A BRAVE LADY

Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker

September 1887. New York City.

A 23-year-old woman walked into a boarding house and began to unravel — on purpose. She paced the halls. She whispered to herself. She refused sleep. She stared through walls like her mind had gone missing.

Then the system did what it always did. A judge nodded, a Dr. signed and officials agreed. This woman was insane and there was no hope because she was crazy.

No questions were asked, no investigations were initiated and there was no doubt what they should do to her. They were sending her to Blackwell Island to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum.  

This was a place where women were sent and some never returned.  Rumors of women being mistreated, starved and beaten had been going around the community for years. 

But no one knew that this alleged lunatic lady’s name was Nelly Bly and every action she had done to act crazy was an act. Why? Did Nelly want to be locked up in this horrific place? 

Well, our Nelly Bly was a journalist for The New York World and she wanted to check out these rumors of cruelty behind the doors so she decided to find out the truth. So she became it. Nelly was put in the asylum and this is what she saw:

Inside the asylum the living conditions were plain horror. There was 1600 women crammed into the building with just a few doctors, untrained nurses and treatments were terror. The women patients  were immigrants who didn’t speak English, poor ladies with no family, and if they were sane when they went in,  they went insane by just being in there. 

There was ice cold baths, rotten food with maggots in it and beatings. Nelly wanted out as she had seen enough. She started acting normal and behaving rationally. She requested to be let out, but once she was in there it would be hard to get out. 

So she memorized every scream, every inmates name and every cruelty. And she wrote and mailed her findings to The New York City World. 

10 days later a lawyer appeared at the asylum as Nelly’s article hit the streets. The headline was Behind Asylum Bars. New York readers were outraged, city hall was flooded with people and so a grand jury launched an investigation and it was all confirmed.Changes came in the form of more dollars, translators, new staff and no more horrid conditions. 

Well 7 years later the place shut down, but Nelly did not stop there. She became an investigative journalist exposing child abuse, corruption, factory and workers exploitation. Nelly became one of the best writers in American history by actually living her stories. 

Today a monument stands on Roosevelt Island where the asylum once stood honoring the lady who exposed the asylum so the forgotten could be believed.

I had never heard much about Nelly Bly but what a courageous woman she was. There has been a movie honoring her and she also wrote a book. 

Have you heard of Nelly Bly? Would you pretend to be nutty to get in an asylum and cover the conditions? Let me know and this writer will give you A Penny For Your Thoughts.  I wish all the readers Merry Christmas!