Portrait of Nellie Bly

Unknown location, late 19th century. Photograph measuring 4 x 5 ½ inches, mounted on heavy cardstock. Brown Brothers stamps verso and marked verso “Nelly Bly”. Excellent contrast; overall excellent.. Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (1864–1922), pen name Nellie Bly, was a pioneering female journalist best known for circumnavigating the globe and for her undercover exposé of the conditions at New York City’s Women’s Lunatic Asylum. Offered here is a portrait of Bly reclining in a high-backed chair. The date and location are unknown, but her dress and hair are styled identically to a photograph that purports to be from her time in Mexico, a trip she made in 1885. She published a book, Six Months in Mexico, documenting her time there, in which she describes the lives and especially the poverty of the Mexican people.