I - "Behind Asylum Bars" - Nellie Bly - New York World

The Mystery of the Unknown Insane Girl; Remarkable Story of the Successful Impersonation of Insanity; How Nellie Brown Deceived Judges, Reporters and Medical Experts; She Tells Her Story of How She Passed at Bellevue Hospital; Studying the Role of Insanity Before Her Mirror and Practicing It at the Temporary Home for Women; Arrested and Brought Before Judge Duffy; He Declares She is Some Mother's Darling and Resembles His Sister; Committed to the Care of the Physicians for the Insane at Bellevue; Experts Declare Her Demented; Harsh Treatment of the Insane at Bellevue; "Charity Patients Should Not Complain"; Vivid Pictures of Hospital Life; How Our Esteemed Contemporaries Have Followed a False Trail; Some Needed LIght Afforded Them; Chapters of Absorbing Interest in the Experience of a Feminine "Amateur Casual."

Byline: Nellie Bly; 1887-10-09; The New York World; pages pp. 25-26

Report: "Behind Asylum Bars" and "Inside the Madhouse" - Nellie Bly - New York World Asylums Undercover

Tags: Blackwell's Island, madhouse, Nellie Bly, New York World, posed as

"On the 22nd of September I was asked by THE WORLD if I could have myself committed to one of the Asylums for the Insane in New York, with a view to writing a plain and unvarnished narrative of the treatment of the patients therein and the methods of management &c. . . . "

Description:The first in Bly's two-part series on her experiences incarcerated for 10 days in the women's lunatic asylum on Blackwell's Island.

Rights: Public domain.

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Headline and highlights of Nellie Bly's article "Behind Asylum Bars," written for The New York World in 1887.

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Full version of Nellie Bly's article "Behind Asylum Bars," written for The New York World in 1887.