Ten Days in a Madhouse
Written by Nellie Bly
Narrated by Alys AtteWater and LibriVox Community
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About this audiobook
In 1887 Nellie Bly, one of the first female newspaper writers, and a young reporter who would soon go on to make a career for herself as an investigative journalist and “stunt” reporter, had herself committed to the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum in New York. Her purpose was to discover what life was like for those who had been deemed insane. She was surprised to discover the depth of mistreatement of the patients. Partially as a result of her reporting, more money was allocated to the asylum and reforms were put into place.
Summary by Alice
Nellie Bly
Nellie Bly (1864-1922) was an American investigative journalist. Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she was raised in a family of Irish immigrants. In 1879, she attended Indiana Normal School for a year before returning to Pittsburgh, where she began writing anonymously for the Pittsburgh Dispatch. Impressed by her work, the newspaper’s editor offered her a full-time job. Writing under the pseudonym of Nellie Bly, she produced a series of groundbreaking investigative pieces on women factory workers before traveling to Mexico as a foreign correspondent, which led her to report on the arrest of a prominent Mexican journalist and dissident. Returning to America under threat of arrest, she soon left the Pittsburgh Dispatch to undertake a dangerous investigative assignment for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World on the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. After feigning a bout of psychosis in order to get admitted, she spent ten days at the asylum witnessing widespread abuse and neglect. Her two-part series in the New York World later became the book Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887), earning Bly her reputation as a pioneering reporter and leading to widespread reform. The following year, Bly took an assignment aimed at recreating the journey described in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Boarding a steamer in Hoboken, she began a seventy-two day trip around the globe, setting off a popular trend that would be emulated by countless adventurers over the next several decades. After publishing her book on the journey, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days (1890), Bly married manufacturer Robert Seaman, whose death in 1904 left Bly in charge of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co. Despite Bly’s best efforts as a manager and inventor, her tenure ultimately resulted in the company’s bankruptcy. In the final years of her life, she continued working as a reporter covering World War I and the women’s suffrage movement, cementing her legacy as a groundbreaking and ambitious figure in American journalism.
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Reviews for Ten Days in a Madhouse
112 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a very interesting book about original psyc wards!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great book! A classic piece about treatment of the past
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Riveting! The narrator does an excellent job of reading this account of a very brave young woman. So sad to hear of the conditions of mental institutions of the late 19 th century-yet it is full of hope at the end.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an excellent account of the conditions of mental health facilities in the early 1900s. Bly's account of the poor treatment and spoiled food prompted important reform of the facilities.
The narrator did an excellent job with this! - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I have heard of nelly bly, interesting twist on things,
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shocking to read. Nellie Bly was courageous to endure and then reveal the atrocities commited in asylums.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I couldn't get into it for some reason, but a lot of other people seem to like it!.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very interesting and informative,. A true historical record of conditions we this day have long forgotten,.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5History, but somehow seemed so contemporary. Perhaps someone should go undercover in an immigration detention center the way Nellie Bly did in a lunatic asylum.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My daughter chose Nellie Bly as her subject for her 8th grade National History Day project. She told me all about her and about her book. Her project turned out amazing and I decided to read the book. I was not disappointed. I found the person reading it frequently went a little too quickly but otherwise it was a great story. Very happy and definitely worth the time.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I enjoyed the book but the reading of it was really difficult to listen to. Goofy voices and often times screeching voices for characters akin to nails on a chalkboard ??
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5an excellent look into the abhorrent treatment of women in asylums at the turn of the century.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I liked the book a lot actually. Just hated how they made you listen to the recording of liver audio or whatever it was. You pay $9 a month and during these black cover books they sound monotone and have those ads.
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