ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Nellie Bly used sensational stories and tactics to take investigative reporting to new heights at the end of the nineteenth century, and, in doing so, opened doors for the muckrakers and female journalists yet to come. In an era of sensational journalism, Nellie paved her way with stories on injustice and suffering, from insane asylums to factories, while at the same time endearing herself to an audience captivated by her sensational escapades. Nellie's contemporary readers admired her tenacity and the honesty in her reporting, and her sensationalist style gave her the audience she needed to give voice to the women's issues of the day. She went up against the newspaper traditions of the time, and offered a female perspective on the plight of America's poverty-stricken working girls, the mentally ill, orphans, and abused women. In many ways, Nellie was the very first muckraker, the mother of a revolution that would change American journalism forever.
