The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E3: Nelly Goes Undercover

Explicit content warning

04/14/25 • 41 min

Nellie Bly was a true trailblazer. In late 19th century America, women were expected to get married and become housewives, or go into a suitable career like teaching.

But Nellie didn’t do any of that. Instead, she changed journalism forever, becoming one of the world’s first female investigative journalists, and paving the way for a generation of incredible ‘Girl Stunt Reporters’.

And Nellie’s first investigation was probably her most dangerous: In 1887, she deliberately got herself committed to the most notorious insane asylum in New York, to expose the abuse of women inside its walls. She was drugged, half starved and manipulated by doctors as the screams of other patients echoed around the corridors...

Researcher and author Kim Todd tells us Nellie’s story.

Kim’s book about Nellie and the journalists she inspired is called Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s ‘Girl Stunt Reporters’.

We want YOUR stories for our Girlfriends hotline! Did your bestie ever bail you out of an awful date with a fake emergency phone call? Or show up on your doorstep with three weeks’ worth of lasagne when you’d just had a baby? Or sit with you in solidarity while you grieved the loss of a beloved grandparent? We want stories that are big or small, meaningful or silly.

Record yours as a voice memo (under 90 seconds) and email to [email protected]. Please don’t include your own name or anyone else’s real names.

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nellie Bly was a true trailblazer. In late 19th century America, women were expected to get married and become housewives, or go into a suitable career like teaching.

Researcher and author Kim Todd tells us Nellie’s story.

Kim’s book about Nellie and the journalists she inspired is called Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s ‘Girl Stunt Reporters’.

Record yours as a voice memo (under 90 seconds) and email to [email protected]. Please don’t include your own name or anyone else’s real names.

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Previous Episode

The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E1: Tracy Hits the Bullseye

In 2019 Tracy Otto was a college student in Tampa, and a fitness fanatic. Then a violent attack by an ex-boyfriend changed her life forever. She was left paralysed from the chest down, and lost her left eye.

But that’s only the beginning of Tracy’s story. In the aftermath of the attack, she rebuilt her life through sheer force of will, and discovered a passion for archery. That passion would take her all the way to the very top of elite sport: the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

Record yours as a voice memo (under 90 seconds) and email to [email protected]. Please don’t include your own name or anyone else’s real names.

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Next Episode

The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E4: June Rocks America

From the moment she heard a guitar being played in an empty classroom at her convent school in the Philippines in 1961, June Millington knew what she wanted to do with her life: rock and roll.

So when a girl called up June and her sister and asked if they wanted to start a band, the answer was hell yeah.

They went on to become Fanny, the first all-female rock band to release an album with a major record label. June and her bandmates moved into a house in LA, toured the world and won fans like David Bowie. But they were also up against sexist stereotypes, skeptical audiences and critics who couldn’t believe that a group of women could rock just as hard as any guy.

But June wasn’t about to let that stop her. This is the story of how she stuck it to the man and blazed a trail for generations of female musicians to come.

June is the co-founder of the Institute for the Musical Arts, which offers workshops and events for women in music: https://ima.org/

Record yours as a voice memo (under 90 seconds) and email to [email protected]. Please don’t include your own name or anyone else’s real names.

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Girlfriends: Spotlight - The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E3: Nelly Goes Undercover

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:00.200

Hey listener. In this episode, we'll be mentioning themes like physical and sexual abuse, but we'll also be talking about probably the most kick ass female journalists you've ever heard of, And in the spirit of the show, there's also going to be some inevitable bad language. Oh well, I was having dinner with some of my oldest friends the other night, the kind of old friends who you don't ask about work because we're not entirely sure what the oth