Nellie Bly: She Went Undercover in an Asylum… Then Raced Around the World

In 1887, a young reporter pretended to be mentally ill.

She was locked inside an asylum on an island in New York, and doctors claimed she was insane.

Once the doors closed, would anyone believe her?

This is the story of Nellie Bly.

Welcome to brightlivesenglish.com, where we teach real English using real-life stories.

Reporter. A reporter is a person who finds out the news and writes about it for a newspaper.

At twenty, she became a reporter.

Expose. To expose something means to show the truth about something bad that was hidden.

The past is exposed.

Her articles exposed everything she had seen.

Asylum. In the past, an asylum was a hospital where people with mental illness were kept, often far from the city.

The asylum was on an island in New York.

Reform. A reform is a change that makes a system or a law better.

Her story led to important reforms.

Undercover. When you work undercover, you hide who you really are to find out the truth.

She went undercover as a patient.

Now, one pattern: reporting verbs.

Instead of repeating someone's exact words, we can use verbs like claim, insist and promise.

She said: I will beat the record.

She promised to beat the record.

Remember: claim that, insist that, promise to.

Ready? Let's begin.

Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Cochran in 1864, in a small town in Pennsylvania.

She often wore bright pink, so everyone called her Pink.

When she was six, her father died, and the family had very little money.

In 1885, a Pittsburgh newspaper printed a column that claimed girls were only good for housework.

Elizabeth was so angry that she wrote to the editor.

He liked her letter so much that he gave her a job.

At twenty, she became a reporter.

Her editor gave her a new name: Nellie Bly.

But Nellie wanted bigger stories, so in 1887, she moved to New York.

A big newspaper there gave her a dangerous job: to go undercover as a patient inside the asylum on Blackwell's Island.

First, she practised strange faces in front of a mirror.

Then she took a room in a boarding house for women and stayed awake all night.

She insisted that she could not remember who she was.

A judge and several doctors examined her.

They all claimed she was insane.

A boat carried her across the river to the island.

As soon as she arrived, Nellie stopped pretending.

She insisted that she felt perfectly well.

But nobody listened.

The more normally she acted, the more the doctors believed she was ill.

Inside, it was cold all the time.

Nurses poured buckets of ice-cold water over the women's heads.

The food was stale bread and bad meat.

Every day, the women sat on hard benches from six in the morning until eight at night, without a word.

After ten days, a lawyer from her newspaper came and got her out.

Her articles exposed everything she had seen.

The city gave eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars more for patients and promised to examine them more carefully.

Her story led to important reforms.

In a famous novel, a man travels around the world in eighty days.

Nellie wanted to beat him.

Her editor claimed that a woman would need a protector and too many bags.

Nellie answered that if he sent a man, she would race him for another newspaper, and win.

On November 14, 1889, she left New York by ship, with one dress, a coat and one small bag.

She promised to beat the record.

In France, she met Jules Verne, the writer of the novel.

In Singapore, she bought a monkey!

In Hong Kong, she heard surprising news.

Another reporter, from a magazine, was racing her the other way around the world!

Then bad weather slowed her ship across the Pacific.

In San Francisco, her newspaper had a special train waiting for her.

On January 25, 1890, huge crowds cheered as she stepped off the train.

She had travelled around the world in seventy-two days, six hours and eleven minutes.

It was a new world record.

Later, she ran a factory and reported from Europe during the First World War.

She died in 1922.

Today, Nellie Bly is remembered as a brave reporter who showed that the truth can change things.

Let's review. At twenty, she became a reporter.

Her articles exposed everything she had seen.

The asylum was on an island in New York.

Her story led to important reforms.

She went undercover as a patient.

And remember: she promised to beat the record.

Nellie Bly's story teaches us: be brave enough to find the truth, and to tell it.

Want more interesting lessons?

Go to brightlivesenglish.com.

Please subscribe and learn with us.