In a male dominated era, Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman aka Nellie Bly (24) managed to carve out a position for herself as an investigative journalist at the New York’s World. Inspired by Jules Verne’s novel ‘’Around the World in 80 days” she approached the newspaper wanting to challenge the fictional character, Phileas Fogg’s feat. At first the idea was thought preposterous but with a little feminist persuasion Nellie set off on the 14 Nov 1889 towards Europe. The New York World created a huge media hype about the race that caught the entire world’s attention which lead to Bly meeting Jules Verne.
Unaware, that a rival newspaper, the Cosmopolitan, had sent one of their journalists, Elizabeth Bisland (28) in a westerly direction to try and beat Nellie. The race came down to the wire, Bisland who was ahead of the race, was delayed with a very slow sailboat, whilst Bly’s last leg ended in grandiose style as the newspaper chartered a private train to get Nellie over the finish line in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes.
“Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything” ….Nellie Bly
