Ten Days in a Mad-House (I Love Nellie Bly)

Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, more fondly known as Nellie Bly, is hands down one of my favorite journalists. Nellie was born on May 5, 1864, died on January 27, 1922, and remains noteworthy to this day for two main reasons: she partook in a whirlwind trip around the word in emulation of Phileas Fogg (the fictional hero of "Around the World in Eighty Days), and she feigned insanity so she would be institutionalized and could investigate the terrible treatment that patients at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island.


While her record breaking trip around the world is certainly exceptional, it's Nellie Bly's time in an asylum that makes her such an important person in my mind. In a time and place in which men ruled the world of journalism, Bly convinced Joseph Pulitzer to five her an undercover for New York World. She practiced deranged expressions and unstable behavior in front of a mirror and then checked herself into a working-class boardinghouse where she was very quickly deemed crazy and taken into police custody. After pretending to have amnesia in court, she was examined by doctors who all declared that she was positively demented.

A passage from her book, Ten Days in a Mad-House, reads: "In spite of . . . the assurance that I would be released in a few days, my heart gave a sharp twinge. Pronounced insane by four expert doctors and shut up behind the unmerciful bolts of a madhouse . . . was an uncomfortable position."

The horrible conditions of the asylum included gruel broth, spoiled meat, something masquerading as break and dirty water. Patients who were considered to be unsafe were tethered together with ropes, patients were forced to sit in cold conditions for the majority of the day, the ratio of rats to patients in the institution was far too high for comfort and the nurses were abusive. She held the belief that in reality, many patients were just as sane as she was, but the brutality and neglect shown to them by their "care givers" was enough to make them certifiably nuts.

She was released from the asylum after ten days, and her revealing report of the asylum brought her instant fame. A grand jury decided to conduct an official investigation of the institution, and Bly was invited to assist them.

I suppose the reason that I cling so strongly to Nellie Bly and her undercover investigation of an insane asylum is because it hits close to home. I live with several mental illnesses, learning disorder, and chronic illnesses. My doctors had yet to find the right combination of medications when I was sixteen and newly diagnosed, and I ended up going a wee bit (totally) crazy and becoming a danger to myself and those around me. I was admitted to Bradley Hospital. Professionals describe it as an institution for children and adolescents with mental health problems; everyone else calls it a looney-bin. Collectively, I spent two months of my life in-patient and over three months in an out-patient program at Bradley.

I'm a little bit in love with Nellie Bly for going to a place that most people avoid.

(Fun fact that I found online: She originally intended her pen name to be Nelly Bly, but her editor wrote Nellie by mistake, and the error stuck!)