Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in…
January 1890 CE
The New York newspaper Cosmopolitan has sponsored its own reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, to beat the time of both Phileas Fogg and Bly.
Bisland has traveled the opposite way around the world, starting on the same day as Bly took off.
Bly, however, had not learned of Bisland’s journey until reaching Hong Kong. She dismissed the cheap competition. "I would not race," she said. "If someone else wants to do the trip in less time, that is their concern."
To sustain interest in the story, the New York World had organized a "Nellie Bly Guessing Match" in which readers were asked to estimate Bly's arrival time to the second, with the Grand Prize consisting at first of a free trip to Europe and, later on, spending money for the trip.
During her travels around the world, Bly had gone through England, France (where she met Jules Verne in Amiens), Brindisi, the Suez Canal, Colombo (Ceylon), the Straits Settlements of Penang and Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan.
The development of efficient submarine cable networks and the electric telegraph has allowed Bly to send short progress reports, although longer dispatches had to travel by regular post and thus were often delayed by several weeks.
Bly has traveled using steamships and the existing railroad systems, which caused occasional setbacks, particularly on the Asian leg of her race.
During these stops, she visited a leper colony in China and, in Singapore, she bought a monkey
As a result of rough weather on her Pacific crossing, she arrived in San Francisco on the White Star Line ship RMS Oceanic on January 21, two days behind schedule.
However, after World owner Joseph Pulitzer chartered a private train to bring her home, she arrived back in New Jersey on January 25, 1890, at 3:51 pm.
Just over seventy-two days after her departure from Hoboken, Bly is back in New York.
She has circumnavigated the globe, traveling alone for almost the entire journey.
Bisland is, at this time, still crossing the Atlantic, only to arrive in New York four and a half days later.
She also had missed a connection and had to board a slow, old ship (the Bothnia) in the place of a fast ship (Etruria).
Bly's journey is a world record, although it will be bettered a few months later by George Francis Train, whose first circumnavigation in 1870 possibly had been the inspiration for Verne's novel.
Images
A woodcut image of Nellie Bly's homecoming reception in Jersey City printed in Frank Leslie's Illustrated News on February 8, 1890
Groups
Chinese Empire, Qing (Manchu) Dynasty
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Straits Settlements, (British)
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United States of America (US, USA) (Washington DC)
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Ceylon, British Crown Colony of
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Hong Kong, British Crown Colony of
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Italy, Kingdom of
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France (French republic); the Third Republic
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Egypt, British Protectorate of
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