#record-breaking

[unbfacts]

"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won all of them, making it the largest sweep in Oscars history.

[majablanque]

you spin me up high 🪩

[ao3screenshotss]

[mudwerks]

(via Iowa's Caitlin Clark, like Steph Curry, has redefined basketball rules)

redefining Women’s Basketball

she got 40 pts in a triple double performance in the last NCAA tournament game.

[tayaf]

Women cheering for other women. THE POWER THAT IT HAS.

[newsifindinteresting]

[grantmkemp]

Nellie Bly, was a real Phileas Fogg, and the first undercover investigative journalist .... Read more below

Born 156 years ago, today 5th May 1864, Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist, industrialist, inventor, and charity worker who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she worked undercover to report on a mental institution from within. She was a pioneer in her field, and launched a new kind of investigative journalism

In 1880, Cochrane's mother moved her family to Pittsburgh. A newspaper column entitled "What Girls Are Good For" in the Pittsburgh Dispatch that reported that girls were principally for birthing children and keeping house prompted Elizabeth to write a response under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl". The editor, George Madden, was impressed with her passion and ran an advertisement asking the author to identify herself. When Cochrane introduced herself to the editor, he offered her the opportunity to write a piece for the newspaper, again under the pseudonym "Lonely Orphan Girl"] Her first article for the Dispatch, entitled "The Girl Puzzle", was about how divorce affected women. In it, she argued for reform of divorce laws. Madden was impressed again and offered her a full-time job. It was customary for women who were newspaper writers at that time to use pen names. The editor chose "Nellie Bly", after the African-American title character in the popular song "Nelly Bly" by Stephen Foster.

Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper the New York World, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island.

It was not an easy task for Bly to be admitted to the Asylum: She first decided to check herself into a boarding house called Temporary Homes for Females. She stayed up all night to give herself the wide-eyed look of a disturbed woman, and began making accusations that the other boarders were insane. Bly told the assistant matron "There are so many crazy people about, and one can never tell what they will do." She refused to go to bed, and eventually scared so many of the other boarders that the police were called to take her to the nearby courthouse. Once examined by a police officer, a judge, and a doctor, Bly was taken to Blackwell's Island.

Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. After ten days, the asylum released Bly at The World's behest. Her report, later published in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation, prompted the asylum to implement reforms, and brought her lasting fame.

Biographer Brooke Kroeger argues:    Her two-part series in October 1887 was a sensation, effectively launching the decade of “stunt” or “detective” reporting, a clear precursor to investigative journalism and one of Joseph Pulitzer’s innovations that helped give “New Journalism” of the 1880s and 1890s its moniker.

In 1888 Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days' notice, she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line, and began her 40,070 kilometer journey. She took with her the dress she was wearing, a sturdy overcoat, several changes of underwear, and a small travel bag carrying her toiletry essentials. She carried most of her money (£200 in English bank notes and gold, as well as some American currency) in a bag tied around her neck

During her travels around the world, Bly went 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 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 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.

Just over seventy-two days after her departure from Hoboken, Bly was back in New York. She had circumnavigated the globe, traveling alone for almost the entire journey. Bly's journey was a world record, although it was bettered a few months later by George Francis Train, whose first circumnavigation in 1870 possibly had been the inspiration for Verne's novel. Train completed the journey in 67 days, and on his third trip in 1892 in 60 days.

In 1895, Bly married millionaire manufacturer Robert Seaman. Bly was 31 and Seaman was 73 when they married. Due to her husband's failing health, she left journalism and succeeded her husband as head of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co., which made steel containers such as milk cans and boilers. In 1904, Seaman died.

According to biographer Brooke Kroeger:    She ran her company as a model of social welfare, replete with health benefits and recreational facilities. But Bly was hopeless at understanding the financial aspects of her business and ultimately lost everything. Unscrupulous employees bilked the firm of hundreds of thousands of dollars, troubles compounded by a protracted and costly bankruptcy litigation.

Bly died of pneumonia at St. Mark's Hospital in New York City in 1922 at age 57

This is my colourised version of a photograph taken in 1890 when Nellie was 26

Restoring Your Past  … Website

Restoring Your Past … on Facebook

[teenvogue]

Women Won in Record-Breaking Numbers in the 2018 Midterms

A historic number of women dominated the polls on Tuesday, November 6. Projections vary, but the morning after the 2018 midterms CNN reported that 100 women are expected on their way to Congress, helping push the Democrats to retake control of the House of Representatives. Twelve women were elected to the Senate, according to CNN.

The House wins are set to make for more than 100 women serving in the House in its upcoming term; according to CNN, the Congressional Research Service says the most women to serve in the house in a single session prior to the up-coming one was 85.

“Women led the charge tonight in flipping the House for the Democratic Party and in picking up key seats in state legislatures nationwide,” Andrea Dew Steele said in a press release. Steele is the president and founder of Emerge America, which recruits and trains Democratic women running for office. “This isn’t a moment, it is a movement for justice, equality and what is right for this country.”

Read more

📸: Joseph Prezioso