What happened to Nellie Bly in the insane asylum? After one terrible night at Bellevue — with inedible food and a hard mattress to sleep on — Bly is transferred into Blackwell’s Island. Once there, she stops “acting insane” and simply acts as herself. What happened Blackwell asylum?
What happened to Nellie Bly?
Nellie Bly went undercover in 1887 as a patient at an insane asylum in New York. (Library of Congress) When she went undercover in a New York City insane asylum in 1887, Nellie Bly was surrounded by a world of grim horror. “Nearly all night long I listened to a woman cry about the cold and beg for God to let her die.
How long was Anne Bly committed to an asylum?
Bly’s editor suggested she have herself committed to the asylum for 10 days to expose the real conditions, and Bly immediately agreed. Working under an assumed name, she took a room in a boarding house and set out to prove herself insane.
How did Elizabeth bly Die?
In 2015, director Timothy Hines released 10 Days in a Madhouse, which also depicts Bly's harrowing experience in the asylum. Just two years after reviving her writing career, on January 27, 1922, Bly died from pneumonia in New York City. She was 57 years old.
What did Bly see when she arrived at the boarding house?
When Bly arrived at the boarding house for working women, she saw an environment not dissimilar from what would greet her at the asylum. Illness ran rampant among the extremely poor residents. Cold, distant matrons served bad food to shivering residents.
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What really happened to Nellie Bly in the asylum?
While posing as a patient, Bly documented the abuse and neglect in the asylum: physical and emotional abuse from caretakers, cold showers, filthy living conditions, spoiled food, etc. Bly wrote a book chronicling these experiences at Blackwell's Island: Ten Days in a Madhouse.
What did matron Grady do to Nellie?
In both a retaliation (since Nellie stole Lottie's (Anja Savcic) baby blanket from Grady's office) and a pre-emptive strike (she doesn't want Nellie to escape by seducing Josiah) Grady rather horrifically straps Nellie into a chastity belt and then straps her down to a table where she uses leeches to end her “quick- ...
Why did Nellie Bly go undercover to the asylum?
Bly's editor suggested she have herself committed to the asylum for 10 days to expose the real conditions, and Bly immediately agreed. Working under an assumed name, she took a room in a boarding house and set out to prove herself insane.
How old was Nellie Bly when she died?
57 years (1864–1922)Nellie Bly / Age at death
How did Nellie Bly lose her memory?
Per the film, poor Nellie loses her memory after the horrific 'medical' treatments and more complications ensue. Luckily, the real Nellie made it out intact, after help from her newspaper. She wrote the news article exposing the negligent asylum and a book – Ten Days in a Mad-House.
Was matron Grady real?
While Nellie Bly is real, Matron Grady is a composite character, which gave Light the opportunity to spread her imagination and come up with her own backstory for the role, especially the questions she asked as to why Grady became the woman she was.
How old was Nellie Bly when she got married?
In 1895 Nellie Bly married Robert Seaman. She was 31 and Robert was 73. Nellie retired from journalism and became the president of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company, owned by Robert. The company made steel containers such as milk cans and boilers.
How did Nellie describe herself?
Nelly is a patient, responsible, and resourceful woman who is most often found caring for others; she describes herself to Lockwood as “a steady, reasonable kind of body.” Nelly begins her lifetime role as a caretaker when she is young.
Why did Nellie Bly change her name?
Madden immediately offered her a job as a columnist. Shortly after her first article was published, Elizabeth changed her pseudonym from “Lonely Orphan Girl” to “Nellie Bly,” after a popular song. Elizabeth positioned herself as an investigative reporter.
What are 3 important facts about Nellie Bly?
She was the first woman to cover the Eastern Front during World War I. Nellie Bly died from pneumonia on January 22, 1922 in New York City. The name "Nellie Bly" comes from a song called "Nelly Bly" by Stephen Foster. Before entering the insane asylum, Nellie spent six months in Mexico writing about the Mexican people.
Why did Nellie Bly go to Austria after her husband's death?
In 1914, Nellie fled to Austria due to financial problems with her deceased husband's company. She found herself with the opportunity to report on the Great War from the front lines. She was the first woman to report from the eastern front.
Did Nellie Bly have kids?
Nellie Bly, also known as Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, did not have any biological children of her own.
What was the name of the asylum that Nellie was trying to get committed?
Blackwell Island AsylumNellie Bly Committed Herself to the Infamous Blackwell Island Asylum Just to Get the Story.
What did Nellie keep telling the police officers she had lost?
"Nellie Brown," I replied, with a little accent. "I have lost my trunks, and would like if you could find them." "When did you come to New York?" he asked. "I did not come to New York," I replied (while I added, mentally, "because I have been here for some time.")
What was Nellie Bly known for?
Nellie Bly, born Elizabeth Cochran in 1864, is possibly the most well-known female name in journalism. She was known for “stunt journalism,” frequently going undercover or travelling to far parts of the world. Her major claim to fame, however— and her first major ...
What is the food that Bly finds in the asylum?
The middle chunk of the exposé then takes care to detail every part of Bly’s first day in the asylum, which all nine days afterward echoed. Again, the women are given barely edible food — slightly spoiled and cold meat, thin and flavorless broth and tea, and bread that was “black and dirty…hard, and in places nothing more than dried dough,” and which Bly finds a spider in (Ch. 10–11). Bly can’t make herself eat it, but the other residents are hungry enough that they nearly leap over each other to reach as much food as they can, and eat it quickly without complaint.
What was the grand jury report on the asylums?
The grand jury’s report recommended the changes Bly had proposed, and called for a sum of nearly $850,000 to be added to the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections; the jury also attempted to make future examinations more thorough so that only the seriously ill were admitted into the asylums (“ Nellie Bly”).
What is the name of the woman who admits herself to a boarding house?
She admits herself to a woman’s boarding house under a false name, Nellie Brown. She acts distant, nervous and agitated until she disturbs the other women enough that they call for the doctors to take her away. Bly then meets with several doctors, and a kindly judge, who attempt to classify her mental health.
Why is Nellie Bly's piece important?
Bly’s piece is important to remember because it opens the conversation about the actual treatment of people deemed “insane,” and the irresponsible manner in which so-called professionals diagnose and treat them. We need to constantly second-guess ourselves on what we deem “insane” and “proper treatment.” We cannot allow ourselves to forget about these people, and to keep them on that island. Out of sight, out of mind is an all-too appropriate idiom to apply to the plight of the mentally ill, so we need vivid works such as Nellie Bly’s to remind us of what is happening while we look away.
Where does Bly go after being in the hospital?
After one terrible night at Bellevue — with inedible food and a hard mattress to sleep on — Bly is transferred into Blackwell’s Island. Once there, she stops “acting insane” and simply acts as herself. Somehow, in this world of twisted “logic” and treatment, the “more sanely [she] talked and acted the crazier [she] was thought to be” (Ch. 1).
What was the treatment for Rosemary Kennedy?
The brutal practices of lobotomies and electroconvulsive therapy were developed and made popular particularly during the “psychological revolution” of the 50s and 60s (“An Illustrated History”). After the 60s asylums — as we know them from Bly’s exposé, as well as famous pop culture representations like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Girl, Interrupted — began to go out of style and were deemed unnecessary. Patients were no longer treated as inmates who were simply held in asylums so as not be roaming the streets, but were beginning to be treated as patients, who needed medical care.
Why did Nellie Bly go to the asylum?
In 1887, 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly had herself committed to a New York City asylum to expose the horrific conditions for 19th-century mental patients.
How old was Nellie Bly in 10 Days in a Madhouse?
Inside Nellie Bly’s 10 Days in a Madhouse. In 1887, 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly had herself committed to a New York City asylum to expose the horrific conditions for 19th-century mental patients. In 1887, 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly had herself committed to a New York City asylum to expose the horrific conditions for 19th-century mental ...
What did Bly discover about the asylum?
Bly was shocked to discover that many of the inmates were not insane at all. They were recent immigrants, mostly women, caught up in a law-enforcement system in which they were unable to communicate. Others that Bly met at Blackwell’s, and Bellevue Hospital before, had fallen through the cracks of a society with few social safety nets, ending up committed simply for being poor, with no family to support them. To her horror, Bly quickly realized that while many of these inmates were not suffering from mental illnesses before they arrived at the asylum, their treatments inflicted grave psychological damage on them.
How long did Bly go to the asylum?
Bly’s editor suggested she have herself committed to the asylum for 10 days to expose the real conditions, and Bly immediately agreed. Working under an assumed name, she took a room in a boarding house and set out to prove herself insane.
What is the name of the Cuban immigrant who was sent to Bellevue Hospital?
Bly now claimed to be a Cuban immigrant, suffering from amnesia. A perplexed judge sent Bly to Bellevue Hospital, where she got a taste of the suffering to come, as hospital inmates were forced to eat spoiled food and live in squalid conditions.
What was Bly's diagnosis?
A perplexed judge sent Bly to Bellevue Hospital, where she got a taste of the suffering to come, as hospital inmates were forced to eat spoiled food and live in squalid conditions. When Bly was diagnosed with dementia and other psychological illnesses, she was sent by ferry to Blackwell’s Island, in the East River.
Where was Nellie Bly born?
Born Elizabeth Cochran in May 1864 in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Nellie Bly launched her journalistic career early. In 1885, at the age of 21, she penned an anonymous response to a misogynistic newspaper article in a local newspaper, The Pittsburgh Dispatch. The paper’s publisher, impressed by the letter’s moxie, ...
What happened to Bly in the asylum?
After pretending to have amnesia, Bly was committed to the asylum. Inside the asylum, she found other patients who had been committed when they were also healthy. Many of these patients could not speak fluent English, so they could not convince the nurses that they were actually sane.
What book inspired Bly to travel around the world?
After her time in the Women’s Lunatic Asylum, Bly set out to travel around the world, inspired by Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days. The New York World covered her trip, and readers eagerly followed the journalist’s progress. Bly returned to the United States 72 days after she had departed.
What was the Bly story?
Bly’s journalism career would later include stories about industrialization, coverage of World War I, and support for the suffrage movement. She rode in the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, DC and in her coverage of the event, predicted that it would be at least 1920 before women got the vote.
Where did Nellie Bly grow up?
Her reporting introduced readers to the horrors of insane asylums and to international travel. Born Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, Nellie Bly grew up in Pennsylvania in an area that is now a suburb of Pittsburgh. Her grandfather was an Irish immigrant, and Bly’s father had spent his working life moving up from a mill worker to a merchant ...
What does "lunatic" mean?
The word “lunatic” comes from luna, meaning moon, and the popular misconception that the changing moon could cause people to have fevers or to act irrationally. In Bly’s lifetime, “lunatic” was an umbrella term used to describe any person with a mental illness or behavioral disorder.
What were people with autism called in the 19th century?
Therefore, people with a variety of symptoms could be considered “lunatics” and sent to an asylum.
Why was the grand jury impaneled at Blackwell's Island?
Not only did the New York City municipal government appropriate more money to the care of the mentally ill on Blackwell’s Island, a grand jury was impaneled to investigate the abuses and poor treatments Bly uncovered at the asylum.
Why did Nellie Bly go undercover?
How Nellie Bly went undercover to expose abuse of the mentally ill. Today, we celebrate the 154th birthday of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. Better known by her nom de plume Nellie Bly (taken–and misspelled–from the title of a Stephen Foster tune, “Nelly Bly”), she was the pioneering, if not the very first, American investigative journalist.
What happened after Nellie Bly's investigation was published?
After Nellie Bly’s investigation was published, a grand jury was impaneled to investigate the abuses and poor treatments she uncovered at the asylum. Photo via Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons. The fascinating question to answer, of course, is how did she do it?
Where was Bly in the hospital?
The matron of the house enlisted a few cops to escort Bly to the Essex Market Police Courtroom, where an impatient judge named Duffy pronounced her insane and ordered her to the famed insane ward at Bellevue Hospital, the city’s largest charitable hospital.
When did the first Bly story come out?
Two days later, on Sunday, Oct. 9, 1887, the World ran the first installment of her story, titled “Behind Asylum Bars,” and Bly became an overnight sensation. The psychiatrists who had erroneously diagnosed her as insane offered profuse apologies, even as the remaining stories were widely syndicated across the nation.
How long was the trip of Phineas Fogg?
In 1889, she made a famous, widely reported and intrepid 72-day trip around the globe. It was the fastest journey of her era and one that shattered the fictional record of Jules Verne’s wanderer, Phineas Fogg, in his novel “Around the World in 80 Days.”.
Where was the Lunatic Asylum in New York City?
Medical historians and patient advocates, however, rightly revere Bly for her infamous exposé of the New York City Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s (now Roosevelt) Island in the East River. First reported in October 1887 on the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s flagship newspaper, the New York World, Bly subsequently published her daring dispatches as ...
What episode of The West Wing is Nellie Bly?
Bly was also a subject of Season 2 Episode 5 of The West Wing in which First Lady Abbey Bartlet dedicates a memorial in Pennsylvania in honor of Nellie Bly and convinces the President to mention her and other female historic figures on his weekly radio address.
How many people died in the 1901 train crash?
In its early years, it was a parlor-car only train; in 1901 it crashed, killing 17 people. A steam tug named after Bly served as a fireboat in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Cover of the 1890 board game Round the World with Nellie Bly.
What was Eva Hamilton's first book based on?
The first chapters of Eva The Adventuress, based on the real-life trial of Eva Hamilton, appeared in print before Bly returned to New York.
How long did it take George Francis Train to circumnavigate the world?
Bly's journey was a world record, although it was bettered a few months later by George Francis Train, whose first circumnavigation in 1870 possibly had been the inspiration for Verne's novel. Train completed the journey in 67 days, and on his third trip in 1892 in 60 days.
What was the purpose of the photograph Bly took?
A publicity photograph taken by the New York World newspaper to promote Bly's around-the-world voyage. In 1888, Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) into fact for the first time.
How long did Bly stay in the asylum?
Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. After ten days , the asylum released Bly at The World ' s behest. Her report, later published in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation, prompted the asylum to implement reforms, and brought her lasting fame.
What was Nellie Bly's first job?
Pittsburgh Dispatch. As a writer, Nellie Bly focused her early work for the Pittsburgh Dispatch on the lives of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on women factory workers. However, the newspaper soon received complaints from factory owners about her writing, and she was reassigned to women's pages to cover fashion, society, ...
Who Was Nellie Bly?
Journalist Nellie Bly began writing for the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1885. Two years later, Bly moved to New York City and began working for the New York World. In conjunction with one of her first assignments for the World, she spent several days on Blackwell's Island, posing as a mental patient for an exposé. In 1889, the paper sent her on a trip around the world in a record-setting 72 days.
How many days did Bly travel?
Bly accomplished her goal with days to spare, and, as with her experience in the asylum, her report became a book, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days (1890).
What was the name of the publication that was known for spearheading yellow journalism?
Asylum Exposé. In 1887, Bly relocated to New York City and began working for the New York World, the publication that later became famously known for spearheading "yellow journalism.". One of Bly's earliest assignments was to author a piece detailing the experiences endured by patients of the infamous mental institution on Blackwell's Island ...
How long did Bly live in the asylum?
In an effort to accurately expose the conditions at the asylum, she pretended to be a mental patient in order to be committed to the facility, where she lived for 10 days. Bly's exposé, published in the World soon after her return to reality, was a massive success.
What happened to Bly's father?
Bly suffered a tragic loss in 1870, at the age of six, when her father died suddenly. Amid their grief, Michael's death presented a grave financial detriment to his family, as he left them without a will, and, thus, no legal claim to his estate.
Who was the woman who sailed around the world?
Sailing Around the World. Bly went on to gain more fame in 1889, when she traveled around the world in an attempt to break the faux record of Phileas Fogg, the fictional title character of Jules Verne 's 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days .
Who plays Bly in Lifetime?
In early 2019, Lifetime released a thriller based on Bly's experience as an undercover reporter in a women's mental ward. Christina Ricci starred as Bly and Transparent 's Judith Light played the role of the head nurse.
Author
Our idea of adventure today might be a road trip to a new destination, or simply getting on a terrifying roller coaster. However, what we envision never seems to include what we watch in movies, like going undercover and spying on an enemy, or traveling around the world in the least amount of days as possible.
Megan Barnett
Our idea of adventure today might be a road trip to a new destination, or simply getting on a terrifying roller coaster. However, what we envision never seems to include what we watch in movies, like going undercover and spying on an enemy, or traveling around the world in the least amount of days as possible.
Why did Nellie Bly take the editor's job?
First, she viewed journalism as a device to effect positive social change, and saw the mental asylum in need of that. Second, she knew that if she did this assignment correctly, it would solidify her career as a serious journalist.
How old was Nellie Bly when she started her career?
But she did more than force change upon a mental institution; she also expanded the possibilities of journalism. At just 23 years old, Nellie Bly pioneered a new style of investigative journalism, and one in which she flourished for the better part of the next decade.
Why was Nellie Bly so successful?
Nellie Bly was determined to succeed, and she did so with remarkable ease, in large part because it didn’t take much for doctors to deem a woman “hysterical” in the Victorian era.
How did Bly get into the asylum?
Bly ultimately decided that she would take a piecemeal approach to getting into the asylum — not by committing a single, “hysterical” act, but by taking a series of smaller steps involving visits to poorhouses, hospitals, and police stations.
Why did Bly get committed to asylum?
Few New York City newspaper editors took Bly seriously — save for one potential editor at the New York World, who challenged Bly to get committed to an asylum in order to expose the dreadful conditions therein.
What drug did Bellevue doctors think Bly was on?
The first set of doctors at Bellevue, which still operates today, thought Bly was on drugs — belladonna, specifically. Before even asking Bly how she felt, the next set accused her of being a prostitute.
How did Bly keep herself awake?
While the matron slept, Bly kept herself awake by thinking of how she’d arrived at this point in her career, and imagining what would come if she pulled off this grand scheme.
