In 1887 journalist Nellie Bly pretended to be mentally ill and spent ten days in a New York asylum. Her reporting exposed its conditions.
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In the fall of 1887, 23-year-old New York World reporter Elizabeth Jane Cochran, known by her pen name Nellie Bly, accepted an assignment that few would have accepted. To expose the conditions at Blackwell’s Island, a women’s mental asylum, she had to prove she was insane. She checked into a women’s boarding house in New York City, […]