She did it faster than anyone ever had

25 January 1890 – Around the World in 72 days, 134 years ago this week.

Nellie Bly arrived home after travelling 21,740 miles around the world in 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes

On 25 January 1890, Nellie Bly stepped off of a steam train in New York City and into the headlines.  She had circled the world faster than anyone ever had – 72 days. Bly had achieved ‘the most remarkable of all feats of circumnavigation ever performed by a human being,’ The New York World declared.  She raced through a man’s world – alone and literally with just the clothes on her back – to beat Phileas Fogg’s fictional record in Around the World in Eighty Days.

Along with establishing record time, Bly’s race proved the world was connected. Ocean liners, the telegraph, trans-continental railroads in America and India, and the Suez Canal in Egypt, brought far-flung destinations within reach. Her voyage made the world a smaller place and brought humankind together. She became the ‘best-known and most widely talked of woman on earth,’ the papers said.

Before long the accolades vanished and she disappeared into yesteryear. But now she’s back! In print (Following Nellie Bly: Her Record-Breaking Race Around the World) and cast in bronze! (The Girl Puzzle Monument on Roosevelt Island). Nellie Bly has returned to inspire us.

AROUND THE WORLD with Nellie Bly and Isabella Bird

Live at Stanfords, London on 15 July 2021 at 7pm

The life and journeys of two trailblazing women and their amazing adventures! Travel the world with Nellie Bly and Isabella Bird as Jacki and I recount their adventures and our own re-enactments of them straight from our newly-released books Following Nellie Bly and The Life and Travels of Isabella Bird. Join us live at Stanfords, the world’s biggest and best map and travel bookshop.

Around the World in 24 Hours

Nellie Bly’s 151st birthday was celebrated with a Google doodle that raced around the world.  Katie Wu created the animation for Google based on an original song composed and performed by Karen O.

Nellie Bly beat her own world record on 5 May 2015 when she ‘raced’ around the world in 24 hours. In 1890 Nellie set the record for circling the globe – 72 days by ship and train. 125 years later she sped through cyberspace, adorning the Google homepage as a Google Doodle across continents and countries including the USA, France, Africa, India and Australia.

It was Google’s way of paying tribute to the intrepid journalist/adventurer/humanitarian on the occasion of her 151^st birthday. Watch it here.

Nellie was trending all day on twitter in the USA on 5 May, according to Brooke Kroeger, Nellie Bly biographer.  An estimated 3.5 billion internet users were exposed to the achievements of the famous reporter through the Google Doodle.

Liat Ben-Rafael, Google Doodle progam manager said: “Throughout her life and career, Nellie Bly spoke up for the underprivileged, the helpless and minorities, and defied society’s expectations for women. So when it came time to honour Nellie with a Doodle, we wanted to make it special.”

Nellie Bly ‘spoke up for those told to shut up’. Animation by Katie Wu for Google.

Google’s celebrated doodle features a 1.21 min animation and an original song “Oh Nellie.” Written and performed by indie rocker Karen O, lead singer of the USA-based Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, the song formed the basis of the dynamic animation by Katie Wu. The lyrics encourage females ‘to stand up and show us what girls are good for.’

The doodle applauds Nellie’s iconic global voyage and honours her as a reporter who pioneered investigative journalism and burst into male-dominated newsrooms.

“Oh, Nellie, take us all around the world and break those rules ’cause you’re our girl,” the lyrics proclaim. “We wanna make something of ourselves too. Oh Nellie you showed us just what you would do.”

Says Google’s Liat Ben Rafael: “Back in the 19th century, Nellie fearlessly showed a generation of people “what girls are good for.” …We hope Nellie inspires women and girls everywhere to follow in her footsteps and show the world what they can do.”

Nellie’s 151^st birthday google doodle is reported as showcasing two firsts. “Oh Nellie” was the first original song commissioned for a google doodle and Katy Wu’s ‘cartoon’ was the first to feature stop-motion animation.

All images used here are courtesy of Google.

Nellie travelled around the world through cyberspace thanks to Google. Here’s her route.

Nellie Bly Google Doodle storyboard by Katie Wu.

Nellie Bly’s World Race Coming to Television

Nellie Bly’s Historic Race Around The World Being Developed For Television

By Anita Busch

This article is courtesy of Deadline.com: http://deadline.com/2015/03/nellie-bly-eighty-days-book-television-series-1201384763/ 

It’s the best of journalism meets The Amazing Race meets Around the World in Eighty Days. Phileas Fogg, move aside. One of the most daring stories in history is that of investigative journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (aka Nellie Bly) who in 1889 decided she would try to beat the fictional record in Jules Verne’s now classic story and go around the world less than 80 days.  At the same time, because competition is the name of the game in journalism, Cosmopolitan sent their own reporter Elizabeth Bisland, out to beat not only the 80-day fictional Phileas Fogg record but also try to one-up Bly who was working for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World  newspaper.

Now that story, based on Matthew Goodman’s bestselling book, “Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World” is being developed for television by Zero Gravity Management’s Christine Holder and Mark Holder with producer Lloyd Levin (Boogie Nights, United 93, Watchmen) and Beatriz Levin.

“We are developing it as a limited show and talking to creators now,” said Zero Gravity’s Marc Holder. “After that, we’ll go to talent. People have tried to explore her story from her days undercover at a woman’s insane asylum, but not many people have tried to delve into this particular story. Goodman just did such a wonderful job with this book. They are both courageous women and this story is really inspiring.”

The race started on November 14, 1889 and each reporter left from New York, but went the opposite way around the world. The story grabbed headlines at the time and enthralled readers who were kept on the edge of the seats as each reporter filed stories about their dramatic and sometimes dangerous adventures. The race spanned over 24,000 miles using railroads and steamships as their main mode of transportation.

Beyond captivating the nation, the lives of both the well-respected journalist Bly and her competitor Bisland were forever changed by the journey. Bly ended up winning the race by four and a half days and set a world record. She had circumnavigated the globe in 72 days.

 

Nellie Bly: Top of the Lists

Nellie Bly is top of the lists.

Nellie Bly is ‘back on the front page’ as a chart-topper in the historical, convention-busting, inspiring and feminist leagues.

Just in time for International Women’s Day 2015, The Guardian  and The Observer named Nellie as one of the 10 best feminists.  Here’s what the article’s author Helen Lewis said:

“No one but a man can do this,” Nellie Bly’s editor told her when she suggested travelling round the world in less than 80 days. She would need a protector, he said – and how would she ever carry all the luggage a lady would need on such a trip? Bly didn’t worry too much about the first quibble, and travelled light, crushing all her belongings into a single handbag. She made it home in 72 days. That wasn’t the first time the pioneering American journalist had attracted attention through her work – a year earlier, in 1887, she faked madness to go undercover in an asylum, exposing its poor conditions and abusive staff.” Here’s the entire list of 10 Best Feminists

Nellie Bly’s biography by Brooke Kroeger

In 10 Books About Innovative Women You Should Know More About, Kathleen Culliton names Nellie Bly: Daredevil. Reporter.Feminist by Brooke Kroeger.  This is what she says on online site Bustle:

“Here’s what I love about stories of women who innovate: they’re two stories. First you’ve got the story of the brilliant idea, or the world-changing artifact, the traveling of the globe, the charting of the star, the rallying of the people. Then, you’ve got the story of how the hell a woman got people to listen to her in the first place. These are stories not just of human beings who were crazy-smart, but women who were as tough as nails… Journalist Nellie Bly faked insanity to get committed in an asylum. She reported on its atrocities as she experienced them. When that was done, she circled the globe.”

Brooke Kroeger wrote this book because she could not find a single reliable source that accurately captured the story of Nellie Bly. Instead of a credible biography, she found brief encyclopedia entries and children’s books. And she was baffled because Bly not only had a major impact on journalism, but a fascinating life. In an age that relegated women reporters to the ‘Homes and Gardens’ section of the newspaper, Bly faked her own insanity to gain admission into and report on one of the nation’s most notorious insane asylums and effectively invented stunt journalism.”
Here’s the full list of 10 Books about Inspirational Women You Should Know More About.

Nellie Bly

Online worldwide news site Buzzfeed named Nellie Bly as one of  the Top 12 Historical Women Who Didn’t Give a ‘you know what’.

“Nellie Bly was a daring and influential investigative journalist who wrote groundbreaking stories about political corruption and poverty. She once faked madness in order to report undercover from an abusive mental institution in New York City, which led to outcry and reform. Her jealous peers referred to her investigations as “stunt reporting”, but Nellie, of course, didn’t give a  x*!x*!  about those whiny little x*!x*!     Oh, and she once travelled around the world in a record-breaking 72 days, just ‘cause.  Here’s the post.

She was named among the top 7 of inspiring ‘convention-breaking‘ women by Mother Nature Network who said:

Nellie exposed the abuses taking place inside the Women’s Asylum.

Nellie Bly was an investigative journalist who went undercover in a mental hospital to secure a job at a newspaper when she moved to New York City. She wrote about her experience spending 10 days in a mental ward: “What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.”

Following that blockbuster story, Bly circled the world in 72 days in imitation of Jules Verne’s book, married a millionaire, ran his steel manufacturing company after he died, and developed a number of patents for her business. She covered the suffragist movement in an article titled “Suffragists Are Men’s Superiors” in 1913 but correctly predicted women wouldn’t get the vote until 1920.
See full post here.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette where Nellie was once a reporter invites us to ‘Learn from the Past’ via Nellie Bly.

“In 1887, she moved to New York City and landed a job at the New York World. For one of her first assignments, she went undercover as a patient at the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum. She spent 10 days experiencing the asylum’s deplorable living conditions, which included rotten food and physical abuse from the staff. After the New York World demanded her release, Bly’s firsthand accounts of the horrors of the asylum, “Ten Days in a Mad House,” became a book that prompted a grand jury investigation.Two years later, she decided to travel the world faster than novelist Jules Verne’s character Phileas Fogg in “Around the World in Eighty Days.” She boarded a ship from New York Nov. 14, 1889, and returned Jan. 25, 1890 — 72 days, six hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds after her departure. Read the full article here.

 

 

125 years on: Nellie Bly Inspires Young Women

“She was a leading woman of her time who was tough and never willing to stand down.”
 Megan Laham, 16, Stoneham, Massachusetts

“… 125 years from now, imagine the changes that could occur if we attack inequality with the same fervour that Nellie Bly possessed.”
 Callie Slevin, 16, La Crosse, Wisconsin

“She was kind, self-reliant and used her voice as a journalist to help others who didn’t have a voice.”
 Rachel Dennis, 13, of Renton, Washington.

“We were delighted to discover an entire branch of journalism (investigative reporting) she had created.”
Jacqui  Hale, 16, Bedford, Massachusetts

Recently deemed one of the 12 feistiest women in history by internet news giant Buzzfeed, Victorian journalist Nellie Bly remains among the world’s top 10 female adventurers. Her legacy as a pioneer of investigative journalism, intrepid traveller, feminist and humanitarian lives on in best-selling books, television documentaries and editorials. Her grave in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery draws a steady stream of visitors, says Susan Olsen, Woodlawn’s Director of Historical Services.

Exactly 125 years after breaking the record for circling the globe and 93 years since her death, Nellie Bly is still ‘alive and well’, especially in the eyes of today’s young women.

“I am always warmed by the abiding interest in the adventures of Nellie Bly,” says Nellie’s biographer Brooke Kroeger, journalist , author and professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. “I think it’s remarkable how current she is with the junior set.”

Nellie’s ‘currency with the younger set ‘ is demonstrated by the number of American teenage girls who research her legacy for National History Day (NHD), a nationwide competition to promote history and research skills. Every year since the NHD competition was launched in 1974, Nellie Bly features among the leading entries.

Indeed, at least two projects devoted to Nellie Bly reach the National History Day finals every year, according to Micah Azzano, NHD Director of Public Affairs. Nellie Bly has also been proposed by fans for inclusion on NHD’s list of 100 Significant Leaders  in World History where voting is open to the public.

That doesn’t surprise Brooke Kroeger.

“Since the publication of Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist in 1994, I get anywhere from 10 to 30 queries a year from middle school girls — always girls — who have chosen Nellie as their research subject,” says Brooke Kroeger. “It’s impressive how many historical themes for which she incites the imagination.”

Saige, Emily and Megan’s performance about Nellie Bly received honourable mention in the National History Day state finals.

Megan Laham, Emily Manfra and Saige Calkins, all 16, of Stoneham, Massachusetts, pooled their imagination and talent for a performance about Nellie Bly that made it all the way to NHD’s state finals last year and received an honourable mention.

“It was good to spread the word of Nellie,” says Megan, 16. “All three of us see Nellie Bly as a role model. Through her works and fighting to get a job as a female reporter, she really set the standards to all reporters.”

Jaqui Hale, Sarah Nosal, Rachel Arnold, all 16, and Nili Ezekiel, 17, of Bedford, Massachusetts, saluted Nellie in their comprehensive website for the NHD competition:  Nellie Bly’s Multi-faceted Legacy: Leading a Progressive Generation of Journalists and Social Reformers. 

Jacqui, Sarah, Rachel and Nili of Bedford, Massachusetts teamed up to create a comprehensive website.

“All of the things that she led during her lifetime then transferred into a lasting legacy in journalism and social reform,” said Jacqui, who represented the group. “…She taught us that women can be brave and accomplish many things as long as they push themselves like she did. She was so helpful to those she considered helpless, and often ignored her own safety because she was set on learning the truth,” says Jacqui.

Nellie Bly website created by Rachel Dennis, 13

Rachel Dennis, 13, of Renton, Washington, is putting the finishing touches on a website for NHD’s latest competition.

“Nellie Bly was a leader in journalism, a firm supporter for women’s rights and someone who believed in justice and equality,” says Rachel. “She was most famous for her trip around the world, but she made a difference in many people’s lives by writing articles about the working and living conditions of people less fortunate than her.”

Callie Slevin, 13

Callie’s exhibit: Feigning Insanity for the Betterment of Society: Nellie Bly

Callie Slevin, 16, of La Crosse, Wisconsin first ‘met’ Nellie Bly at Washington DC’s Newseum where she features in a display and film. Callie’s NHD exhibit Feigning Insanity for the Betterment of Society: Nellie Bly demonstrates Nellie’s courage in revealing the ‘horrid mistreatment of patients in asylums during the late 1800s’ which she endured and wrote about in the newspaper and later in her book Ten Days in a Mad-house.

Callie most admires Nellie’s ‘unending ardour.’  “She not only made waves within the field of journalism, but she made waves as a woman in the field of journalism,” Callie says.

“Her legacy included the lives she changed, but also everyone she inspired to succeed, to fight injustice, and to keep going no matter the difficulty of their situation.”

 

25 January 2015: 125 years since Nellie Bly Won World Race

“I took off my cap and wanted to yell with the crowd, not because I had gone around the world in 72 days, but because I was home again.”

Nellie crossed the Hudson River from Jersey City to Manhattan after winning the world race.

At 3.51 p.m. on 25 January 1890, journalist Nellie Bly completed her epic travels. Her train pulled into Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, signalling the finale of the world journey she completed in  72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes. She had raced through a ‘man’s world’ –  alone and literally with the clothes on her back — to beat the fictional record set by Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg. She was said to be the most famous woman in the world that day. After crossing three oceans and four continents, she ended her journey with a ‘flying trip’ by train across America.

“I only remember my trip across the continent as one maze of happy greetings, happy wishes, congratulations, 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!” she wrote.

At stations across America, enormous crowds gathered to cheer Nellie on:Fresno, Topeka, Dodge City, Kansas City, Chicago, Columbus, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia…

Throngs of people were cheering Nellie Bly as her carriage travelled up Cortlandt Street to Broadway.

At her final destination, Jersey City, “the station was packed with thousands of people and the moment I landed on the platform, one yell went up from them…and the cannons at the Battery and Fort Greene boomed out the news of my arrival,” wrote Nellie. “From Jersey to Jersey is around the world and I am in Jersey now.”

Today she is best known for her record-breaking journey. But even more importantly, Nellie Bly pioneered investigative journalism and paved the way for female reporters.

Let’s pay tribute to the courage and determination of Nellie Bly on the 125th anniversary of the day she stepped off the train in Jersey City … and into history.

This toolkit provides material you can use on Twitter and Facebook to celebrate Nellie’s triumph.

Toolkit: Share the 125th Anniversary of Nellie Bly’s Triumphant Return

TEN TWEETS  & AND A FACEBOOK POST TO CELEBRATE 125th ANNIVERSARY OF NELLIE BLY’S RECORD-BREAKING TRIP
25 January 2015

Let’s get #NellieBly125 trending on twitter. Copy these or write your own. Use the #NellieBly125 hashtag. You can copy and paste the images in this post or look here, they’re in the public domain.

TWEETS

Nellie Bly

Let’s put journalist #NellieBly125 back on map.Jan 25 is 125th anniv of her record-breaking world trip.Pls retweet.http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A

125yrs ago #NellieBly125 was fastest to circle globe.She would’ve set twitter alight.Make it happen now.Pls retweet. http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A

#NellieBly125 pioneered investigative journalism,paved way for women reporters &circled globe fastest 125yrs ago.http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A

Feminist Phileas Fogg #NellieBly125 circled world faster than anyone 125 yrs ago.Alone w/only clothes on her back.http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A

Celebrate 125 yrs since #NellieBly125 beat record for circling globe. Read her book free http://bit.ly/1umDvI3.

#NellieBly125 stepped off train & into history.125 yrs ago she beat record for round the world trip.http://bit.ly/1yGJxTX Pls retweet

#NellieBly125 among top 10 women adventurers.Circled world fastest.Jan 25 is 125th anniv of her triumph.http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A Pls retweet

Globetrotter #NellieBly125 circled globe in 72 days beating the record 125 years ago today. http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A

125 yrs later #NellieBly125 still among TOP10 women adventurers & TOP12 historical women who don’t give an X bzfd.it/17i9COI.

JAN 25 is 125th anniv of #NellieBly125 ‘s record-breaking trip round the world. She beat #PhileasFogg.http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A. Pls retweet.

Nellie Bly

If you like, you can add:
@brookekroeger – author of bio Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist
@WIJ_UK  – Women in Journalism,UK
@NYWICI – New York Women in Communications,USA
@RGS_IBG – Royal Geographical Society
@explorerstweet – Explorers Connect
@AdventuressClub

FACEBOOK POST
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25 JANUARY 2015: 125th ANNIVERSARY OF NELLIE BLY’S RECORD-BREAKING WORLD TRIP

No-one had ever circled the globe with such speed. Journalist-adventurer Nellie Bly stepped off the train in Jersey City on January 25, 1890 …  and into history.  She raced through a ‘man’s world’ in 72 days —  alone and literally with the clothes on her back — to beat the fictional record set by Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg. She was a global celebrity. Today, she remains one of the top 10 female adventurers.  http://bitly.com/1xsFo1A

 

In Which Nellie Bly Exhibits Her Role in History

L Peat O’Neil (r) and David Stanton at the Newseum. Washington DC.

Washington DC was not on Nellie’s world trip itinerary,  but it had to be on mine.  The satchel she carried around the world is on display at  the the Newseum there, courtesy of Nellie Bly biographer Brooke Kroeger.  I had to see it.

Nellie Bly on display at the Newseum

Adjacent to the Capitol, the Newseum transports you across five centuries of journalism through multi-media presentations, hands-on exhibits and galleries.

I’d been hoping to be able to carry Nellie’s satchel or gripsack as she called it — just for a minute — but it’s  well- protected and inaccessible inside a Plexiglas display.  Even so, it was exciting to see an icon of her epic journey that so totally captures her spirit. When Nellie’s editor said he’d have to send a man around the world because a woman required a chaperone and innumerable trunks, Nellie showed him by stuffing everything she needed in a 16×7 inch satchel and travelling alone. Go Nellie.

Aside from her own display, Nellie stars  in a 4-D ‘film experience’ designed to introduce us to the power of journalism.  It recounts  the 10 days she spent in the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum for Women in New York and the reforms that followed her exposure of the cruelty there. It was terrific to see her role in investigative journalism celebrated so vividly — even if we had to endure shaking chairs and flashing lights to ‘heighten’ the 4-D experience.

Joseph Pulitzer

Nellie is in good company at the Newseum with exhibits monitoring press freedom, a memorial to fallen journalists, a large section of the Berlin Wall, front pages from around the world and vivid Pulitzer-prize winning photographs. The legendary Joseph Pulitzer, creator of the  prizes, was the owner of The New York World and Nellie Bly’s boss.

I visited the Newseum with my great friend Louisa Peat O’Neil, a travel writer and former journalist at The Washington Post, and my husband David Stanton who flew over from London. We were met by Peat’s friend John Maynard, Senior Manager, Exhibit Progamming at the Newseum.

In Which Nellie Bly Begins and Ends her Race Around the World

Hoboken, New Jersey

Nellie’s date: 14 November 1889
My date:  25 September 2014

Nellie took the train to Hoboken Terminal to board the Augusta Victoria.

The Start 

“On Thursday November 14, 1889 at 9.40.30 o’clock, I started on my tour around the world,” wrote Nellie Bly in Chapter 2, entitled The Start, in her book Around the World in 72 Days.

Nellie was not an early riser.  She scolded ‘the good people who spend so much time in trying to invent flying machines’ saying they should devote more energy to promoting a system in which boats and trains would always make their start at noon or afterwards’ to be of greater assistance to a ‘suffering society.’

Nellie crossed the Atlantic on the Augusta Victoria.

Departing with a lump in her throat, Nellie encouraged herself by thinking:  “It’s only a matter of 28,000 miles and 75 days and four hours until I shall be back again.”

“The morning was beautiful and the bay never looked lovelier,” she recalls of her departure from Hoboken, New Jersey in New York Harbour. “But when the whistle blew and they were on the pier and I was on the Augusta Victoria, which was slowly but surely moving away from everything I knew, taking me to strange lands and strange people, I felt lost,” she wrote.

“My head felt dizzy and my heart felt as though it would burst.  … the world lost its roundness and seemed a long distance with no end.”

Nellie had never ever been on a sea voyage before.

Re-tracing the start … and finish 

The President and First Lady’s departure from the United Nations on Air Force One.

The morning was grey with sudden squalls when we headed to Pier 11 near Wall Street  for the ferry to Hoboken to retrace Nellie’s departure. Two ominous Osprey aircraft suddenly came swooping onto the Downtown Manhattan Heliport nearby. They were followed by a drove of helicopters and police cars with flashing lights. A Coast Guard cutter plied the waters. We looked up to see snipers atop the roofs of nearby buildings.  President Obama and the First Lady were leaving town by Air Force One after  three days at the United Nations of discussions on climate change, foreign terrorist fighters, education for all, and the Ebola epidemic. Soon the harbour was shut and ferries were frozen. Flocks of people in black suits delivered in long black cars strode towards the aircraft so we even never knew if we saw the President and  Michelle Obama. Within minutes of lift-off, the scene was cleared, the ferries were back in business and the Obamas were on their way to the White House.

And we were on the way to Hoboken where Nellie started,  and then Jersey City where she finished her epic travels. Nellie’s train pulled in to Jersey City at 3.51 p.m. on 25 January 1890, 72 days, 6 hours,11 minutes and 14 seconds since she had left. No one had ever gone around the globe as  fast. By then she was the most famous woman in the world.

After traversing 18 waters from New York Harbour to San Francisco Bay , she was at the end of her ‘flying trip’ by train across America.

“I only remember my trip across the continent as one maze of happy greetings, happy wishes, congratulations, 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!” she wrote.

Nellie arrived to a packed Jersey City station on 25 January 1890.

People dressed in their Sunday best flocked to the train stations along her route to cheer on Nellie Bly. Multitudes of well-wishers filled the stations as she travelled through Albuquerque, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. At Pittsburgh’s Union Station, not far from her hometown of Apollo, thousands turned out at 3.10  in the morning to wave her on. Nellie stepped onto the rear platform of her car and waved with tears in her eyes to all those who came in the middle of the night to see her.

When she reached on the afternoon of January 25th, 1890, she had won the race. The station was overflowing. On her victory parade to the New York World‘s headquarters at Park Row, the streets were choked with people and the windows of skyscrapers lining Broadway were filled with faces as Nellie’s carriage made its way.

“I wanted to yell with the crowd,” Nellie wrote. “ Not because I had gone around the world in 72 days, but because I was home again.”