Nellie Bly
Nellie Bly
Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was an American journalist. She was also a writer, industrialist, inventor, and a charity worker who was widely known for her record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, in emulation of Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. She was a pioneer in her field, and launched a new kind of investigative journalism...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth5 May 1864
CityBurrell, PA
CountryUnited States of America
I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving the horrible place, yet when my release came and I knew that God's sunlight was to be free for me again, there was a certain pain in leaving
All the asylum clothing is made by the patients, but sewing does not employ one's mind. After several months' confinement the thoughts of the busy world grow faint, and all the poor prisoners can do is to sit and ponder over their hopeless fate
I had never been near insane persons before in my life, and had not the faintest idea of what their actions were like
I have watched patients stand and gaze longingly toward the city they in all likelihood will never enter again. It means liberty and life; it seems so near, and yet heaven is not further from hell
Never having failed, I could not picture what failure meant.
I took upon myself to enact the part of a poor, unfortunate crazy girl, and felt it my duty not to shirk any of the disagreeable results that should follow.
I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.
COULD I PASS A WEEK IN THE INSANE WARD AT BLACKWELL'S ISLAND? I SAID I COULD AND I WOULD. AND I DID.
I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.
How can a doctor judge a woman's sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything, for the answer will be that it is their imagination.
Even that was all consumed after two days, and the patients had to try to choke down fresh fish, just boiled in water, without salt, pepper or butter; mutton, beef, and potatoes without the faintest seasoning
'IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DO IT,' WAS THE TERRIBLE VERDICT. 'IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU ARE A WOMAN AND WOULD NEED A PROTECTOR, AND EVEN IF IT WERE POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO TRAVEL ALONE YOU WOULD NEED TO CARRY SO MUCH BAGGAGE THAT IT WOULD DETAIN YOU IN MAKING RAPID CHANGES. BESIDES YOU SPEAK NOTHING BUT ENGLISH, SO THERE IS NO USE TALKING ABOUT IT; NO ONE BUT A MAN CAN DO THIS.'
'VERY WELL,' I SAID ANGRILY, 'START THE MAN, AND I'LL START THE SAME DAY FOR SOME OTHER NEWSPAPER AND BEAT HIM.'
What a mysterious thing madness is. I have watched patients whose lips are forever sealed in a perpetual silence. They live, breathe, eat; the human form is there, but that something, which the body can live without, but which cannot exist without the body, was missing.