Nellie Bly is mentioned in "And It's Surely To Their Credit" one of the best episodes in Season 2 (because of the character Ainsley Hayes played by Emily Procter) when the President and the First Lady get into a small spat. They haven't been able to have sex in a while because The President is (SPOILER) recovering from surgery from his gunshot. They have been missing each other due to a situation with Korea and plutonium, several takes of the weekly radio address, and Abby's committments; when they finally get a chance to be alone The President asks Abby where she went.
Abby tells him she went to Cochran's Mills, Pennsylvania to dedicate a statue of Nellie Bly. The President goes on for a while about how Abby doesn't have to do everything that the Social Office wants her too and belittles her appearance in Cochran's Mills.
Here's how the conversation goes:
President Bartlet: You know what I did, just then, that was stupid? I minimized the importance of the statue that was dedicated to Nellie Bly, an extraordinary woman to whom we all owe a great deal.
First Lady: You don't know who she is, do you?
President: This isn't happening to me.
First Lady: [matter-of-factly] She pioneered investigative journalism.
President: [interrupting] Then she's the one I want to beat the crap out of.
First Lady: [continuing matter-of-factly] She risked her life by having herself committed to a mental institution for ten days so she could write about it. She changed entirely the way we treat the mentally ill in this country. In 1890, she traveled around the world in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds, besting by more than one week, Jules Verne's 80 days.
President: She sounds like an incredible woman abbey. I'm particularly impressed that she beat a fictional record. If she goes down 21 000 leagues under the sea, I'll name a damn school after her! Let's have sex!
Though it's hidden in an argument, Nellie Bly's acomplishments are profound. Very few women wrote for newspapers in 1880. In fact, Nellie Bly was actually a nom de plume created by her first editor to mask her true identity. Her name is stolen from the song Nelly Bly. She was an early investigative journalist or muckracker, though the term wouldn't be coined by Pres. Roosevelt until 1906.
She worked for the Pitsburg Dispatch until she moved to New York city to work for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. She pitched a story to the World to have herself committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum.
She faked her insanity well enough to get sent to the asylum and only got out at the demands of the World. Bly said that her ten days there were enough to make anyone go insane. She wrote of the horrible treatment that the mentally ill recieved and the conditions that they were forced to live in. Her stories about the asylum led to investigations into mental health institutions.
Nellie later made a sucessful trip around the world in 1889 (without any escort) in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds. Her travels and stories were wildly popular and made her famous.
She later married a much older man and left writing to manage her husband's steel manufacturing company when he died.
To read more about this amazing woman check out
Ten Days in a Mad-House
orAround the World in Seventy-Two Days.
