HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NELLIE BLY

All through my novels are strong willed women from history:

Ada Byron, inventor of the first computer language 100 years before the creation of the computer.

Margaret Fuller, first American woman foreign correspondent 

and fellow transcendentalist with Ralph Waldo Emerson -- who covered the Italian Civil War, marrying one of the rebels.

Abigail Adams, intelligent first lady and fiery free thinker.

How could I not honor the 151st birthday of 

Nellie Bly 

who was a trailblazing journalist,

 an unwavering champion for women 

and the working poor, and a brilliant muckracker. 

One of her most famous assignments was for the the New York World 

where she posed as a mentally ill woman and exposed the horrors of a women's asylum on Blackwell's Island.

 She was a pioneer in her field, and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.

I would have loved to have accompanied her on her race to beat Jules Verne's 80 days around the world.

She did it in 72 by the way.  

Way to go, Nellie!