wunder beta🌏 Nellie Bly's seventy-two days around the world
She left the Hoboken pier at 9.40 and 30 seconds on a November morning in 1889 carrying one dress, one hand-bag and a ticket that ran out at London - her own newspaper had never even made an itinerary. The number everyone remembers is a rou
What you’ll learn
- The wager begins in a newsroomTrace how a newspaper calculation became a novel and then became a real assignment, and what Bly actually took with her.Verne got Phileas Fogg from a newspaper's sums; Bly got Verne from a sleepless night, and sailed with one dress, one bag and a ticket that ran out at London.
- Speed depended on ordinary systemsRead Bly's own accounts to see the record as travelling time plus waiting time, and locate where the waiting happened.Of the 72 days, 15 were spent standing still — nearly all of it at three ports, hostage to ships and schedules she did not control.
- The finish line changed the storyCompare the competing round-the-world records and identify who set the start and finish of each clock.Bly's arrival became a golden globe, a million guesses and a board game, while the number itself turned out to have several versions and several rivals.
Questions this course answers
Where did Jules Verne say the idea for Around the World in Eighty Days came from?
He told Bly so at Amiens: he read a discussion and some calculations in Le Siècle, then noticed the sums had ignored the meridians — and that gap became the novel's ending.
What transport did Bly actually have booked when she sailed from Hoboken?
Her own account: the office had never made an itinerary, and nobody there knew whether the connecting ship that week was going to India or to China. At Brindisi she found her ship was bound for Australia.
How much luggage did Bly take around the world?
She had a gown made in a single day to stand three months' wear, then packed one bag and left her second dress behind rather than carry a parcel. Having only the one dress is why she turned down the dinners offered in her honour at Hong Kong.
Bly's own accounts split the 72 days into travelling and waiting. Roughly how much of it was waiting?
377 hours 30 minutes delayed and 1,356 hours 41 minutes travelling, adding to the minute to 72 days 6 hours 11 minutes. Three ports — Hong Kong, Yokohama and Colombo — took about seven-eighths of the delay.
Put these moments of Bly's trip back in the order they happened.
London and Amiens came in the first fortnight, Colombo in early December, Hong Kong on Christmas morning, and Jersey City on 25 January 1890.
Why did Bly lose most of a week at Colombo?
"Waiting for the Nepaul has given us this five days' delay. She's a slow old boat." Her table records the Colombo stop as 98 hours 5 minutes. She had arrived two days early and it bought her nothing: she still reached Penang on the date originally scheduled.
Grounded in trusted sources
- Nellie Bly. Around the World in Seventy-Two Days. New York: The Pictorial Weeklies Company, 1890 — full text, including her leg-by-leg table of miles, hours travelled and hours delayed. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/world/world.html
- Library of Congress. Today in History — January 25 (Nellie Bly's arrival, the elapsed time, and the World's guessing contest). https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/january-25/
- Library of Congress. Nellie Bly: A Resource Guide. https://guides.loc.gov/nellie-bly
- Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Around the world in seventy-two days and six hours — reception of Nellie Bly at Jersey City, from sketches by C. Bunnell, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 8 February 1890. https://www.loc.gov/item/99613984/
- Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Round the world with Nellie Bly — The World's Globe Circler, The New York World, 26 January 1890, p. 21. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002716792/
- Maris Fessenden. Nellie Bly's Record-Breaking Trip Around the World Was, to Her Surprise, a Race. Smithsonian Magazine, 25 January 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nellie-blys-record-breaking-trip-around-world-was-to-her-surprise-race-180957910/
- Knute Berger. Around the world in 80 days — starting and finishing in Tacoma (George Francis Train's 1890 trip). Cascade PBS, 13 January 2022. https://www.cascadepbs.org/culture/2022/01/around-world-80-days-starting-and-finishing-tacoma/
- National Women's History Museum. Nellie Bly, by Arlisha R. Norwood and Mariana Brandman. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/nellie-bly-0
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