The girl who took the pen name Nellie Bly and helped launch a new kind of investigative journalism and undercover reporting was born Elizabeth Jane Cocharan on May 5, 1864 in Pennsylvania.  She was considered the most rebellious child in her large family.  She earned acclaim for her exposè on the conditions of patients at Belluve Hospital in New York City, and achieved further fame after the New York World sent her on a trip around the world in 1889.  In additions to her writing, she was also an industrialist, inventor, and charity worker.