Insane Asylums and women reporters were two taboo practices of the 19th century but whereas one became a place where over a third of American women ended up, the other exposed the true horrors of the mistreatment and disrespect of women inside these asylums. Nellie Bly, a pioneer in the field of stunt journalism for women, risked ten days inside the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Bly imitated insanity in order to be committed and maintained a cover as she reported on the occurrences within this institution. Through her reports and those of other writers describing 19th century insane asylums readers can understand the disrespect and mistreatment women faced through misdiagnosis, unsatisfactory living conditions, and in these asylums. 

Women in the 19th century were expected to follow societal expectations and be what was considered at the time a, proper, woman. This would describe a woman who was obedient to her husband, following his orders, making him happy and staying loyal to him. A woman of this time was also expected to spend her time at home taking care of the children and keeping the house tidy. If she were to not do this and performed actions that were not deemed acceptable by society, it was common practice in the 19th century to send a woman to an insane asylum (Jean, K). A woman could be sent to a mental asylum as an exchange for a divorce if the woman was not obedient to her husband. Sansone writes “A woman could be quite often divorced for reasons of lunacy. Her husband would put her in the insane asylum and then file for divorce. A few months later, his marriage records to a younger bride usually showed up.” Other reasons for admission into an insane asylum for a woman would be depression, alcoholism, menopause, and simply being different from what society deemed normal. (Sansone, Tina). Nellie Bly references women in her book Ten Days in a Mad-House when describing the trials of the women she was admitted with. Bly specifically shares how a woman by the name of Louise Schanz speaks no English and with no interpreter to help her defense, she is admitted into the mad-house for nothing more than being without a chance to prove her sanity. Bly herself was admitted with only a few questions about herself and having her measurements taken. She says “He gave the nurse more attention than he did me, and asked her six questions to every one of me. Then he wrote my fate in the book before him”. Even with her telling the doctor first hand that she was not sick and didn’t want to stay at the asylum, she was classified insane and admitted into Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum (Bly, Nellie). Women had no say at this time in history over what their fate would be and many ended up in asylums due to reasons that were completely unconventional.  

Within 19th century mental asylums women were treated with no respect and it can be argued that they were treated similarly to caged animals. Nellie Bly describes multiple scenes to the reader of this, in situations such as eating, bathing, and even sleeping. Bly described the setting at which they ate as one where the women had to crawl over a bench to reach the table, she mentions the taste of the tea resembling that of copper, the bread being buttered with such a horrible taste that it was inedible, and except for the few prunes she could salvage Bly’s food was either taken by other patients or nearly inedible. Bly’s experience with bathing can be summarized with the word cold. She tells the reader about being forced out of her clothing, scrubbed down by another inmate, and having buckets of ice cold water being dumped on her giving her the feeling of being drowned. This concluded with a slip being placed over her head and being sent to bed. The sleeping quarters Nellie described as nothing more than a bed with a sheet and an oilcloth bellow her and a sheet and wool blanket above her. The bed she was sent to was immediately dampened by her wet hair and the simple slip she was given as pajamas were soaked from her previous bathing experience. Upon asking for a nightgown the nurse told her ‘“You are in a public institution now, and you can’t expect to get anything. This is charity, and you should be thankful for what you get.”’ (Bly, Nellie). It can clearly be seen through Bly’s descriptions that no kindness was shown to the patients and any care given to them was delivered through cold emotion and minimum effort. Sansone touches on this in her writing telling readers “The asylums usually provided only the basic necessities of life. Food was poor, cleanliness was not stressed and the rooms were often very cold”. This type of lifestyle within mental hospitals were common and the superintendent of a temporary asylum in New Orleans, Louisiana claimed that “an inmate was deprived of the basic care necessary for mental conditions, to say nothing of basic human needs”. The article continues to say how the superintendent reported scarcity of water, how beds were found with only one sheet and a single blanket in the coldest of weather while the patients were either nude or had on the minimal but dirty clothing, and that rooms did not meet the hygienic standards of that time period (Vandal, Gilles). These conditions were not helpful to the betterment of the mental health of the patients.  Often they led to the deterioration of the mental state of the occupants, making a woman who was originally in a completely sane state of mind become mentally ill. 

Ten Days in a Mad-House gives readers another inside look as to what occurred inside insane asylums in the 19th century through descriptions of random choking and beating of the patients. Nellie Bly gives the reader a sense of what was expected from the care takers in the asylum from her Chapter XIII descriptions. In one instance she tells of her complaint to the superintendent of Miss Mayard’s sickness and “He caught her roughly between the eyebrows or thereabouts, and pinched until her face was crimson from the rush of blood to her head, and her senses returned. All day afterword she suffered from terrible headache, and from that on she grew worse” (Bly, Nellie). The superintendent took no real care in helping the patient through her sickness and resorted to quick, painful, and ineffective methods to relieve the girl and himself of the current situation. Bly also describes a case of mistreatment when a woman who was being picked on by the asylum’s nurses began to throw a fit, screaming and crying. The nurses found no amusement in this, like they did when picking on her, and they proceeded to “pounced upon her and slapped her face and knocked her head”. The situation escalated and the nurses began to choke the woman, Bly even reporting that they dragged her into a closet and that she returned hours later with “marks of their fingers on her throat the rest of the day” (Bly, Nellie). In Vandal’s article, he talks about similar situations between not only patients and aids, but also patients and other patients. He mentions the normality of nocturnal fights and the threat of violence from aggressive and unrestrained patients. Along with the commonality of patients emerging with bruises in the morning, cases of murder had been documented between patients. He claims “the various influences to which the patients were subjected, instead of exercising a curative effect, transformed persons with mild mental problems into confirmed maniacs” (Vandal, Gilles). This once again shows the effect the treatment of these patients had on their mental states, essentially taking someone of sanity and beating them down till they had no need for it. 

Examining the insane asylums for women of the 19th century can show a trend of mistreatment which would cause for sane women to essentially become insane. Their misdiagnosis of being insane and their lack of basic human necessities broke down a woman’s mind into primal like state. The need for food and warmth, but lack thereof, was wrong on the caretaker’s part and was uncovered by Nellie Bly who feigned insanity. Her work brought about women’s rights and helped to stop the mistreatment and common use of insane asylums as places to dump women who were deemed undesirable by society. 
