Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York

Horn (Imperfect Harmony) presents a fast-paced history of Blackwell's Island, "a lounging, listless madhouse," according to a visiting Charles Dickens. In 1828, New York purchased Blackwell's Island (now Roosevelt Island) in the East River to build state-of-the-art facilities for the city's poor residents who were considered to be insane. In 1839, an asylum was opened and subsequently overcrowded. During the next 15 years, a workhouse, almshouse, hospital, and penitentiary were constructed. Horn chronicles the horrors of the incarcerated relying on Episcopalian Reverend William G. French's insightful diary and court cases of the condemned. Inept administrators were politically appointed and budgets were meager. To save money, prison inmates were tasked with caring for the mentally ill. Journalists, including Nellie Bly, went undercover to expose egregious treatment and reformers agitated for improvements. In 1896, responsibility to care for the island's prisoners was transferred to the state in hopes conditions would be improved. "They didn't get it right," concludes Horn.