The modern steel drum claims as its champion no less a character than Nellie Bly, a pioneer of investigative journalism famed for beating the around-the-world time of Jules Verne’s fictional Phileas Fogg.
Born Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, Nellie took over the Ironclad Manufacturing Company after the death of her industrialist husband, Robert Seaman. In 1905, she was awarded a patent for the straight-sided 55-gallon steel drum that is still in widespread use today.