Showing results for "Ten Days in a MadHouse" in Politics & Social Sciences

Nellie Bly, born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5, 1864, was an American journalist, author, and charity worker who received initial renown after writing a stinging expose of the mistreatment of the mentally ill while faking insanity and living undercover at a New York mental institution. At a time when women were just beginning to break into the field of journalism, the type of undercover investigative reporting undertaken by Bly set an important precedent, allowing her to successfully pioneer working in the male dominated field of newspaper writing.

Ten Days in a Madhouse is a book by Nellie Bly that chronicles her undercover investigation into the conditions at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island in New York City. In the late 1800s, Bly, a young journalist, pretended to be insane in order to be committed to the asylum and investigate the reported abuse and mistreatment of the patients there. Throughout the book, Bly provides a firsthand account of the shocking conditions she witnessed and the brave efforts of the patients to survive and escape. The book exposes the corrupt and inhumane practices of the asylum and brings ...