Impact

Impact

                               (“Com'r Kate Davis, Blackwell's Island,” Library of Congress)

“Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell's Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.”

~Nellie Bly, "Ten Days in a Mad-House"

(“Nellie Bly Led the Way,” New York World)

(Click here to see Transcript of newspaper article.)

Following the publication of Bly’s exposé, a grand jury launched a full-blown investigation of the Asylum (Winchester).

Upon their arrival, it was evident that the Asylum had been notified of the investigation as the conditions did not appear to be anything like the way Bly described them.  The boat that took them to the Island was clean, there was suddenly salt and clean, white bread in the kitchen, and, most suspiciously, all of the women whom Bly quoted in her article had either been discharged, transferred to a different institution, or had been moved to another quarter where Bly could not see them (Winchester).

The Asylum went very far to cover up the horrendous conditions and the abuse of the patients. The stories told by the nurses and doctors completely contradicted everything Bly had written about. The jury wasn’t buying it, though, due to the fact that their stories were contradicting each other. The jury’s report called for nearly $850,000 to be added to the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections, and they also recommended that some of the changes Bly had proposed be made. The jury also made an effort to ensure that only the genuinely insane would be committed to asylums (Winchester).

Since Nellie Bly’s experience at Blackwell’s Asylum, many changes have been made in the treatment and care of the mentally ill. There have been advancements in technology and research, there is now a wider variety of information available to the public, and the U.S government is much more involved in mental health care as a whole. But while Bly’s experience exposed Blackwell’s Asylum, it had very little impact on mental institutions of the time (Winchester). It wouldn’t be until the early 1900’s that extreme improvements would be made as far as the treatment of mental health (History), and it wouldn’t be until 1955 that deinstitutionalization would begin (“Deinstitutionalization”).

Undercover