Nellie BlyMarguerite Higgins

Ethel L. PayneIda M. Tarbell

MarchWomen’s History Month

Lady Journalists on Postage Stamps

Nellie Bly(1864-1922) • Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in Cochrans Mills, Pa. • In 1882, sent an anonymous letter to the editor.• Editor ran an ad seeking the writer's identity. • Hired her to write an article about "a woman's place in the world.“ • Began to use the pen name Nellie Bly, taken from the popular

Stephen Foster song "Nelly Bly."

• In 1887 moved to New York City and was hired by The World • Her first assignment: feigned insanity and gained admittance to the Women's

Lunatic Asylum on Blackwells Island and exposed the poor treatment of patients in the asylum.

“I always made a point of telling

the doctors I was sane, and asking to be released, but the more I endeavored

to assure them of my sanity, the more they doubted it.”

Nellie Bly• 1889 Task: Travel around the world

in fewer than 80 days; beat the record set by Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg.

• Before her journey ended 72 days later, Bly had traveled by train, rickshaw and burro to achieve her goal.

• Bly was one of the first female stunt reporters who participated in dangerous or sensational activities in order to capture readers' attention.

Marguerite Higgins(1920-1966)

• Covered World War II, Korea and Vietnam• Advanced the cause of equal access for female war correspondents. • In 1951,the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for international

reporting.

• Persuaded the management of the New York Herald Tribune to send her to Europe in 1944.

• Reassigned to Germany in March 1945. • Witnessed the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in April

1945• Received an Army campaign ribbon for her assistance during the SS

guards' surrender.

Marguerite Higgins• Shortly after her arrival in Japan, war broke out in Korea.• Ordered out of the country by a U.S. military commander who

argued that women did not belong at the front. • An appeal was made to General Douglas MacArthur, who

reversed the orders, which was a major breakthrough for all female war correspondents.

• Won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, sharing the award with five male war correspondents.

• In 1963 she joined Newsday and was assigned to cover Vietnam. • While on assignment in late 1965, Higgins contracted a tropical

disease that led to her death on January 3, 1966.

Ethel L. Payne(1911-1991)

• known as the first lady of the black press, • In 1972 she became the first female African-American commentator

employed by a national network.

• began her journalism career rather unexpectedly while working as a hostess at an Army Special Services club in Japan, a position she had taken in 1948.

• Allowed a visiting reporter from the "Chicago Defender" to read her journal. • Soon Payne's observations were being used by the Defender, an African-

American newspaper with a national readership, as the basis for front-page stories.

Ethel L. Payne• During Payne's career, she covered several key

events in the civil rights movement– Montgomery bus boycott – desegregation at the University of Alabama in

1956– 1963 March on Washington.

Ida M. Tarbell(1857-1944)

In 1999 New York University's journalism department ranked her "History of the Standard Oil Company" fifth on its list of the top 100 works of 20th-century American journalism.

On Oct. 7, 2000, she was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Tarbell was born in Erie County, Pa. After graduating from Allegheny College in 1880 (the only woman in her class), Tarbell moved to Ohio and taught school for two years. In 1882 she moved back to Pennsylvania and a year later took a position with The Chautauquan, a monthly magazine.

Ida M. Tarbell• In 1891 Tarbell moved to Paris and supported herself by

contributing articles to American newspapers and magazines. In 1894 she returned to the United States to work for McClure's Magazine. Her most famous project was an exhaustive investigation of the Standard Oil Company and the methods that John D. Rockefeller, Sr., had used to consolidate his hold on the oil industry. Tarbell's detailed series of articles published from 1902 to 1904 helped bring about legal actions that resulted in the breakup of Standard Oil several years later.

Later in her career, Tarbell traveled as a lecturer and wrote freelance articles, including a report on the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and an interview with Benito Mussolini in the mid-1920s.

References2002, Sept. 14. Four Accomplished Journalists Honored on U.S. Postage Stamps. Philatelic News. Available at

http://www.usps.com/news/2002/philatelic/sr02_063.htm