
Throughout the 19th century, the psychiatric community had little to no knowledge regarding mental illness. This is a good hook, but it strikes me as slightly incredible. You might start by saying something more like – 'the community had little to no knowledge compared to modern psychiatry' in order to present it in a comparative manner. Or else you can insert a citation to back the info up. The public knew no better than to trust these professionals, as people were naïve and uneducated on the matter. this, too, feels too much of a generalization. You can avoid placing everyone in the same catergory of ignorance by saying "most people" or "people tended to lack knowledge since it wasn’t available to them." In addition, there was a stigma associated with mental hospitals, the patients in these hospitals, and the patients’ family members. These conditions which? led to a large number of women in particular being admitted into asylums without ethical cause, and an extreme lack of knowledge related to the physical state of the insides of these institutions, and the mental state of the patients. Run-on sentence Due to the skepticism of these mental institutions, a woman named Nellie Bly decided to feign insanity in order to get admitted into the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island undercover. For ten days, Bly lived and was treated as if she were mentally ill, gaining insight into the true conditions inside. She did so in order to expose the maltreatment of women in these types of mental institutions with a goal of changing the way the mentally ill are treated. Good!

In the medical community in the 19th century, very little was known regarding mental illness. Though this functions well as a topic sentence, it is directly repeated from the intro. remember to move forward. You can state this slightly differently, to retain the main idea but vary your language to keep your reader's attention.The main cause of women being placed in mental hospitals was “hysteria, the most commonly diagnosed ‘female malady’ of the 18th and 19th century” (Ussher 63). Before much was known about the illness, hysteria was said to be the natural state of a woman. Hysteria was once considered to be an aspect of femininity, and “the 19th century physicians were highly critical of this feminine ‘state’ describing women as difficult, [and] narcissistic” (Ussher 63). Those diagnosed as a hysteric were thought of as an “idle, self-indulgent and deceitful woman, ‘craving for sympathy’” (Ussher 63). Although, because of the extreme lack of scientific evidence to support the mentioned claims, there was no clear diagnosis for hysteria. Awesome paragraph!!! 

Rather than being linked to mental illness, like doctors assumed, the symptoms associated with hysteria were more representative of a women’s personality versus an actual mental disorder. Great transition. Women who were considered to be hysteric did not conform to societies traditional standards and ideals, thus being targeted. The treatment these women received had “as much or more emphasis on the patient’s moral and spiritual development and character rehabilitation as on the treatment of [her] physical illness” (Luchins 586-587). The treatments implemented upon women provide evidence that there was no scientific proof to back up the claims that these women were actually mentally ill. The treatments were designed in an attempt to make these women conform to the societal standards that 19th century America imposed upon them. These two paragraphs are excellent, Michaela! I think you may be able to combine them under the same topic-sentence umbrella – making them one paragraph about the slippery slope of diagnosing female hysteria during this time. They feel interconnected. 

For Nellie Bly in 19th century America, with the “hysteria” epidemic in mind, it was very easy to fake insanity as a woman in order to gain admittance into an asylum. Because at this time hysteria was thought to be the natural state of a woman, it required very little effort of Bly to make others believe she had become mentally ill. Although it was not difficult to gain access into one of these mental institutions, proving yourself sane in order to get released was a difficult task. In “Ten Days in a Mad-House”, Tillie Mayard, a patient who believed she was not mentally ill, was given the opportunity to plead her case to the doctors in a way that Bly described as “rational as any I ever heard” (Bly 282). Despite Mayard’s pleas, she was promptly escorted back to her seat, along with the other “insane” women. Mrs. Louise Schanz, another patient in the hospital, was admitted solely because she could not speak English. Miss Grupe, a nurse who spoke German, Schanz’s native language, refused to translate for Schanz, claiming “I can’t speak but a few words”. Because Miss Schanz could not speak or understand English, she was given no chance to plead her sanity to the doctors, as she did not have the ability to communicate as they wanted her to. In addition, a woman who protested admittance against her family, husband, and doctors only reinforced the image of an insane person. Doctors provided information to the public that often led to the unjust admittance of women into mental asylums. 

Beyond the professional community’s lack of knowledge regarding mental illness, the general public knew nothing more than what doctors told them to be true. Because “at that time [there was] no sharp delineation or differentiation between social and medical thought” (Luchins 590), no one saw any reason to question the practices of medical professionals. With only the women accused of being insane protesting against the doctors’ diagnoses, there was no real threat to their practices. Because of this, the doctors had to ability and freedom to diagnose and treat women as they saw fit, leading to the continuation of inhumane treatment of women.

In “Ten Days in a Mad-House”, while Bly was getting her height and weight calculated, the nurse could not read both the measuring tape for her height, along with the scale for her weight. This proves that there was a lack of education within society, especially women, including those that worked inside the mental institutions. The doctor had to assist the nurse when she was unable to correctly obtain Bly’s measurements. This is another example of the influence doctors in this time period had over the rest of society. While Bly’s height and weight is not very significant, this is an example of doctors’ potential ability to lie and manipulate the measurements, along with the possibility of having the power to diagnose women without being questioned. 

Treatment in mental hospitals was avoided vastly by the wealthy in the 19th century “because it stigmatized them and their families” (Luchins 587). “Even the poor avoided hospitals” (Luchins 587), as they were referred to as places in which only the neediest were sent because they had no home to be treated in, and could not afford a private physician. As the majority of society opted to deal with all types of illnesses in the home, mostly single women and immigrants were treated in mental institutions. Generally, most people did not want the rest of society to know that they had someone mentally ill in the family, as mental illness was thought of as embarrassing, and did not reflect well upon the family. This supports the fact that not much was known regarding the practices of the mental institutions because many families who could afford it treated their mentally ill family members inside of the home, and women who were admitted into asylums were rejected, and had no close family members willing to come visit such a place. Rumors and stories regarding the practices that went on inside of the asylums were spread, but Bly was the first to actually gain admittance, experiencing firsthand the unjust reality of these rumors as a patient. Bly thought “that [she] would be released in a few days” (Bly 281), and underestimated the difficulty she would face in proving her true sanity. 

In the 19th century, as proven by Nellie Bly, there were a vast number of severe issues within the psychiatric community. With a goal of exposing the mistreatment and misconduct of mental institutions across the country, Bly got herself admitted into the Women’s Lunatic Asylum. The medical community, which was severely uneducated on mental illnesses, provided a false sense of hope to many women who were falsely diagnosed and imprisoned for essentially no reason at all, and also effected their families, who only wanted these women to get well. Due to the severe ignorance in medical community, Bly successfully infiltrated the Women’s Lunatic Asylum, and uncovered the truth about the wrongful practices within mental institutions. 
