Faffing about on the interweb last weekend, I came across an exposé of the mental health system in New York City by one Nellie Bly, who convinced a host of medical and law enforcement officials that she was dangerously insane, got herself involuntarily committed to an aslyum, and then wrote unflinchingly on the abuses visited daily upon the most vulnerable of the state’s citizens, abuses she endured firsthand.
Bly’s report, Ten Days In A Madhouse, lead to a grand jury investigation which directly resulted in an increase of $850,000 in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections. It was 1887, a staggering 33 years before American women won the right to vote. Bly was 23 at the time.
This was by no means her first nor last daring assignment. A foreign correspondent at 21, she’d had to flee Mexico after denouncing Porfirio Díaz’s government; shortly after writing Ten Days, and inspired by Jules Verne’s Around The World in Eighty Days, she broke the record for circumnavigating the globe. But what stunned me most about the Ten Days report was not just Bly’s age or her pluck, but the ease at which she managed to convince all and sundry she was hopelessly crazy.
All it took, apparently, was a night of practising vacant wide-eyes in front of the mirror. Booking into a female boarding house under an assumed name, Bly succeeded in terrifying the women around her simply by acting slightly erratically and refusing to sleep. No tearing her hair out, no speaking in tongues, no physical manifestations of inner turmoil. Sitting up late and sighing; that was enough for the management at the boarding house to cart her in front of a judge and have her taken to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island.
It made me wonder … just how frail of mind were women once assumed to be? Any inconsistent behaviour at all and they were flung aside by family, friends, society at large – too much trouble to engage with. And not just by the menfolk, either. “Sane” women, with one or two merciful exceptions, do not come across very well in Ten Days; her fellow boarders need little encouragement to proclaim Bly a danger to them and in dire need of incarceration, and while the male doctors in the asylum are hopelessly incompetent, cold and dismissive, the nurses in charge of the day-to-day care of the inmates are absolute monsters. They are physically and emotionally abusive, and derive pleasure from torturing their weaker or genuinely delusional charges. We’ve certainly come a long way in terms of humanity in the last hundred and twenty years, if Ten Days is indicative of society as a whole. Women were regularly committed for such ailments as postpartum depression, for such slights as flirting with men other than their husbands (sound familiar, Ireland?), for such gaffes as not having working English (most heartbreaking is Bly’s account of immigrant women who are committed who have not even been told where they are and why) … even for frailty brought about by convalescence! It seemed even a swoon on the street could land you on The Island, and should you not have friends and family willing and able to pay your way back again, well. One of the things that almost thwarts Bly in her attempt to be committed is that the judge was reluctant to send such a “good girl” to the asylum; she spoke well, and was pretty. No such luck if you were of the teeming working classes, I’d wager.
Terrifying to think that this was acceptable policy only a couple of generations ago, isn’t it? And it’s mind-boggling that it was in this era that Nellie Bly achieved so much. Whilst born into the upper middle classes, she wasn’t exactly rolling in it – her father died when she was six, and her mother’s remarriage to an abusive lout ended in divorce – and yet Bly managed to blaze a trail with nothing more than unshakeable self-belief as her fuel. Really humbling stuff, no?
You can download Ten Days in Word format here.
Nelly Bly’s book is a great read – although I listened to it in audio format. However, Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women’s Madness by Lisa Appignaesi, puts Bly’s book into their frightening historical circumstances. The Late Victorian women make for some of the most pognant cases; women literaly bored to madness as their desire for equality is continually refused.
That book is in my to-read pile! Recently read Elaine Showalter’s book The Female Malady, which focused on the treatment of women deemed ‘mad’ by the budding psychiatric industry. Prepare yourself for lots of illustrations of delightful things like scold’s bridles.. ugh
What a brave woman. I wonder what, if any, was the effect of the book on diagnosis, treatment and care?
I haven’t read the book (just downloaded it though) and I confess I’ve never heard of Nellie Bly. It reminds me of the story of Hanna Greely – locked up for the best part of twenty years, if memory serves, and subjected to all the horrors of the Irish psychiatric institution of the 40s and 50s, (including repeated electric shock treatment) noting it all through a clear eye, and saying all the time, I am sane, let me out. She did eventually get out, and wrote about it in Bird’s Nest Soup https://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/nov/30/paperbacks-tom-widger/
How long, under those conditions, could someone actually remain sane? I often think about elderly people experiencing mental confusion, living in care homes, drugged for convenience, surrounded by those who are similarly confused – really, what prospect is there of any clarity if the world you live in is so messy?
Gosh, it’s depressing, isn’t it? And very frightening to think of women “literally bored to madness”, as Sara says. I suppose if your feelings, opinions, right to express yourself, reluctance to be forced into a rigid definition of femininity, etc, were continuously ignored or supressed, how else could you possibly feel, outside of losing your blimmin’ marbles? It’s so difficult to comprehend, and yet it was a reality not so long ago.
Antonia, I’ll definitely look up Hanna’s account, though even from your brief description it sounds heartbreaking.
What a super post! I’d never heard of her. What a woman! The details of the nut-house however, only sound like a more intense version of now, as do her peers who helped put her there. I’m sure any social workeror mental health professional will attest to the appalling conditions that still exist in a lot of our ‘institutions’ as well as prisons. We had a ‘situation’ in my family too back in the 1950s that does’t sound too far off the details she speaks of. I’m dying to have a read of this now. Bly is a true inspiration. What a great post!
What an amazing woman Nellie was! I love hearing about women like her, thanks for writing about her.
I’ve never heard of Nellie Bly – she sounds like an amazing lady and this is a really interesting post.
I’m currently dipping in and out of a fantastic little book called ‘Don’ts For Wives’ which was originally published in 1913. It makes for very amusing reading (with the benefit of nearly 100 years of progress), but makes you realise just how stifled women of that era really were. Madness probably wasn’t far away from many, many normal wives and mothers.
Funny thing, I actually bought the Don’ts for Husbands book as a stocking filler for Mr. Me the Christmas before last, and I was surprised by how sensitive and wise it was, at least in the context of the time. There was loads in it about respecting one’s wife’s opinions, cherishing her company as much as one would male friends, having a hand in rearing the children, and so on and so forth.
Having said that, I can’t imagine the Don’ts For Wives would be quite as gentle.
Wow, phenomenol woman! What a super post – I commented earlier but it got shoved into spam. ! I’d never heard of her either. Investigative journalist back then, it’s amazing we haven’t seen a film adaption or more about her? The details of the nut-house however, barely sound like a more intense version of now, as do her peers who helped put her there. I’m sure any social workeror mental health professional will attest to the appalling conditions that still exist in a lot of our ‘institutions’ as well as in prisons. We had a ‘situation’ in my family too back in the 1950s that does’t sound too far off the details she speaks of. I’m dying to have a read of this now. A real inspiration.
I can’t believe we’re flagging you as spam now, June!
What an amazingly brave woman. I’ve downloaded the word doc as this post really sparked my curiosity. Thanks so much for sharing!
Nellie Bly was actually referenced in an early episode of The West Wing. She was spoken of in glowing terms by Bartlet’s wife who had just been at a ceremony dedicating a statue to her. Her bravery seems quite astounding even at this remove. To voluntary give oneself over to the mental health system in order to report on it now would be courageous. To have done it then was extraordinary.
Another book to look out for is Kate Millet’s ‘The Loony-Bin Trip’, although I have heard a differing perspective from a witness regarding her involuntary committal to an Irish psychiatric institution.
Thanks so much for this post – I had never heard of Nellie Bly before and look forward to reading the doc attached and checking out others’ references! Like others, I am so amazed at all Bly accomplished during this time – and at 23!
And, Rory wrote:
“To voluntary give oneself over to the mental health system in order to report on it now would be courageous. To have done it then was extraordinary.”
- Beautifully said, Rory! I 2nd that sentiment wholly.
And I “third” it!
Wow, that’s fascinating stuff. I’d never heard of Nellie; incredible woman. The ease with which she was deemed ‘mad’ is frightening. You’d wonder how many poor unfortunates had a few stressful months and insomnia and got put away for life. Its like Rochester’s crazy wife in ‘Jane Eyre’, just how crazy was she in the beginning. Very sad.
Wonder was she ever worried she’d not be released?
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