In September 1887 a young woman named Nellie Brown was declared insane and sent to the New York City lunatic asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Unbeknownst to the authorities the woman was feigning insanity; she was in fact a reporter named Nellie Bly on her first assignment for the New York World.

Nellie Bly

Nellie Bly had come to New York for a career in journalism. She had already made a name for herself as a reporter for the Pittsburgh Dispatch where she had worked her way up from women's stories to serious assignments such as foreign correspondent in Mexico. She was born Elizabeth Jane Cochrane but when she started writing serious pieces her editor suggested a snappier byline—“Nellie Bly,” from a popular song by Stephen Foster.

Finding work as a reporter in New York was not easy; the men there were not ready to see women in their newsrooms. After being rejected by every paper in town she finally convinced an editor at the New York World to give her a chance. She agreed to the plan of getting herself committed to Blackwell’s Island to experience conditions in the insane asylum first hand. The paper assured her that they would have her released after ten days.

Nellie Bly assumed the name Nellie Brown and checked into a temporary home for working woman where she convinced the other tenants that she was insane. A policeman took her Bellevue hospital where she was examined by a doctor. Nellie would later say that the doctors were easy to fool, she was more worried about the reporters who had taken an interest in the case. After being declared insane, Nellie was taken by boat to the asylum on Blackwell’s Island.

Here she would meet women who were truly insane—who would shriek in the night and hold conversations with people only they could see. Just as distressing were the women whom Nellie could tell were as sane as she was, but through unfortunate circumstances found themselves in a situation they could not escape. “The insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island is a human rat-trap” she would later write, “It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out."

The conditions she experienced on Blackwell’s Island were appalling. The meals were barely edible, with rancid butter and spoiled meat. Inmates were given cold baths and made to wear garments too thin to keep out the September chill in the unheated building. There was very little entertainment beyond occasional walks outside. Most days the inmates were forced to sit quietly on wooden benches and do nothing for endless hours. Protests were met with violence by the nurses who would beat or choke unruly inmates. Even the doctors used violent methods to subdue their patients. Complaints were ignored or considered symptoms of madness.

At the end of ten days Nellie Bly was rescued by her employer. On October 7, 1887 The World published the first installment of a two part story on Nellie’s stay on Blackwell’s Island. Though bylines were rare at the time, the story included the byline “Nellie Bly.” The story was such a sensation that in the second installment, a week later, her name became part of the headline. As a result of Nellie Bly’s reporting, a grand jury was convened to investigate conditions on Blackwell’s Island and after their report an extra $1,000,000 was appropriated for the insane.

Nellie Bly’s career progressed with this type of “stunt reporting.” In 1889 she set out to best Phileas Fogg, Jules Verne’s fictional globetrotter, and travel around the world in fewer than eighty days. She did it in seventy-two. The trip made her famous and by the turn of the twentieth century “Nellie Bly” was a household name.

Sources:

• Bly, Nellie. Ten Days in a Mad-House. New York: Ian L. Munro, 1887.
• Kroeger, Brooke. Nellie Bly: daredevil, reporter, feminist. New York: Times Books, 1994.

New York, New York, 1888 - Sparking in Tompkins Square, a place which Cupid has made his favorite stomping ground, and where the stern paterfamilias is wont to appear. 

Cupid has had great sport in Tompkins Park, this city, on pleasant evenings of a Sunday for some time past. Recently the interesting spectacle of forty couples breathing tales of love was witnessed at this charming rendezvous for "spooney" young men and women. Near the circular structure in the center of the park sat a maiden of sixteen or thereabouts, clad in a maroon dress, which just reached to the tops of her buttoned boots, a lavender jacket, and a jaunty hat matching her dress, with a raven's wing in the band.

Close beside her sat a youth of equal age, who was gazing into her eye. He held her hand in his, and in an undertone told her many pretty secrets.

Changing her hand to his other one, his arm gently stole round her waist. She seemed unconscious of it. He whispered something and she shyly looked at him, presumably the better to understand his whisper. He inclined his face to hers and "just one" he pleaded-and hastily took one, two, three. He paused a few seconds in admiration of her and then resumed talking, and she talked, too, in a bashful way.

But presently a very substantial vision intruded itself upon their happiness-a tall, ponderous Dutchman in trousers of ample volume, a jean jumper and a velveteen cap similar to those worn by the drivers of brewery wagons.

"You vas here, eh?" he queried of the girl. "You vas coom home."

She coomed.

Another young couple plumped down. The Fellow manifested his affection by pulling his sweetheart's hair and pinching her ears. She tee-hee-hee'd, slapped him playfully, and twittered, "Now, Jamesie, you stop." But just the same she didn't seem pleased when Jamesie did stop. She slapped him some more; whereat Jumesie pushed hack her head and gave her a loud kiss.

With all the couples the time was fraught with happiness and sweetness and most of them didn't leave the park until the broad-faced clock in the steeple of St. Bridget's Church nearby tolled the hour of ten.

The National Police Gazette, November 3, 1888