Nellie Bly: The Girl Puzzle
Bly’s First Story

The Girl Puzzle
The Pittsburg Dispatch — January 25, 1885
What shall we do with our girls?
Not our Madame Neilsons; nor our Mary Andersons; not our Bessie Brambles nor Maggie Mitchells; not our beauty or our heiress; not any of these, but those without talent, without beauty, without money.