Undercover

(Historic American Buildings Survey, Creator. “Welfare Island, Insane Asylum, New York County, NY,” Library of Congress)

"It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world."

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

One of Bly’s first assignments at the New York World was to write a piece on the experiences of the mentally ill patients being treated at the Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York City (Maranzani). To get the most accurate information possible, Bly decided to take one step further and go undercover as a patient at the mental institution. Bly feigned insanity to be committed to the institution. Once there, she dropped the act and composed herself as she would in her everyday life. She did this in order to more accurately assess the doctors’ competence on the matter of distinguishing the mentally ill from the perfectly sane. This was done to no avail, as Bly’s insistence of her sanity was completely ignored. She was left to spend the next ten days of her life at Blackwell’s Asylum (Bly).

Room at a mental institution (CBS News)

During her time in the Asylum, Bly experienced abuse and neglect and was shown very little kindness. The conditions were nothing one would expect to see in a hospital. The food served to the patients was often inedible due to it being spoiled or prepared improperly (Bly).

The rooms resembled prison cells, and they were extremely dirty, as were the clothes the patients wore. Patients were also handled very roughly by the nurses. They were often pushed, slapped, scratched, and pinched, and in some cases beaten (Bly).

"I felt sure now that no doctor could tell whether people were insane or not, so long as the case was not violent."

~ Nellie Bly