When most people think of Women’s History Month, they think of female politicians, athletes or maybe even scientists. But one historical woman I always think of is Nellie Bly.

You might not have heard of her, but she has contributed so much to the world of journalism as well as mental health awareness, that I believe her story should always be told.

Bly was an American journalist in the late 1800s who is most famous for going  undercover in a mental institution to expose the poor treatment of its patients. Before all this started though, she was a regular girl born in rural Pennsylvania. She went to the Indiana University of Pennsylvania for one semester, but had to drop out due to a lack of funds. She moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after dropping out, and read the local newspaper there on a regular basis. 

One day she came across an article arguing that women are only good for marriage and motherhood, saying that women should never have the right to be employed. This made Bly furious; so much so that she decided to write a response to the article, and send it in to the Pittsburgh Dispatch. The editors there loved her work, so they asked her to come work for them. She took the job, and it ended up changing her life.

Right away, Bly started writing article after article about women’s rights, exploring topics such as divorce, equal rights, employment and more. Some citizens of Pittsburgh complained about her work, but she never stopped fighting for the women’s rights movement. She was determined “to do something no girl has done before.” 

For her first big project, she decided to go spend almost half a year in Mexico and document the Mexican people’s way of life. The series of articles she wrote about this trip ended up getting compiled into one big book she published, called “Six Months in Mexico.” This was an incredible thing to do at the time, but Bly was not done impressing people just yet.

After facing backlash from the people of Pittsburgh over the controversy of her writings, she was forced to write more “feminine” articles, about things like fashion and theater. She ultimately decided to stop writing for the Pittsburgh Dispatch, and remained unemployed for the next four months. 

Eventually she was able to get a job working for a newspaper owned by Joseph Pulitzer, called the New York World. She was given an assignment to pretend she was insane and purposefully get sent to a psychiatric hospital. While in the hospital, she was supposed to take notes about what she witnessed and experienced, and then come back out and write about it. This was an unheard of idea at the time, but she decided to take the job.

Bly got into character by refusing to sleep, behaving erratically and accusing people of being insane. She first was admitted to a small hospital just for women, and after continuing her strange behavior, she got moved to a larger hospital for “crazier” people. This place was called the Bellevue Hospital, and it is still open in New York City. 

Bly did exactly what she was assigned to do there; she acted like she was insane, and then took notes and drew pictures of what went on in there. After a day or two, she decided she had all the evidence she needed to write a good exposé, and dropped the act. She told the workers at the asylum that she was not crazy, and was just a journalist, but they did not believe her. She was forced to stay for ten whole days before the New York World came and helped her leave. 

After leaving, Bly immediately got to work and wrote another whole book’s worth of articles about her time in the asylum. She gave detailed accounts of the types of people she had met, what they were sent there for and most importantly, how they were treated.

One big talking point in her work was the number of immigrants she met in the hospital, who had only been sent because they did not speak English. Back in the 1800s, people could be sent to the psychiatric hospital for any number of reasons. Even being a woman and wearing pants was deemed “insane.”

This project exploded Bly’s career, and spread a lot of awareness about mental health along the way. Because of her, mental hospitals and healthcare facilities have been changed for the better. Going to therapy is no longer seen as something taboo; now, it is completely normal.  There is still stigma around mental illness, but Bly showed us that no matter what you are going through, everyone deserves proper treatment.

Becoming an undercover spy in a mental facility was not even the most exciting thing Bly ever did. Less than a year later, she travelled across the entire globe in only seventy-two days, and wrote stories about her trip. This was an unthinkable thing to do back in 1889, but she accomplished what was thought to be an impossible task. 

A few years later, after her husband’s death, she gave up on journalism and took over his steel manufacturing company. A woman being in charge of a production company was extremely rare back then. And if that was not exciting enough, later in 1913, she came back to journalism, and started writing articles in favor of the uprising women’s suffrage movement. Her work was a major contributing factor to women getting the right to vote in 1920. She continued writing stories during World War I, as she sailed the seas of Europe’s eastern front.

After an incredibly exciting life, Bly unfortunately passed away at the age of 57 in 1922. She contributed immeasurable amounts of work to the women’s rights movement throughout her life, and her work should never be forgotten.