. And she decides that she's going to try to beat the fictional record established by Jules Verne in his novel around the world in 80 days. So she's like, I bet I can go around the world faster than 80 days. And the publisher supports her. And it is this huge sensation. It's this huge stunt. Like, it really made her even more famous than she had Already been. There's massive coverage of every stop and huge illustrations. And she makes it around the world in 72 days and triumphantly lands in New Jersey. And it's very much taken as a triumph of the new American girl. You know, what can't an American girl do? It's really showing this kind of new woman which we're gonna enter the new century with.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah, like an influencer from the 19th century.

[Kim Todd]

Yeah, I mean, I think that it was similar to the. That we look at history or great feats of women today. Like, it's just the fact of her having done it was very inspirational to a lot of people and really definitively answered. The question which she wanted to answer for the Pittsburgh Dispatch was like, where do women belong? Her answer was like, not even in the house, not even in the workplace. They belong all around the world.

[Anna Sinfield]

How did she feel about the fame and recognition that she got?

[Kim Todd]

I mean, I think that she always wanted to be a successful journalist. So I think that she was very happy to have her name out there, be desired, be able to command large amounts of money at the same time. She kept her personal life pretty private. She had this Persona of Nellie Bly, who is very lighthearted and free spirited and brave and funny. But we don't always know what was going on behind the scenes and what was going on in her heart.

[Anna Sinfield]

Nellie Bly was literally a Persona. It was a pseudonym, you know, like Catwoman, Madonna, that kind of thing. The reporter's real name was actually Elizabeth Cochran. And Elizabeth, unlike Nellie, well, she largely kept herself to herself. I mean, the gossip monger in me is curious. Do we know kind of what her love life was like, what her family setup was as she had this career.

[Kim Todd]

So she cared for her mother throughout her life. She had a number of love affairs which didn't work out as she was working through her reporting career. Eventually she married a very wealthy man and they had a reasonably successful relationship, it seems like, until he died and she took over his business and was swindled and the business went bankrupt.

[Anna Sinfield]

Oh, no.

[Kim Todd]

And then she went back to reporting. She had editor friends who were like, you know, Nellie Bly, your forte is really reporting and you should come back and do it. And she did. And she reported pretty much up to her death, you know, through World War I. It was really her strength and she was really exceptional at it.

[Anna Sinfield]

Nellie was a reporter at heart. And so were those hundreds of women who besieged editors offices inspired by her. There was Nell Nelson, who worked for the Chicago Times and went undercover as a Worker at female factories in Chicago, exposing physical and sexual abuse and child labor. There was Caroline Lockhart, who worked at the Boston Post, who went undercover as a drug addict in a women's rehab center to expose the conditions for the women on the inside. But she also did these weird and cool tabloidy stunts, like going inside a lion's cage for an article or diving to the bottom of Boston harbor in a diving suit. I never get those gifts. There was also the story that fascinated me most about a Chicago Times reporter whose identity had never been revealed. I would love you to tell me the story of this anonymous girl reporter who investigated the abortion story.

[Kim Todd]

So the story of the girl reporter is that one November day in Chicago, a young woman went around and she visited doctor after doctor and she pretended to be pregnant, and she requested an abortion and recorded their response. The procedure was illegal, and she was investigating how many physicians and midwives were willing to break the law. By the end of her investigation, she had visited more than 200 doctors. And in December of that year, she published her reporting about the availability of abortion in the city. And the paper scolded the doctors. And the woman who just went by the name girl reporter said that she was against abortion and hoped that the doctors would, you know, be shamed.

[Anna Sinfield]

And what impact did her reporting have then?

[Kim Todd]

The effect of the reporting was that it was clear that anyone who wanted an abortion in Chicago could get one. It was available, you know, to anyone for a wide variety of prices. The girl reporter documented the addresses, the kinds of operations that were available, which medicines you could take, and at what dosage.

[Anna Sinfield]

Wow. So it ends up being a kind of bible for how to get an abortion, basically.

[Kim Todd]

It really was. And I don't know what her actual purpose was. Again, you know, she said that she was against it and that the paper was doing it to highlight these abuses, but she provided more information about abortion than wouldn't have been available in any other highly public space like the pages of the Chicago Times.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah, I mean, I desperately hope, because it's just such a cool thing to do, that she wrote that line in to get it past her editors. But actually, she was doing this really amazing act, you know, getting all this information out there. Whatever anonymous girl reporter's true motives were, I think her story shows just what a radical new era American journalism was in and the huge impact of this kind of daring female led reporting. It wasn't only women's issues, specifically, that this generation of women journalists were now.

[Kim Todd]

Creating space for another woman who was doing very innovative investigative Journalism at the time, but not in the girls stunt reporter mode was this reporter named Ida B. Wells who wrote about lynching in a really unflinching way.

[Anna Sinfield]

And a lot of the names these women used were fake, weren't they? They were pseudonyms. And like, to be fair, they're all way cooler than my real name, so I'm starting to consider that. But why were they working under these pseudonyms?

[Kim Todd]

It's a complicated question. I think a lot of women did it because it wasn't quite respectable, you know, reporting itself. Putting yourself out into the public sphere was on the edge of respectability. But also as. As time went on, the role became somewhat of an expectation. So if women showed up into newspaper office and wanted to do a different kind of newspaper work and the editor was like, what you really need to do is get yourself arrested and talk about what's going on in the jail, that wouldn't have been so attractive to women who wanted to cover the presidential race or something like that. So I do think that this opportunity became a bit of an imprisoning expectation.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah, well, even the title girl stunt reporters, it feels it's, you know, it's a little cheap.

[Kim Todd]

Oh, it definitely is. Like girl stunt reporters is definitely a slur often used by male reporters at the time who are jealous of their high paychecks and high profiles. But it's also, to me, a useful term to describe exactly what was going on during this 10 year period, because they didn't hide that they were female. So I think there's something valuable about the term, even though I recognize, yes, female investigative reporters sound much better.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah, I think I'd go for that. So girls don't reporter. I'm leaning. I'm leaning in. And generally, what was the playing field like in terms of rights for women in the late 1800s in America? What did Natalie have available to her as well as the other women that she was writing about?

[Kim Todd]

One of the things that's always so astonishing to me about these women doing this work at this time is that they couldn't vote and they would not be able to vote for decades and decades. Some of them interviewed the president but were not able to vote for the president. So many fewer rights than you'd imagine, given the quite prominent position that some of them occupied.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah. And often reporting on very political things. Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that's kind of at the heart of the Girlfriends is this idea that it's women looking out for each other. We celebrate female friendship and how powerful that can Be actually as a force of change, not just as a force of connection. How. How did Nellie's work help give a voice to women's issues? How did she go about doing that?

[Kim Todd]

Well, it was really one of the ways that she was most revolutionary, because only a woman can go undercover in women's spaces. So when all of a sudden you had demand for this kind of reporting, you were able to see what's going on inside women's factories. You were able to see what's going on inside jails where women are imprisoned. You were able to see how women were treated in public hospitals. And that was a perspective that only these female investigative reporters could provide. And so all of a sudden, you had very different kinds of stories on the front pages. Before, coverage of women was really like you were murdered or you were wearing the spring's best new hat. But now all these women dominated spaces were really taking up cultural space.

[Anna Sinfield]

What I love about Nelly's story is that it's kind of twofold. Undoubtedly, Nelly made a genuine difference for other women in America. But what actually inspires me, I guess selfishly, as a fellow journalist, are the opportunities that she afforded herself through her sheer will to live an independent life. She created an entirely new genre of journalism. Not only that, but she lived well and on her own terms. That's so cool. I mean, what more could somebody want? She was celebrated for her courage and her contemporary writing, not her spring hat in a world where spring hats were a really big deal. So I guess my main takeaway from all of this is that I should keep doing what I'm doing. I just hope that people will see past my seasonal hat collection too, as fabulous as it is. Thank you so much to Kim Todd for taking us through Nellie's epic story. Kim's book is called Sensational the Hidden History of America's Girl Stunt Reporters. You should read it. There's so much fascinating stuff about Nelly and the other women doing journalism at the time that we just couldn't fit into this episode. Next time on the Girlfriend Spotlight. June Rock America. We're starting a band. I might as well have said we're gonna walk on the moon. We just got better and better. And they would gobsmacked and they would rush up after the set and say.

[Unknown Advertiser]

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[Anna Sinfield]

Hey, you've reached the girlfriend's hotline. You can leave your mini story after the tone.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Right.

[Anna Sinfield]

Catch you later. Bye.

[Unknown Caller]

A time that my girlfriends really, really had my back was when I got savagely broken up with in a pub. Of all places and I was so distraught I could not stop crying. I thought I was going to be sick from crying. The only thing I could think to do was call my best friend who lives an hour away. I called her. I told her what happened. She said, give me an hour and meet me at your house. And by the time I got home to my house, she had assembled not only her but three of my other best friends and my sister were all waiting there for me to give me the softest landing possible and catch me. And it makes me emotional even to think about it because it was exactly what I needed. She just did it without asking. And I felt so supported and held by my friends. And that's just the kind of situation that you would not be able to survive without your girlfriends. So it made me appreciate my girls even more.

[Kim Todd]

Bye.

[Anna Sinfield]

If you have your own story like the one you just heard and you'd like the whole girlfriends gang to hear it, then please send it to us. You can record it it as a Voice memo under 90 seconds, please, and email it straight to thegirlfriendsnovel Audio. Please don't include your name. We're keeping things a little anon. We want stories like say that one time you faked an emergency on an awful date and your bestie bailed you out with a phone call. We love her. Or that time when all of your girls showed up on your doorstep. Weird. Five pizzas, two tubs of ice cream and three bottles of Sauvignon blanc because the man of your dreams just dumped you. I want stories that are meaningful or silly. I want big. I want small. I'm desperate to hear them, so send them over. This season we're supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide. They do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womankind.org.uk the Girlfriend Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit novel.org audio. The show is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield. This episode was written and produced by Jake Otyvich. Our researcher is Zayana Youssef. The editor is Hannah Marshall. Max o' Brien and Craig Strachan are our executive producers. Production management from Joe Savage, Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Jake Otyvich, Nicholas Alexander and Dana Sinfield. Original music composed by Louisa Gerstein and Gemma Freeman. The series artwork was designed by Christina Limcool. Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development and special thanks to Katrina Norville, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iheart Podcasts as well as Karlie Frankel and the whole team at wme.

[Kim Todd]

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[Anna Sinfield]

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[Anna Sinfield]

This is an iHeart podcast.