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erine's review against another edition
4.0
**Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC to review.**
A fascinating peek into what Nellie Bly’s undercover journalism might have been like. The story itself narrowly focuses on her experiences getting admitted to, living in, and getting out of Blackwell’s Home for the Insane. As a representation of what life was like as a woman at the time, or what life was like for those living with any number of mental or chronic health problems, the story is both chilling and illuminating. The black and white illustrations reflect both the chaos and restraint of such a life.
While the book included a really nice Authors’ Note, and a short list of mental health resources, the lack of any kind of bibliography was pretty glaring (and frankly, disappointing). I wish I knew how much (if any) of this story was based on Bly’s actual experiences.
A fascinating peek into what Nellie Bly’s undercover journalism might have been like. The story itself narrowly focuses on her experiences getting admitted to, living in, and getting out of Blackwell’s Home for the Insane. As a representation of what life was like as a woman at the time, or what life was like for those living with any number of mental or chronic health problems, the story is both chilling and illuminating. The black and white illustrations reflect both the chaos and restraint of such a life.
While the book included a really nice Authors’ Note, and a short list of mental health resources, the lack of any kind of bibliography was pretty glaring (and frankly, disappointing). I wish I knew how much (if any) of this story was based on Bly’s actual experiences.
miss_creant's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
I am so impressed that Nellie Bly was able to pull off getting committed to the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum for a writing project. She put a lot of trust in her employer to get her out. This was a very interesting read!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Confinement, Mental illness, Torture, Forced institutionalization, and Gaslighting
vickiann's review against another edition
5.0
Horrifying!
As I write this review I'm flooded with emotions. I know the worst is long over for these poor, unfortunate women but I can't help the overwhelming need to give them justice. Scream to whoever will listen that their treatment was worse than any living creature should endure. To take the most vulnerable and perpetrate the inhumane acts that the nurses at the asylum plagued upon them, breaks my heart.
Even some 130 years later, my need for justice is mind numbing.
As I write this review I'm flooded with emotions. I know the worst is long over for these poor, unfortunate women but I can't help the overwhelming need to give them justice. Scream to whoever will listen that their treatment was worse than any living creature should endure. To take the most vulnerable and perpetrate the inhumane acts that the nurses at the asylum plagued upon them, breaks my heart.
Even some 130 years later, my need for justice is mind numbing.
exlibrisalex's review against another edition
4.0
A Victorian exposé by a female journalist (surely an oddity for the time period) on the daily happenings inside Bellevue hospital, specifically the Woman's Lunatic Asylum. Nellie Bly (real name Elizabeth Cochran Seaman) was given the assignment of posing as an insane person by the famous Joseph Pulitzer himself with the express purpose of being admitted to the institution. At the time little was known of the treatment of insane persons within such an institute, nor the manner or method of "curing" or easing mental diseases. What took place in a lunatic ward was sure to pique the interest of readers at a time when there was little-to-no transparency on how such a place was run, or on the assumedly bizarre and grotesque behaviors of their residents. The only other glimpse into such an environment was published by Charles Dickens several decades prior and it painted a hellish caricature of patients that whetted the interest of readers on the topic.
While I had a fair understanding that is was not uncommon for sane women to be committed to such institutions (usually by husbands, fathers-in-law, nephews, etc in order to extricate themselves from the burden of supporting said women, or due to pure displeasure of their company - Dickens himself purportedly tried such a trick with his wife Catherine) I was astonished at how little it took for Nellie to be committed. Little both in time and in effort. To be a woman in those days who caused the slightest bit of annoyance or deviation from societal norms and to the mad house you would be sent!
As can be expected, the male doctors were incompetent, uninterested in their patients, and none too concerned in mistakenly classifying a sane person as insane. The nurses was sadistic and cruel. The food spoiled and rotten. Beatings frequent. And no inspiriting or engaging activities were to be had that might nourish the mind of the patients or happily distract them from the reality that they were sentenced for life in an insane asylum. The day was spent sitting on uncomfortable benches, while books, talking, needlework, etc were prohibited. On other days they were instructed to do hard, unpaid labor.
At the end of ten days stay, Pulitzer ensured Nellie's release and upon publication of the article and some investigation, $1 million per annum additional was funded to the Hospital in order to alleviate some of the hardships the patients experienced (poor food, not enough soap, too little clothing, etc). Nellie Bly, along with Mary Jane Ward (author of The Snake Pit), were central to the implementation of better reforms in public institutions housing and caring for "insane" persons.
While I had a fair understanding that is was not uncommon for sane women to be committed to such institutions (usually by husbands, fathers-in-law, nephews, etc in order to extricate themselves from the burden of supporting said women, or due to pure displeasure of their company - Dickens himself purportedly tried such a trick with his wife Catherine) I was astonished at how little it took for Nellie to be committed. Little both in time and in effort. To be a woman in those days who caused the slightest bit of annoyance or deviation from societal norms and to the mad house you would be sent!
As can be expected, the male doctors were incompetent, uninterested in their patients, and none too concerned in mistakenly classifying a sane person as insane. The nurses was sadistic and cruel. The food spoiled and rotten. Beatings frequent. And no inspiriting or engaging activities were to be had that might nourish the mind of the patients or happily distract them from the reality that they were sentenced for life in an insane asylum. The day was spent sitting on uncomfortable benches, while books, talking, needlework, etc were prohibited. On other days they were instructed to do hard, unpaid labor.
At the end of ten days stay, Pulitzer ensured Nellie's release and upon publication of the article and some investigation, $1 million per annum additional was funded to the Hospital in order to alleviate some of the hardships the patients experienced (poor food, not enough soap, too little clothing, etc). Nellie Bly, along with Mary Jane Ward (author of The Snake Pit), were central to the implementation of better reforms in public institutions housing and caring for "insane" persons.
princessrobotiv's review against another edition
3.0
I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.This firsthand recounting of time spent in an asylum was a short and matter-of-fact condemnation of the processes and conditions of the institutions of the time. Nellie Bly undoubtedly exercised a great deal of bravery while going undercover, and of course, the impact her work had on the reform of said asylums cannot be underrepresented.
The work itself, however, is equal parts sad and informative, on-the-nose and out-of-touch. Bly approached the topics with, I believe, a very progressive viewpoint for her time, but there are still a lot of moments of hapless insensitivity. Our intrepid reporter checks out fine ass doctors in the very institutions she's undercover investigating for human rights violations, and this happens multiple times. Hilarious, but demonstrative of my point re: tone.
Additionally, there was a sense of superiority or, perhaps, disconnection from her experience demonstrated by Bly. This was expressed often throughout the report, sometimes blatantly and sometimes subtly, and took a few different forms.
The floor was bare, and the little wooden tables were sublimely ignorant of such modern beautifiers as varnish, polish and table-covers. It is useless to talk about the cheapness of linen and its effect on civilization. Yet these honest workers, the most deserving of women, are asked to call this spot of bareness—home.Come on, Nellie--I know you mean well, but these women's problems don't center around linen, I can tell you that much.
However, Nellie's socioeconomic position and her ethnicity/nationality helped to highlight some interesting if obvious facets of the abuse occurring in places like Blackwell. Firstly, there were several unexplored connections between class and treatment thrown in:
Besides, to get to Blackwell’s Island my friends would have had to feign poverty, and, unfortunately for the end I had in view, my acquaintance with the struggling poor, except my own self, was only very superficial.Here, seemingly without much reflection on her thoughts, Bly casually mentions that one would have to feign poverty in order to even end up in Blackwell (a thing her friends couldn't possibly do because they're all too posh, darling), highlighting an obvious relationship between forced asylum and societal control of the poor. These days, you might draw that line more easily to the prison industrial complex.
There were a few interesting things stated about immigrants, too. Several immigrant women were featured while Bly inhabited Blackwell, as in the following passage:
Thus was Mrs. Louise Schanz consigned to the asylum without a chance of making herself understood. Can such carelessness be excused, I wonder, when it is so easy to get an interpreter? If the confinement was but for a few days one might question the necessity. But here was a woman taken without her own consent from the free world to an asylum and there given no chance to prove her sanity. Confined most probably for life behind asylum bars, without even being told in her language the why and wherefore.Bly's statements highlight the ways in which the state used the excuse of insanity to lock away members of society that many Americans had trouble accepting (and still do today), and the inherent violence and depravity of those actions when taken against somebody that doesn't have any means to object or dispute the treatment.
Most apparently, there was the obvious function of the asylum as a way to control "misbehaving" or neurodivergent women, perhaps the main function of those institutions:
They said her name is Sarah Fishbaum, and that her husband put her in the asylum because she had a fondness for other men than himself.All in all, this was a short and valuable read, if a sober one, and I would recommend it. It's currently free on Kindle Unlimited, too, and can likely be found for free elsewhere online, so check it out.
While I prefer a bit more extrapolation in my nonfiction, I can't fault Bly for presenting her investigative report in a relatively cool and factual manner because that tone was likely necessary in order for her work to be viewed as legitimate by her peers or society, given the time period. I'd be interested in reading another work fully detailing the impact her work had on society, which was entirely missing from this report.
The other reports included in the book I found very forgettable and not at all valuable, personally.