Ten Days in a Madhouse

Before there was pack journalism, cable news, and fake news, there were reporters such as Nellie Bly, who went undercover to expose social ills. Born Elizabeth Cochran, she moved to New York City in 1887, and writing for the New York World, she agreed to feign insanity to be committed to the city-run asylum on Blackwell's Island (now Roosevelt Island). In her fast-moving account, Bly checks into a boarding house, where her odd behavior inspires the management to call in the police. From there it's a quick boat trip to the asylum, where treatment at the hands of nurses, indifferent doctors, and administrators—ice-cold baths in dirty water, rancid food, dirty linen, and clothing insufficient to ward off the cold—are absolutely sadistic. Freed by a lawyer sent by her employer, Bly wrote her account first for the newspaper and then as a book. Rebecca Gibbel's narration is filled with tension and fervor, causing the listener some anxiety and distress over the treatment of women who were only ill, foreign, or impoverished.