Nellie Bly
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 03:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizziecBen is working on the new University webserver tonight (Castor) and for one reason or another I am here with him and dmc trying not to disturb them in a corner of their office.
As such I'm going to use this opportunity of being up insanely late with nothing better to do to write about a subject I've been meaning to actually write about for more or less the best part of a year - that is how long I have had the articles I have needed for this bookmarked in Firefox on my laptop. I know it's been about a year because that was when I was bored during the summer and spent many long days watching S1 and S2 West Wing episodes.
The episode that sparked me off on a wild interwebs search is called And It's Surely to Their Credit, in fact a particular exchange near the end of the episode between Abbey and Jed Bartlett:
CUT TO: INT. THE WHITE HOUSE RESIDENCE - NIGHT
Just outside the President's bedroom, two Secret Service agents stand by the door. Bartlet appears.
AGENT: Good evening, Mr. President.
BARTLET: Guys, it's very important that nobody tries to kill me in the next hour or so.
AGENT: Yes sir.
Bartlet enters his BEDROOM and closes the door. Abbey is seated on the couch.
ABBEY: Where've you been?
BARTLET: I was on a conference call with Cardinal Law and the Archbishop of Chicago.
ABBEY: You couldn't get off the phone?
BARTLET: Yeah. "Excuse me, Your Eminence, but the First Lady is a little randy, and she says I'm good to go".
ABBEY: I am a little randy, Jed.
BARTLET:[sits and takes off his shoes] Good, take your clothes off.
ABBEY: Wh--whatever happened to romance? A couple of cocktails, Mel Torme--
BARTLET: Get 'em off.
ABBEY: Okay, I'm going to the bathroom. Where I am gonna change into a special little garment I think you might enjoy!
BARTLET: Abbey, you have two minutes, or I swear to God I'm gonna get Mrs. Landingham drunk.
ABBEY: Loosen your tie. Loosen whatever you'd like.
Abbey goes to the bathroom, as Bartlet goes to fix drinks, loosening his tie on the way.
BARTLET: What was that thing you were doin'?
ABBEY [OS]: When?
BARTLET: Tonight, in Pennsylvania.
ABBEY [OS]: You know what it was.
BARTLET: It was a monument dedication, a statue?
ABBEY [OS]: Yeah!
BARTLET: Statue to who?
ABBEY [OS]: Nellie Bly.
BARTLET: You went all the way to Cochran's... whatever to dedicate a monument to Nellie Bly? Abbey, you can really pass that kind of thing along.
Abbey reappears, behind him, her shoes being the only thing she took off.
BARTLET [cont.]: You don't have to accept every invitation from every yahoo historical society that knows someone in the Social Office. If you want, I can have Charlie--
He turns around, drinks in hand.
BARTLET: You haven't changed into the "special garment".
ABBEY: Cochran's Mills is where I went.
BARTLET: Yeah. You know what I did, just then, that was stupid? [laughs] I minimized the importance of the statue that was dedicated to Nellie Bly, an extraordinary woman to whom we all owe a great deal.
ABBEY: You don't know who she is, do you?
BARTLET: This isn't happening to me.
ABBEY: She pioneered investigative journalism.
BARTLET: Then she's the one I want to beat the crap out of.
ABBEY: She risked her life by having herself committed to a mental institution for ten days so she could write about it. She changed entirely the way we treat the mentally ill in this country.
BARTLET: Yes, Abigail--
She takes a glass from him.
ABBEY: In 1890, she traveled around the world in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds, besting, by more than one week, Jules Verne's 80 days.
BARTLET: She sounds like an incredible woman, Abbey. I'm particularly impressed that she beat a fictional record. If she goes twenty-one thousand leagues under the sea I'll name a damn school after her. Let's have sex.
ABBEY: When it comes to historical figures being memorialized in this country, women have been largely overlooked. Nellie Bly is just the tip of the iceberg.
BARTLET: I couldn't possibly hear about the rest of the iceberg right now.
ABBEY: Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to be awarded an M.D. She founded the Women's Medical College.
BARTLET: Keep talking. I'm just gonna sit here and think about plutonium and the things I can do with it.
(Transcript found here.)
Nellie Bly's story is just as amazing as suggested by Abbey in her argument with Jed so I feel the need to draw attention to her (being unable to unveil an actual physical monument to her as the fictional Abbey did!) so here you go.
Nellie Bly on that wonderful information source that is wikipedia.
Of particular note is the link to Ten Days in a Madhouse which is the actual article that Bly wrote based on her experiences in a Mental "Hospital". It makes very disturbing but compelling reading and if there is anything any of you on my friends list choose to do today (should you have read down this far!) it is to read that article and marvel for just a moment at Bly's bravery and pioneering work.
As such I'm going to use this opportunity of being up insanely late with nothing better to do to write about a subject I've been meaning to actually write about for more or less the best part of a year - that is how long I have had the articles I have needed for this bookmarked in Firefox on my laptop. I know it's been about a year because that was when I was bored during the summer and spent many long days watching S1 and S2 West Wing episodes.
The episode that sparked me off on a wild interwebs search is called And It's Surely to Their Credit, in fact a particular exchange near the end of the episode between Abbey and Jed Bartlett:
CUT TO: INT. THE WHITE HOUSE RESIDENCE - NIGHT
Just outside the President's bedroom, two Secret Service agents stand by the door. Bartlet appears.
AGENT: Good evening, Mr. President.
BARTLET: Guys, it's very important that nobody tries to kill me in the next hour or so.
AGENT: Yes sir.
Bartlet enters his BEDROOM and closes the door. Abbey is seated on the couch.
ABBEY: Where've you been?
BARTLET: I was on a conference call with Cardinal Law and the Archbishop of Chicago.
ABBEY: You couldn't get off the phone?
BARTLET: Yeah. "Excuse me, Your Eminence, but the First Lady is a little randy, and she says I'm good to go".
ABBEY: I am a little randy, Jed.
BARTLET:[sits and takes off his shoes] Good, take your clothes off.
ABBEY: Wh--whatever happened to romance? A couple of cocktails, Mel Torme--
BARTLET: Get 'em off.
ABBEY: Okay, I'm going to the bathroom. Where I am gonna change into a special little garment I think you might enjoy!
BARTLET: Abbey, you have two minutes, or I swear to God I'm gonna get Mrs. Landingham drunk.
ABBEY: Loosen your tie. Loosen whatever you'd like.
Abbey goes to the bathroom, as Bartlet goes to fix drinks, loosening his tie on the way.
BARTLET: What was that thing you were doin'?
ABBEY [OS]: When?
BARTLET: Tonight, in Pennsylvania.
ABBEY [OS]: You know what it was.
BARTLET: It was a monument dedication, a statue?
ABBEY [OS]: Yeah!
BARTLET: Statue to who?
ABBEY [OS]: Nellie Bly.
BARTLET: You went all the way to Cochran's... whatever to dedicate a monument to Nellie Bly? Abbey, you can really pass that kind of thing along.
Abbey reappears, behind him, her shoes being the only thing she took off.
BARTLET [cont.]: You don't have to accept every invitation from every yahoo historical society that knows someone in the Social Office. If you want, I can have Charlie--
He turns around, drinks in hand.
BARTLET: You haven't changed into the "special garment".
ABBEY: Cochran's Mills is where I went.
BARTLET: Yeah. You know what I did, just then, that was stupid? [laughs] I minimized the importance of the statue that was dedicated to Nellie Bly, an extraordinary woman to whom we all owe a great deal.
ABBEY: You don't know who she is, do you?
BARTLET: This isn't happening to me.
ABBEY: She pioneered investigative journalism.
BARTLET: Then she's the one I want to beat the crap out of.
ABBEY: She risked her life by having herself committed to a mental institution for ten days so she could write about it. She changed entirely the way we treat the mentally ill in this country.
BARTLET: Yes, Abigail--
She takes a glass from him.
ABBEY: In 1890, she traveled around the world in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds, besting, by more than one week, Jules Verne's 80 days.
BARTLET: She sounds like an incredible woman, Abbey. I'm particularly impressed that she beat a fictional record. If she goes twenty-one thousand leagues under the sea I'll name a damn school after her. Let's have sex.
ABBEY: When it comes to historical figures being memorialized in this country, women have been largely overlooked. Nellie Bly is just the tip of the iceberg.
BARTLET: I couldn't possibly hear about the rest of the iceberg right now.
ABBEY: Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to be awarded an M.D. She founded the Women's Medical College.
BARTLET: Keep talking. I'm just gonna sit here and think about plutonium and the things I can do with it.
(Transcript found here.)
Nellie Bly's story is just as amazing as suggested by Abbey in her argument with Jed so I feel the need to draw attention to her (being unable to unveil an actual physical monument to her as the fictional Abbey did!) so here you go.
Nellie Bly on that wonderful information source that is wikipedia.
Of particular note is the link to Ten Days in a Madhouse which is the actual article that Bly wrote based on her experiences in a Mental "Hospital". It makes very disturbing but compelling reading and if there is anything any of you on my friends list choose to do today (should you have read down this far!) it is to read that article and marvel for just a moment at Bly's bravery and pioneering work.
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no subject
Date: Wed, Aug. 29th, 2007 09:12 am (UTC)