On the morning of November 14, 1889, a young reporter for The World of New York stood on the deck of the steamship Augusta Victoria at its pier in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her name was Nellie Bly, and she was setting out to go around the world faster than Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Verne’s novel “Around the World in Eighty Days.” She planned to do it in seventy-five. “I never wept in my life, but I came very near having a good cry when I bade my mother good-by,” she told a reporter from the Evening World, the paper’s afternoon edition.

1889 Evening World front page headlined Extra, A Girl's Feat, Nellie Bly Starts Out on a Wondrous Flying Trip Around the Globe

“A Girl’s Feat,” the Evening World, New York, November 14, 1889, the day Nellie Bly sailed from Hoboken. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

A will signed in the stateroom

When the reporter offered to help get her luggage aboard, Bly said she had already carried it on herself. Then she asked him and two other men to come down to her stateroom and witness her will, just in case. She unscrewed an air-tight inkwell and signed a folded slip of paper dated at “the City of Hoboken, State of New Jersey.” What it said was a secret. The reporter saw only the last word, alone on the last line: “mother.” She also wore a plain gold band on her left thumb for luck. She had worn it the day she applied for work at The World, she said, and on the only three days it was off her finger, she had bad luck.

Everything in one small bag

When the reporter asked what she was taking, she pointed to “a little brown bag of leather in a corner. It was 14 inches long, by 6 by 10 inches.” The three men whistled. Inside were a comb and brush, two suits of flannels, a big bundle of the paper reporters write their notes on, and her passport.

She packed no second dress. Her one traveling gown, dark blue camel’s hair with a soft golden stripe, had been made for her by a dressmaker named Ghormley in a single day.

1889 newspaper paragraph headed Just One Little Bag, listing Nellie Bly's luggage: a comb and brush, two suits of flannels and note paper

“Just One Little Bag,” the Evening World, New York, November 14, 1889. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

“I am going to make a record for The World for somebody to beat, if they can,” she said. Then the whistle sent visitors ashore, and the Augusta Victoria steamed out through the Narrows to the sea.

Seventy-two days

Her plan ran by ship to England, by train through France and Italy, by steamer through the Suez Canal to Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, and across the Pacific to San Francisco. In France she even stopped in Amiens to meet Jules Verne himself.

She reached San Francisco on January 21, 1890, a day ahead of her own schedule. The Evening World tracked her train east town by town, and in Harrisburg, the paper said, her welcome was equal to any ever given a president. On the afternoon of January 25, the train rolled into the Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Jersey City. Cannon fired, and the paper counted fully 15,000 people waiting.

Timekeepers from two athletic clubs stood on the platform with stopwatches. “It was nine minutes of four o’clock when both of Nellie Bly’s bootines touched the platform and the watches were stopped, making the length of her trip around the world 72 days, 6 hours, 10 minutes.” She had beaten Phileas Fogg by nearly eight days.

1890 Evening World headline Welcome! Nellie Bly Arrives Safely at Jersey City at 3.51 P.M., The Globe Girdled in 72 Days 6 Hours 10 Minutes

“Welcome!” the Evening World, New York, January 25, 1890. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the clipping to read it full size.

She came home the way she left, with the little hand-bag and the same plain navy blue gown. Jersey City’s mayor, Orestes Cleveland, welcomed her on the spot. “The American Girl will no longer be misunderstood,” he said. “She will be recognized as pushing, determined, independent, able to take care of herself alone and single-handed wherever she may go.” A ferry took her across the river to Park Row, where the crowd outside the World building was so thick the streetcars could not move.

1890 newspaper drawing of Nellie Bly's trip: leaving Hoboken, in France, in Hong Kong, Jules Verne, and a crowd greeting her at the station, labeled Home Again

“Home Again”: the Evening World’s drawing of the trip, from “Off From Hoboken” to the welcome in Jersey City, January 25, 1890. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Click the picture to see it full size.

A board game in the Sunday paper

The next day, a Sunday, The World printed a full-page board game, “Round the World With Nellie Bly,” with one square for each day of her journey, and told families to cut it out, lay it on a table or paste it on cardboard. “Use checkers, pennies or any kind of counters to represent the voyagers,” the directions said. Players spun a teetotum, a little numbered top, or rolled dice, and a storm square could send them back a day or two. The first one to reach New York won.

1890 newspaper board game Round the World With Nellie Bly, a spiral of numbered day squares with ships, trains and Jules Verne

“Round the World With Nellie Bly,” a cut-out board game printed in The World, New York, January 26, 1890. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Click the picture to see it full size.

Her own adventure

Nellie Bly was a pen name. She was born Elizabeth Cochrane, in Pennsylvania, and on the day she sailed, the paper’s headline called the trip “Her Own Adventure.” She left Hoboken with one small bag and no escort, and she came home having set exactly what she promised: a record for somebody else to beat.

Portrait photograph of Nellie Bly in 1890, hair pinned up, wearing a white lace collar

Nellie Bly, photographed by H. J. Myers in 1890. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Click the picture to see it full size.

Sources

  • The Evening World (New York, N.Y.), November 14, 1889, page 1 (sailing, will, bag, ring, gown, itinerary) and January 25, 1890, page 1 (arrival, timing, crowd, Mayor Cleveland, the drawing, the visit to Jules Verne, and “Nellie Bly sailed at exactly 9.40.30 o’clock in the morning of Nov. 14, from Hoboken”).
  • “Round the World With Nellie Bly,” The World, January 26, 1890, page 21: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-02918. No known restrictions on publication.
  • Nellie Bly, photograph by H. J. Myers, 1890: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-75620. No known restrictions on publication. The same record gives her real name, Elizabeth Cochrane.
  • All newspaper images: Library of Congress, Chronicling America. No known copyright restrictions.
  • Cover: “Round the World With Nellie Bly,” The World, New York, January 26, 1890 (top of the page). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Published 1890, public domain.