The first thing that comes up when researching Nellie Bly is her famous trip to a mental institution. At first glance, it seems weird that a journalist is known for going to a mental institution. My first thought was that because she was a woman and a journalist at that time she was maybe sent there. At first glance, it raises definitely a lot of questions. However, her trip to the mental institution was actually a noble act to bring up the harsh living conditions of these institutions. The life of Nelly Bly was one full of action and full of breaking the restraints women had at the time.
Early Life
Nellie Bly was born in a town outside of Pittsburgh, PA called Cochran Mills which was actually named after her father's mills. She was born May 5th, 1864 named Elizabeth Cochran (Cochrane). Her father was married twice and she had a total of 14 siblings. Nellie Bly went to college at the Indiana Normal School (now IUP) for one semester. She then moved to Allegheny City after her semester.
The Pittsburgh Dispatch
Nellie Bly's work with the Pittsburgh Dispatch focused on the workforce specifically, working women. A lot of Nellie's work is where she is exposing places. She started a series where she exposed the factories in Pittsburgh and she did investigative work to back up her claims. However, the factories complained so much that the Pittsburgh Dispatch reassigned her to the "women pages" where she was forced to cover topics like fashion and gardening.
Her Trip to the Mental Institution
After leaving the Pittsburgh Dispatch Nellie started to work for the New York World. The New York World later became well known for "yellow journalism." That term just means that the writer is writing strictly for extreme headlines. They will go out of their way to find a huge headline. Adding on, yellow journalism is having some truth in the story but it is very exaggerated. Nellie Bly was very good at yellow journalism because of how far she would go to expose places. One of her first assignments at the New York World was the mental institutions. Nellie came up with the idea of getting admitted herself to document what happens in the hospitals.
Getting Admitted
To get admitted was fairly easy for Nellie. She pretended to be a woman named Bly Brown from Cuba and that there were missing trunks. She first was admitted to the Temporary Home for Females. At the temporary home, she started to mimic what the other women who were deemed insane were doing. She was then sent to the infamous Mental institution on Blackwell's Island. On her way there a woman actually said to her, "(The institution is) an insane place, where you'll never get out of."
Conditions
Nellie immediately felt uneasy about the situation. She realized quickly how out of place she was. When she was assigned her room she heard screaming and yelling. She explained she was the only sane one surrounded by the "insane" and it was terrifying. She documented that there were 16 doctors there for the 1,600 patients and only two of those doctors truly cared about the patients. She also noticed quickly how culturally insensitive the institution was. There were immigrants there who did not speak English which caused a language barrier. The doctors and nurses treated them worse thinking that they were just not listening to them when the patients could not understand them. Nellie also documented that the food was terrible there. She documented that the tea tasted like copper, the butter was rancid, the bread was black, and there were spiders in the food. Another torture that Nellie documented was the ice baths. The patients were forced to take ice baths and then share one towel with 45 other patients. Nellie noted that one day she was beaten by the nurses and dragged by her hair. She was then tied down and held underwater in an ice bath. This happened to many patients and sometimes was worse. The patients would try to speak on these issues but the nurses would say that the patients were just making it up because of their mental illness.
Outcome
Just one month after Nellie shared her experiences at the mental institution there was change. The New York City municipal government gave more money to the institution and a grand jury investigating the abuses and the poor treatments. This led to cleaner living conditions, translators for immigrants, and nurses and doctors being fired.
“Nellie Bly.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 19 Apr. 2021, www.biography.com/activist/nellie-bly.
