Ten Days in the Madhouse: Nellie Bly's Undercover Asylum Investigation

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This week, Jamie and Leo dig into one of the boldest undercover investigations in journalism history, the woman behind it, and what she found on the other side of those asylum doors.

In 1887, a 23-year-old journalist walked into a boarding house, convinced doctors she had lost her mind, and got herself committed to one of New York's most notorious mental asylums. She wasn't sick. She was working.

Nellie Bly spent ten days inside Blackwell's Island, witnessing and documenting abuse and neglect that most of the public had no idea was happening. When she got out, she wrote about all of it...

The story didn't just make her famous, it forced the city to change how it treated the people locked inside. This file of The Darkives is easy to get into but much harder to Leave.

Serious history. Told not so seriously.

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Sources:

• https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/nellie-bly-0
• https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2022/11/nellie-bly-blackwells-island/
• https://www.nps.gov/places/blackwell-s-island-new-york-city.htm
• https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html

Theme music: Ways of the Wizard-geoffharvey

Used with permission, Thank you Geoff!

licensed through: Pixabay

Other music used: licensed through Pixabay-used under the Pixabay Content License