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Sob Sisters

Newspaper publishers were early converts to the feminist movement inasmuch as lady journalists were good with words and related easily to pathos which boosted circulation.

The article expressed the usual male sentiments of that day - not any too flattering to aspiring womanhood. "What Girls Are Good For" published in a Pittsburgh newspaper, in 1884 she responded to an article titled. The first sob sister was Elizabeth Cochran.

He was impressed and asked her to do an article on girls and their purpose in life. Editor George Madden received a stinging - but well written - rebuttal from Miss Cochran, the next day.

A handsome sum for a woman in Victorian America, madden hired her as a reporter at $5 per week. Elizabeth wrote the article right away and was invited to drop around for a visit.

" She was the prototype of all women reporters who came to known in the newspaper business as "sob sisters. Miss Cochran was an imaginative and persuasive writer.

Elizabeth chose a penname for her byline, as was the fashion in those days.

She chose "Nellie Bly" from a Stephen Foster song. Elizabeth determined to use a feminine name. The famous French authoress Amadine Luci used the male pseudonym of "George Sand" to gain acceptance.

" What next? Good grief! Who ever heard of a woman reporter? "Is the writer really a woman? People began to ask questions about Nellie Bly, right away.

Half derisive description for her special type of journalism, the result was a half-admiring. She was a genius at wringing tears from her readers over the plight of the unfortunate. She went into the slums to find stories, " Sympathetic to problems of the poor. Nellie had a "nose for news.

Charles Dana and Joseph Pulitzer, it was then the era of newspaper publishing giants such a Horace Greeley. Nellie headed for New York City, after establishing a reputation.

Nellie went there to seek a job. It was setting the pace for dynamic journalism. The "World" was Pulitzers flagship.

" challenged Pulitzer, "Name one idea the World might possibly be interested in.

I have always wanted to find out how the insane poor are really treated and to tell the story. "I want to pretend I'm insane and get myself committed to the asylum on Blackwell's Island and live there as an inmate, she replied.

He gave her $25 for expenses and told her to go ahead. This was the kind of thing Pulitzer couldn't resist.

They locked her up! A judge and a succession of doctors that she had gone mad, nellie convinced a policeman.

Nellie Bly became Pulitzer's star reporter and was given free rein as a crusader. " It launched a major reform of institutional care. Ten days later she came out with a sensational story: "Behind Asylum Bars.

* * *

" Jules Verne had stirred public interest with his fictional "Around The World In Eighty Days. Record-breaking trip around the world in 1889, was her pioneer, the story that fired the imagination of the world and made Nellie a celebrity.

She filed long telegrams to Pulitzer at every stop. 11 minutes and 14 seconds, 6 hours, and completed her trip in 72 days, 1889, 14. She left New York City on Nov. Nellie set out to better this imaginary race against time.

More than a million people entered the contest. Readers of the World were invited to guess the time it would take Nellie to complete the trip.

A board game was created that traced her journey. Wrote "Globe Trotting Nellie Bly" about her, the most popular composer of his day, songwriter Joe Hart.

" Everyone was asking: "What next for Nellie Bly?

Income taxes or inflation, movies, tV, 000 - a substantial sum in those days of no radio, her income for the next several years averaged $25. But she augmented her salary as a lecturer and syndicated columnist, there were not any more trips.

After his death ten years later she took over his failing factories and restored them to profitability. Nellie retired from journalism when she married Robert Seaman in 1895.

She died in 1922. She filed war stories to various newspapers, whereupon. While vacationing in Europe at the start of the first World War she was trapped behind the Eastern Front. Teachers and libraries for her employees, health care nurses, bowling alleys, she ran her plants in enlightened fashion - establishing physical-fitness gymnasiums.

Vera Brown

Usually she was one of the best paid reporters and adopted colorful manners that went with notoriety, then had to have its own sob sister, of course, every newspaper.

She went on to other things after crashing her plane into the Detroit River during her solo flight. " She began her career by taking flying lessons and reporting her progress. The last of the old-time sob sisters was Vera Brown who wrote a front-page column "Our Times"of human interest stories for Randolph Hearst's "Detroit Times.

Vera had a heart as big as all outdoors which she attempted to disguise by a steady stream of epithets which made stevedores blush.

Vera Brown covered the story for the Times. The event was a benefit for the Army-Navy Relief Fund. I helped arrange a fly- in by movie star Cary Grant on a new B-28 bomber, in the early years of World War II, . Mich, as a Navy Yeoman press liaison at Detroit.

" "When is that g-d d-m bomber going to get here, the plane was late and Vera demanded of the general in charge?

Teased Vera about offending a general, accustomed to his sob sister's blue language, the editor. The general was taken aback and related the remark to Vera's editor.

And always had a cigarette dangling from her lips, she never took off her hat. Had removed her dress to type her story --as was her custom on warm days before air conditioning, then a gray-haired grandmotherly type, vera.

G-d d-m B-26, what I SAID was. "I did NOT say g-d d-m bomber, straightened her slip and shouted to the crowded newsroom, indignantly she rose to her feet.

Lighted a new cigarette and turned out a masterpiece of needs by the widows and orphans of our service men, vera sat down, having defended her professional accuracy.

" Front-page column "Sunny Side, jimmy Pooler -- a superb wordsmith I tried to emulate -- who penned a daily. Our "sob sister" was a guy. I worked for awhile as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, after the war.

A lot of sensitivity and soul has gone out of newspapering. Too bad. And Jimmy have been liberated to the "beats" and editors' chairs, and Vera, sob sisters like Nellie, today.

2000 september 10,