Ten Days in a Mad House is a classic biography of great American reporter and writer, Nellie Bly. Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper the New York World, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women’s Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper the New York World, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. It was not an easy task for Bly to be admitted to the Asylum: She first decided to check herself into a boarding house called Temporary Homes for Females. She stayed up all night long to give herself the wide-eyed look of a disturbed woman, and began makion Blackwell’s Island. It was not an easy task for Bly to be admitted to the Asylum: She first decided to check herself into a boarding house called Temporary Homes for Females. She stayed up all night long to give herself the wide-eyed look of a disturbed woman, and began making accusations that the other boarders were insane. Bly told the assistant matron
There are so many crazy people about, and one can never tell what they will do. She refused to go to bed, and eventually scared so many of the other boarders that the police were called to take her to the nearby courthouse. Once examined by a police officer, a judge, and a doctor, Bly was taken to Blackwell’s Island.