            Nellie Bly speaks about her first person encounter inside the insane asylum on Blackwell Island in New York in her book Ten Days in a Mad-House. She goes over her horrific experiences in the all-woman asylum, and the terrible treatment and torture done to these ladies, including herself. During this same time period however, an asylum was also built and opened in North Carolina. In the article “Theatrical entertainments and kind words: nursing the insane in Western North Carolina”, the author discusses what went on in this asylum, and the great treatment and positive feedback that they received about the nurses and doctors that worked there. This contradicting article, compared to Bly’s story, supports the idea that females did not get the same treatment and care as males, especially with mental health issues during this time in history.

            In Bly’s book, she documents the 10 days she spent in the all women insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island. Bly was a journalist for a while before she got a job with New York World. For this, she perceived to doctors that she was insane and needed to be put into a ward, doing this in order to investigate the poor conditions and treatment in these insane asylums (Boardman, 581). During the 1800’s, you still had to go through doctors and series of tests to be diagnosed as a mentally unstable person. Bly, who had no conditions of mental health problems, was able to fake her way passed three doctors. This shows that there was clearly no serious effort in trying to diagnose Nellie Bly. But, she got in to Blackwell’s, and so it began. Nellie describes her first supper at the asylum as though it was in a prison. In Samantha Boardman’s article “The Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island and the New York Press” she says that the security guards for Blackwell’s were actually inmates at the nearby prison. Anyway, Bly described the food as unsanitary and gross, basically saying you had to force it down your throat just in order to not starve (Bly, 286). The state did not seem to show much care about the female patient’s health.

            The Dix Hospital was opened a few years before Nellie was doing her research, in 1856. It was opened to males, as well as females. It sounded nothing like the events that Bly was describing in New York during her time there. “That the visitor saw patients working and playing was no accident. Such activities were part of moral therapy, a therapeutic approach promoted by all contemporary asylum doctors” (Streeter, 905). The doctors at the asylum in North Carolina had the men doing activities and getting work done in order to help the patients with their mental problems. In Nelly’s ten days, she only talked of how each day was the same, in which they had their supper and a bath, and if they were not eating or bathing then they were sitting around on a small crowded bench. It never seemed like there was any sign of the nurses trying to help these patients. If anything, they were always screaming at them. In one instance, Nellie had her notebook and pencil taken away from her by a nurse. When she told her that it helps her to remember things, the nurse replied “You can’t have it, so shut up” (Bly, 291). Bly also tells of one of the other patients she met, who started to cry because she was sad and scared. The nurse started to have enough of it, and Nellie wrote “So they choked her. Yes, actually choked her. Then they Dragged her Out to the closet, and I heard her terrified cries hush into smothered ones” (Bly, 297). Clearly this shows no sign of the nurses trying to heal or help the female patients at Blackwell in any way. It seemed like the women mental patients lives just did not matter to the nurses. 

In Streeter’s article, he also states how one third of the state of North Carolina’s revenue goes towards support and treatment of the insane (Streeter, 905). That is a lot of money going towards helping an insane asylum consisting of mostly men. Although Bly does not specifically quote or say if she knows of what amount the asylum in New York is getting, it is easy to see that there was not much care or effort put into helping these women or making them feel even the slightest bit comfortable. In the story, Bly discusses things like the small thin night gown she was given, and the cold sheets to sleep in. “A sheet and an oil cloth were under me, and a sheet and black wool blanket above. . . I tried to keep it around my shoulders to stop the chills from getting underneath” (Bly, 288). These were what the asylum for the females were apparently able to afford. They would be put into these beds, right after their frigidly cold bath which they were scrubbed by and screamed at by the nurses. When Nellie would try to ask for something or make a suggestion, she was answered by a sarcastic or rude comment from the nurse. She also discussed the rooms’ situations with locks. Each room had its own lock for them, so every time the guards or nurses had to unlock the patients, they had to do each one individually. So if there were ever a fire or emergency, there’s a good chance that the majority of the patients are not making it out alive (Bly, 289). The Dix Hospital in North Carolina not only put money towards their brand new building, but also towards the training of each nurse that worked there. The nurses were had to have a required knowledge of mental illnesses, and how it would affect helping the patients as far as with cleaning, feeding them, and caring for them (Streeter, 907). Compared to Blackwell, Dix had put a lot of effort and money into helping the patients of this male hospital, trying in every way to help them. Through Bly’s accounts, it does not seem like her or the females at Blackwell got anything to close to the nurses’ best effort in rehabilitating them.

            Even at the Hospital in North Carolina, although they were still doing a much better job treating the patients with employment and jobs, you could still see the division between male and female. “The women do all the sewing and knitting, under the direction of the Matron and seam-stress; the men are employed in the shops, farm, and grounds” (Streeter, 906). This division of labor was what went on during this time before the 19th amendment. Even those that worked at the asylum seemed to have gender based jobs. At the Dix Hospital, the nurses were all female, while the attendants, doctors, and other higher rankings were all male (Streeter, 906). The Blackwell asylum seemed to be the same, as all the nurses were mean females, the security guards were all male inmates, and the head of the whole building and operations was a man as well.

Nellie Bly’s story and articles published about her experience there brought a lot of attention to the place, in which the state started to take action and improve the asylum. The overcrowded insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island finally closed in 1894 (Boardman, 581). This was just around the time that women suffrage movements started to take place during the Progressive era. In 1897, the Hospital in North Carolina was given great appraisal for its construction and administration at the American Medico-Psychological Association (Streeter, 912). The 19th amendment was ratified in 1920, giving women the right to vote, which was a substantial step forward for women and gaining equality with men. Bly’s first-hand encounter watching women being terribly mistreated, and Streeter’s article of the positive progress being made at the asylum for men, just prove that there was little to no gender equality during the late 19th century.
