Nellie Blye
Nellie Blye was a woman of dedication. She put her all into every piece she wrote and threw herself into her projects 110%. She was a woman of many talents, which eventually led to her induction into the women's hall of fame. Her work began when she wrote a response to an offensive article she had read. Her response got buzz and from there she was offered a position at Pittsburgh Dispatch. Her early work here was focused solely on working women, starting with a series all about women who were working in factories. After this, for a full six months she focused more specifically about writing on the lives of Mexican women and their work ethics/ professions. Through this work, she did lots of traveling. As a journalist, she spoke on how much she enjoyed being able to travel for her stories because it gave her range and experience when writing about each headline she was assigned.
This journey was no easy ride for Blye, though. At one point in her life she was sent to a mental institution. This changed her entirely. She spoke on the fact that while she was in there she felt she was sane compared to the others who surrounded her, but it also made her wonder if that is how others felt when looking at her. During her time in the institution, they were forced to share a bath towel 45 people/ 1 towel, the food was atrocious, she was held in confinement rooms that were rat-filled, damp, lonely, and intolerable, and worst of all she was beaten, dragged by her hair, held under water, and tied down. This mental institution did some serious damage on Nellie Blye.
The mental institution scares did not stop her from her journalism work after the fact, though. She did not skip a beat coming back to this profession where she covered WW1 stories and happened to be the first one to enter the warzone to report on what was going on. This did not last as long as she had liked when she was arrested on the mistaken impression that she was a British spy.
Blye was a woman willing to take many risks in her profession and this set a tone for not only female journalists, but males as well on how to get the best story no matter the consequence.
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