Elizabeth Bisland
| Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore | |
|---|---|
Bisland circa 1891
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| Born |
February 11, 1861 St. Mary Parish, Louisiana |
| Died | January 6, 1929 (aged 67) Charlottesville, Virginia |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Spouse(s) | Charles B. Wetmore (October 6, 1854 – June 1, 1919) |
| Parent(s) | Thomas Shields Bisland (1837–1908) and Margaret (Brownson) Bisland (m. June 24, 1858) |
Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore (February 11, 1861 – January 6, 1929) was an American journalist and author, perhaps best known for her 1889–1890 race around the world against Nellie Bly, which drew worldwide attention.
Bisland was born on Fairfax Plantation, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, on February 11, 1861. During the Civil War, the family fled the homestead prior to the Battle of Fort Bisland. Life was difficult when they returned, and when she was twelve the family moved to Natchez, Louisiana, site of her father's family home which he had inherited. She began her writing career as a teenager, sending poetry to the New Orleans Times Democrat using the pen name B.L.R. Dane. Once her writing activity was revealed to her family and the paper's editor, she was paid for the work, and she soon went to New Orleans to work for the paper. Around 1887, Bisland moved to New York City and got her first work from The Sun newspaper. By 1889 she was doing work for a number of publications, including the New York World. Among other outlets, she later become an editor at Cosmopolitan magazine and also contributed to the Atlantic Monthly and the North American Review.
In November 1889, the New York World announced that it was sending its reporter Nellie Bly around the world, in a bid to beat Phileas Fogg's fictitious 80-day journey in Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days. Catching wind of this publicity stunt, John Brisben Walker, who had just purchased the three-year-old and still-fledging Cosmopolitan, decided to dispatch Bisland on her own journey. Six hours after being recruited, Bisland departed westward from New York. Meanwhile, Bly left on a steamer headed to Europe, both on the same day—November 14, 1889. The journeys were keenly followed by the public, though Bly, sponsored by the more sensationalistic and popular New York World (which mainly ignored Bisland), appeared to get more attention than Bisland and the genteel Cosmopolitan, which only published monthly.
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