#194 Nellie Bly: Undercover in the Madhouse

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Places & Travel

4.8 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2015

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nellie Bly was a determined and fearless journalist ahead of her time, known for the spectacular lengths she would go to get a good story. Her reputation was built on the events of late September-early October 1887 -- the ten days she spent in an insane asylum.Since the 1830s Blackwell's Island had been the destination for New York's public institutions of an undesirable nature -- hospitals for grave diseases, a penitentiary, an almshouse, even a quarantine for smallpox. There was also a mental institution -- an insane or lunatic asylum -- rumored to treat its patients most cruelly.The ambitious young reporter decided to see for herself -- by acting like a woman who had lost her mind. Her ten days in this particular madhouse -- the basis of her newspaper articles and a book -- would expose the world to the sinister treatment of the mentally ill and the loathsome conditions of New York institutions meant to care for the most needy.But would the process of getting this important story lead Nellie herself to go a little mad? And once she got inside the asylum, how would she get out?ALSO: Not only is a vestige of the asylum still around today, you can live in it! Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys Episode 194, Nelly Bley, undercover in the madhouse.
0:06.2	Hey, it's the Bowry Boys.
0:07.8	Hey.
0:08.8	Support for the Bowry Boys is provided by our listeners.
0:12.6	Join us for as little as a dollar a month by visiting patreon.com slash Bowry Boys.
0:21.5	Hi there, welcome to the Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:24.1	And this is Tom Myers.
0:25.6	Today we're bringing you one of the greatest tales of investigative reporting.
0:30.0	And perhaps something we'd call a little bit daredevil journalism today.
0:34.2	This is the story of Nelly Bley and her 10 days undercover in a madhouse.
0:39.7	This is an incredible story about a real pioneer in journalism who went to an extreme end
0:45.8	to get a very important story. It's funny, Greg, though, because the name Nelly Bley
0:51.2	might ring more familiar to our listeners' ears for something that she would do later in her
0:57.0	career when she would pull off a stunt that was even more extreme than the one that we're going
1:03.0	to talk about today.
1:04.3	And we'll get to that one at the end of our show. The one that we are discussing today involving
1:08.9	Blackwell's Island is a true New York City story. Nelly was known not just for being a rare female
1:14.8	reporter in the Doggie Dog late 19th century world of journalism, but also she was known for
1:21.2	her fearless exposés. Her entire reputation was made from the events that we're about to
1:26.5	describe in this episode. Because we are looking at her very first foray into New York City journalism.
1:33.7	It was a dangerous assignment that she took that would have made most reporters male or female
1:39.1	run for their lives. As you listen to our tale, I want you to reflect on why the story is so engaging.
	...

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