A Courageous Woman Journalist
Girls are as smart as boys. They may be smarter in some ways, like understanding people and in helping them. They may not be as good in fighting. In the old days, men controlled the world through hand-to-hand fighting and fighting with sticks and swords. However, times have changed. Women can now do most of the work men can.
However, many countries do not allow girls to go to college
or even high school. They do not allow women to work in offices. Such prejudice
against women was there even in countries which are advanced countries now.
Take the United States for example. A hundred and thirty-five years ago, a
newspaper named the Pittsburgh Despatch carried an article with the title “What
are girls good for?” It said that girls are good mainly for giving birth to
children and for keeping house. A girl named Elizabeth, who was 21 years old at
that time, did not agree with the article. She wrote a letter to the Editor of
the paper arguing that girls should get better jobs, and we should treat them
better. Her father had died when she was six years old. So, she signed the
letter “Lonely Orphan Girl.” The Editor was impressed by the letter. He wanted
to ask her to write more for the paper, but how could he find out who was the
“Lonely Orphan Girl”? He put out an advertisement
on his newspaper, asking the “Lonely Orphan Girl” to contact him and author more
articles for the paper! She wrote to him again and became a writer for the
newspaper. In those days, writers often had a pen-name different from their
real name. Elizabeth chose the pen-name Nellie Bly.
People were eager to read what the bold girl thought of the world,
and she became a leader of women who read her articles. But factory owners did
not like her supporting women workers in factories. They forced the newspaper
to give her work she did not like. After a few months, she joined a newspaper run
by Joseph Pulitzer, the “New York World.” She agreed to take on a risky task. She
had to act like a mad woman, get arrested, and be sent to a women’s mental
asylum on Roosevelt Island. They had heard that the asylum treated patients
badly, and Nellie’s task was to find out the whole truth. When she came out
after ten days, she authored an article, “Ten days in a mad house.” People read
this article in Pulitzer’s newspaper and condemned the inhuman practices in the
asylum. This forced the asylum to change its ways!
Nellie always full of ideas. She suggested to the Editor of
her newspaper once that she could take a trip round the world and write about
her experiences. She wanted to do this in a fast trip taking less than eighty
days. When she got approval, she found a ship that was good for the first leg
of her journey. However, it was sailing in two days! She scrambled and got on
it to start her world tour. Her trip took only 72 days and set a world record.
Her writing about this trip made her even more famous.
She authored many novels. She also was an inventor who
earned a few patents. She was also an industrialist, who set up a company and treated
her workers well. Because of the writings and work of leaders like her,
the United States gave women the right to vote just like men, in 1920. We know
about Nellie Bly’s work only because she published many books and articles
about it.
Srinivasan Ramani
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