Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger

Product Details

From the Publisher

Now in paperback—the acclaimed biography of Nellie Bly, the "thrilling account of a trailblazer" (Pat Morrison, Los Angeles Times Book Review). "Kroeger's biography of Nellie Bly moves at almost as fast a pace as did Bly's remarkable life."—Mindy Spatt, San Francisco Chronicle. Photos & illustrations.

Publishers Weekly

This is the definitive work on the reporter who traveled around the world in 72 days in 1889-1890 and was one of the pioneer women journalists. Nellie Bly started her career in Pittsburgh, at age 21, in 1885. She then moved to New York City in 1887 and wrote for the World until 1895, with one three-year hiatus. In 1895 she married a wealthy 70-year-old entrepreneur, Robert Seaman, and proved herself an astute business executive--except that she trusted her financial associates, who embezzled more than a million dollars and bankrupted her firm, which manufactured steel barrels. She returned to journalism in 1912 and covered WW I on the Eastern front from 1914 until 1919 as the only American woman reporter. Back in Manhattan she worked at the Evening Journal as a sort of Miss Lonelyhearts and amateur social worker until her death in 1922. Kroeger, a former reporter and editor for UPI, has done a prodigious amount of research for this compelling, if somewhat overlong biography. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Mar.)

Library Journal

Nellie Bly (1864-1922) perfected the art of ``stunt'' journalism in the late 1800s, paving the way for both women journalists and the development of investigative reporting. For this major new biography, Kroeger used her own investigative journalism skills to uncover a wide range of previously unknown materials relating to Bly's life. Kroeger argues that the lack of accessible documents has contributed to scholarly neglect and misinformation about Bly, a condition she has remedied in this book. Bly, born Elizabeth Jane Cochran, began her journalism career in Pittsburgh, moving to New York in 1887. For her first article in Joseph Pulitzer's The New York World , she feigned insanity, getting herself committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum. Her expose rocked the city, led to reforms, and made Bly famous. Kroeger goes beyond the well-known stories about Bly, documenting her reporting career and her life as an industrialist. This is a remarkable biography of an extraordinary woman that should be added to most library collections.-- Judy Solberg, Univ. of Maryland Libs., College Park