Ten Days in a Madhouse

"'The insane asylum on Blackwell's Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.' Twenty-three-year-old journalist Nellie Bly, describing New York City's most notorious mental institution, wrote those words in 1887 after getting herself committed to the asylum. After her release she wrote a shocking expose called Ten Days in a Madhouse, launching her career as a world-famous investigative reporter and helping to improve conditions at mental institutions across the United States. Her story is just as remarkable today as it was shen she wrote it."--