Browse Reports

Creator is exactly Nellie Bly
Nellie Bly's article "Inside the Madhouse," written for The New York World in 1887.

Nellie Bly and Other Stunt Girls (and Boys) of the Late 1880s-Early 1900s

Bly was one of the most visible and attention-getting exponents of undercover reporting -- "stunt" or "detective" reporting, as this precursor of full-scale investigative work was known in her day -- though by no means the first or the only.
'The World' newspaper article with graphic of crowded tenements.

Journalistic Acts of Race, Class, Ethnic and Gender Impersonation

Journalism that required costuming or even physical transformation by reporters reporting on racial, ethnic, gender or social groups not their own.
This piece is provided for comparison purposes.

Other People's Work

Reporters encounter or inhabit the lives of very hard-laboring others.
Headline and highlights of Nellie Bly's article "Behind Asylum Bars," written for The New York World in 1887.

"Behind Asylum Bars" and "Inside the Madhouse" - Nellie Bly - New York World

One of the best-remembered undercover investigations of all time. Nellie Bly feigns insanity to get herself committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's (now Roosevelt) Island.
Negative commentary on Nellie Bly's stint in the Asylum for Women on Blackwell's Island.

Nellie Bly of The New York World

A gathering of the undercover and experiential reporting of Elizabeth Cochrane, later Seaman, who wrote under the pen name of Nellie Bly.
Headline and highlights of Nellie Bly's article "Behind Asylum Bars," written for The New York World in 1887.

Asylums Undercover

Since the 1870s, journalists have been posing as patients or attendants to expose horrid conditions and treatment inside mental hospitals. Nellie Bly, incidentally, was not the first. 
Article titled: The Lobby King Returns

Uncloaking the Lobbyists

 Reporter efforts to get inside the world of lobbyists, both on Capitol Hill and in the statehouses.