The Brave Reporter Who Got Herself Committed to Expose Asylum Horror
What Happened: A Dangerous Deception
Elizabeth Jane Cochran, writing under the pen name Nellie Bly, embarked on one of journalism’s most dangerous undercover investigations in September 1887. Working for the New York World newspaper, the young reporter stayed awake all night to appear disturbed, then convinced doctors at a boarding house that she was insane by accusing other residents of being “crazy.”
Once committed to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island), Bly documented a system of systematic torture masquerading as medical care. Patients were forced to sit motionless on wooden benches for 12 hours or more without speaking. They were subjected to ice-cold baths in water reused by multiple patients, fed spoiled beef and moldy bread, and given undrinkable water that made them sick.