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A review by kevin_shepherd
Ten Days in a Mad-House: A Story of the Intrepid Reporter by Nellie Bly
4.0
I’m not sure Nellie Bly knew exactly how difficult it would be for a female journalist to find work in 1887 New York. She had left a good job in Pittsburg and moved to the Big Apple with little else but high hopes. Four months later, after numerous rejections, she was almost penniless and still unemployed. Finally, the New York World gave her an assignment; if she agreed to go undercover and write an exposé on the treatment of patients at the then-infamous Blackwell Island Lunatic Asylum for Women, she had a job. It was illegal, it was dangerous, but it was an opportunity. She agreed.
What Bly wrote changed the face of institutional mental health care in America. Her series of investigative articles shocked 19th Century sensibilities. As a result, state investigations were launched, protocols were drastically altered, and an additional $850,000 (that’s $26,556,505.26 in 2022 dollars) were allocated for New York’s mental health services.
This is a short but compelling read. Yes, it’s a little “tabloidy” and melodramatic but it suits the era in which it was written, and its historical significance is enormous. I can think of at least three films that played on the theme of Bly’s nightmarish experiences: The Snake Pit (Anatole Litvak, 1948), Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller, 1963), and, of course, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milôs Forman, 1975). Good movies all, and all have Nellie Bly to thank.
What Bly wrote changed the face of institutional mental health care in America. Her series of investigative articles shocked 19th Century sensibilities. As a result, state investigations were launched, protocols were drastically altered, and an additional $850,000 (that’s $26,556,505.26 in 2022 dollars) were allocated for New York’s mental health services.
This is a short but compelling read. Yes, it’s a little “tabloidy” and melodramatic but it suits the era in which it was written, and its historical significance is enormous. I can think of at least three films that played on the theme of Bly’s nightmarish experiences: The Snake Pit (Anatole Litvak, 1948), Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller, 1963), and, of course, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milôs Forman, 1975). Good movies all, and all have Nellie Bly to thank.