$3 · ***TEN DAYS IN A MAD-HOUSE

Nellie Bly was a pioneer investigative journalist. Of her many exposé assignments was her voluntary, undercover journey into the “lunatic asylum” on Blackwell’s Island, just east of Manhattan. This was the most well-known of her undercover assignments, in which she fooled various doctors and authorities into deeming her insane and admitting her to the asylum. Due to the manner in which countless individuals were easily committed to asylums in the 1800s and 1900s, Bly was able to convince doctors of her mental deficiencies, in her case solely by feigning the forgetting of her luggage. Numerous other individuals who should never have been committed included women who were considered to be useless, sufferers of medical disorders such as Epilepsy, and a number of other men and women. Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced its dire conditions firsthand. Just a few of the many atrocities included horribly spoiled food; patients being mistreated and beaten with whips; unclean and unsanitary conditions, being left to freeze in the cold. Bly was released ten days later when it was planned that her editor would seek to do so. After the publishing of her memoire, a sensation became known among the public. And thanks to her documented experiences, living condition for the insane were dramatically improved, including the assessment of individuals before possible confinement.