Around the World in 72 Days

   Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

      On this day in 1890 American newspaperwoman Nellie Bly arrived back in Hoboken, NJ after  circumnavigating the world in 72 days, a new world record. The trip was sponsored by the New York World, the newspaper Bly worked for, and had been inspired by Jules Verne's best-selling book Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). 
   Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Cochran on May 5, 1864 in western Pennsylvania. To make herself sound more sophisticated, she added an 'e' to the end of her last name. Her father was a prosperous mill owner, but when he died, Nellie's education ended and her mother moved the family to nearby Pittsburg. Young Elizabeth read a newspaper article that said women were mostly good for bearing children and keeping house.
   This got Nellie's dander up, and she wrote a retort to the paper. The editor liked it and asked for more. Women at that time were expected to write under a pseudonym and her editor named her after the Stephen Foster song Nelly Bly. But the editor was a careless speller and she ended up Nellie Bly. She was taken on full time at the paper and assigned to cover conditions for women in the local factories. This upset the factory owners and she was reassigned to the women's' pages.
   Covering weddings and fashion bored Nellie and she headed for New York. Joseph Pulizer, publisher of the New York World, hired her. Her first assignment was to pretend she was crazy so she could report on conditions in the city's insane asylums.
   She moved into a boardinghouse and stayed up all night to give herself  "the wide-eyed look of a disturbed woman." She began accusing the other boarders of being crazy. The police were called. A doctor examined her and she was sent to Blackwell's Island Asylum in the East River.
   Conditions in the asylum were as terrible as rumored, and after ten days The World petitioned for Bly's release.  Her reports led to improvements at the asylum and also made her famous. The following year, Bly suggested the round the world trip. Her editor agreed, giving her two days to get ready. All she took with her was the dress she was wearing, a warm coat, and several changes of underwear, packed in a small handbag with her toiletries.
   Bly crossed the Atlantic on a steamer, visited Jules Verne in France, then passed through the Suez Canal to Sri Lanka and Singapore. Her trip across the Pacific was slowed by storms and when she landed in San Francisco, the World hired a private train to get her back to Hoboken on time.
   Bly started her trip with the equivalent of $10,000 in today's money. Phineas Fogg, the hero of Around the World in Eighty Days carried two million. But then, he needed to hire an elephant, a hot air balloon and bribe ship engineers to take shortcuts. On the last leg of the trip, his ship ran out of coal fighting a hurricane. He bought the ship and ordered the crew to turn the cabins into firewood so he could get back to his club in London in time to win his bet.
   Fogg had many more adventures than Nellie. In India, he saved a woman from being burned on her husband's funeral pyre. The woman was so grateful she married him. Nothing like that happened to Nellie, though she did marry a 73 year old industrialist a few years later when she was 31.
   Nellie's record only stood for a few months. Someone made the trip from Tacoma in 66 days. By 1913, the record was down to 36 days.
   The current record for circling the globe on commercial flights is 52 hours, 34 minutes, set by a New Zealander last year. Records are made to be broken. Go for it! Go fund yourself!

Nellie Bly, travelling light.

With cash in your bag, who needs clothes?