This Intrepid 19th-Century Reporter Refused to Accept the Unacceptable

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The enterprising 19th-century journalist Nellie Bly didn’t just write stories—she stepped into danger to force readers to see things that they might prefer to ignore. Bly went undercover in the 1880s to expose the asylum system, in which women (with or without mental illness) were often abused or neglected. More than a century later, Bly’s work was honored with a monument near the site of the asylum she investigated, on New York’s Roosevelt Island.

“The Girl Puzzle,” named after one of the journalist’s early works, includes five monumental faces of women, one of them Bly’s, along with four spheres of mirror-polished steel. It’s a reminder on this International Women’s Day that progress has often depended on women who refused to accept the unacceptable.

In Manchester, England, a sculpture of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst is frozen mid-speech, rallying an invisible crowd toward votes and visibility. The Musée de La Femme in Marrakesh spotlights Moroccan women’s creative and civic power. In Senegal, the Henriette Bathily Women’s Museum stands as a tribute to women’s cultural contributions. And La Casa Azul in Mexico City preserves Frida Kahlo’s intensely personal world.

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Female visual artists have long had to struggle, not just to have their work widely seen, but to create at all. But women have made art as long as there’s been art. Many persevered, both through the strength of their work and the force of will, and in celebration of Women’s History Month, we want to highlight some of our favorite places where you can see these contributions in person. SEE THE FULL LIST

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The Music Box Theatre in Chicago is a historic 1929 cinema showing independent and classic films in an atmospheric setting.

A plane wing with the Mechanics’ Creed written on it is a roadside art installation and monument on a remote stretch of highway in Iceland.

An unexpected mix of medieval buildings and modern art enlivens this street in Morlaix, France.

Did You Know?

Visitors were drawn to mental institutions out of curiosity and compassion, but they weren’t seeing the full picture—until Nellie Bly revealed it.

The Undercover Woman Who Changed Asylum Tourism Forever