In this episode of History For Weirdos, Stephanie take a deep dive into the life of Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, better known by her fearless pen name, Nellie Bly. Born in rural Pennsylvania in 1864, she punched her ticket out of small-town life with nothing but grit, charm, and a typewriter. We trace her journey from broke journalist pounding out articles in Pittsburgh to her bold decision to feign insanity and storm New York City’s notorious Blackwell’s Island asylum. Along the way we uncover the societal constraints she shattered just by daring to dream of a world where women could write, investigate, and shake the very foundations of big institutions. The heart of the story centers on Bly’s ten-day immersion in the asylum, where she endured starvation rations, filthy conditions, and the whims of guardians more interested in profit than people. Armed only with her wits and a small notebook, she chronicled abuses that would later spark one of the first major reforms in America’s mental health system. We break down her tactics for slipping past the front desk, her brush-ups with fellow patients and unhinged staff, and the explosive exposé that thrust her into the national spotlight. It’s a gripping reminder that good reporting can be as dramatic as any stage show. In our final act we follow Bly’s globe-circling adventure that saw her beat Phileas Fogg’s fictional record and become the first woman to travel around the world alone in 72 days, all while drawing headlines and challenging gender norms. We also explore her later life as a war correspondent covering the Spanish-American War and her surprising pivot into industrial innovation, including a steam boiler patent that saved lives. By the end you’ll see how Nellie Bly’s restless curiosity and unbreakable spirit turned every assignment into an adventure, and why her legacy still inspires journalists and weirdos alike to chase the next big story. - Get History For Weirdos merch here! - Thank you for listening Weirdos! Show the podcast some love by rating & subscribing on whichever platform you use to listen to podcasts. Your support means so much to us. Let's stay in touch 👇 Email: [email protected] IG/Threads: @historyforweirdos Website: historyforweirdos.com - Sources for this week: Kroeger, Brooke. Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. Times Books, 1994. Indiana University of Pennsylvania Archives (Nellie Bly educational history and records) PBS American Experience: Nellie Bly Library of Congress Digital Collections: Nellie Bly Collection Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) by Nellie Bly Around the World in Seventy-Two Days (1890) by Nellie Bly The Nellie Bly Collection (compiled editions available via Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts of History for Weirdos and what is this podcast about?
Hello and welcome to History for Weirdos.
We're your hosts, Andrew and Stephanie, and we're going to take you on a journey into the strange, obscure, and relentlessly entertaining corners of human history.
Now listen up, friends, because it's about to get weird.
Weirdos, welcome back to another episode of History for Weirdos with your hosts, Stephanie and Andrew at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California.
That's why our background looks so nice and cozy and professional and there's no Pericles chewing toys anywhere.
It's so much better, I swear.
This feels so nice. I'm so glad to be here.
I know. I mean, it's always good to be in studio.
Get out of the apartment.
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Chapter 2: What book recommendations do the hosts share before the episode?
We do have merch.
We do have merch. It will be in our show notes.
It's really fun. You can get several designs on like a dozen different products on Redbubble, but it's a little tricky to navigate. So do you mind explaining it?
Yes. So the link that I'll give you, it goes, it will show you all the designs. And so based off the designs you like, you can click that and then it'll show you like bucket hats, sweatshirts, just like normal hats, coffee mugs even.
Notebooks.
Notebooks.
Tote bags. Yes.
All of the above.
Mm-hmm.
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Chapter 3: Who is Nellie Bly and why is she a highly requested subject?
I read one book like every couple of years. But for you, that's really rare.
yeah I usually don't reread and the reason why is because like a like I think the time period is fascinating and be I mean he does pull from a bunch of like primary sources and kind of weaves together a really good story and especially like this it's such an interesting time in its own right but it's often overshadowed by the late late Roman Republic right of course you have like the civil wars between the first triumvirate and then you have of course the rise of Augustus and the end of the Republic itself yeah
So obviously it's going to overshadow the earlier portion, but it shouldn't.
Can you tell the weirdos what about the book is kind of like spooky?
Oh, yeah.
So you don't have to go off too much. I'm not going to go off too much.
I'll give you there's just a lot of parallels between what's happening today and what happened then. And it's a little terrifying, but it's like watching a train wreck. You can't not stop watching.
Yeah, that could be its own podcast. Probably.
I know I really should do.
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Chapter 4: What was Nellie Bly's early life like and what challenges did she face?
Yeah. That would be like a special.
You and Mike Duncan.
Oh my God. That'd be so cool.
Let's manifest it.
Manifesting. Okay. Well, without further ado.
No, I wanted to give the weirdos an update.
Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
We won, you guys. We got Andrew to watch Pride and Prejudice.
That's right. I forgot about this.
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Chapter 5: How did Nellie Bly begin her journalism career and what obstacles did she overcome?
And now without further ado, Stephanie, what story do you have for us this week?
This week, we have actually a pretty highly requested subject.
Yes.
I feel like from almost the beginning of the podcast, people have been requesting this person.
I think the first request for this person came, not an exaggeration, years ago.
Years ago. But I had no idea who she was, so I couldn't speak to her.
Right. But now you do.
But now I do. So we are going to be discussing the life of Nellie Bly.
Yes, this is a really good one.
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Chapter 6: What were Nellie Bly's experiences as a foreign correspondent in Mexico?
Not staying in your place. Like don't just I don't know, just not being stuck in the mud.
Yeah.
Of society.
Exactly. Well, you'll see. That's definitely her.
Sounds like she's like kind of an early investigative reporter.
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I'm going to be quiet now and I'll let you talk.
We're going to get into it. No, you're good. We're going to start with her early life, of course. She wasn't born Nellie Bly. She was actually born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5th, 1864 in a teeny town called Cochran's Mills, Pennsylvania. And yes, the town was named after her family. Wow. It was actually named after her dad, who was a prominent mill owner slash judge. Oh.
You know, back in the day when you used to be a mill owner and a judge at the same time.
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Chapter 7: How did Nellie Bly infiltrate the Blackwell Island asylum and what did she discover?
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Is that like her favorite color?
Well, at the time, and you'll see this if you look at sort of like Civil War era movies, a lot of people's clothing is really neutral colors, right? Like a lot of grays, brown, beige, maybe some dark blues.
very common for the time she was known for standing out because she wore lots of colors lots of bright colors she wore pink which was not common at the time and she got the nickname pink that's so cool i love that i thought that was a cute little anecdote about her so as we can imagine higher education for women was rare careers outside of teaching or nursing even rarer like becoming being a woman and becoming a teacher or becoming a nurse was already like wow that's a lot
You're doing a lot there. But to do anything else, like become a journalist, virtually unthinkable. Okay.
Wow. Okay.
Elizabeth was the 13th of 15 children. That's a lot of kids.
15?
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Chapter 8: What legacy did Nellie Bly leave as an investigative reporter and pioneer for women?
That's also the plot of the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.
Oh, I've never read that. That's interesting.
Oh, it's really good. Yeah, that's a that's a I'm sure there's plenty of weirdos in the good category of weirdos that have that upbringing.
Excellent. Yeah. Teddy Roosevelt.
Teddy Roosevelt. That's a good one.
Yeah.
We've never done an episode on him, even though you did Alice Roosevelt.
Yeah. Mm hmm.
OK, so back to Nellie's mom. So her mom, Mary Jane Kennedy Cochran, does get remarried because as a woman slash single mom, she's still got her little kids. She doesn't have options for income. There's nothing she can do. So she has to remarry.
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