Broke and without a job after leaving the Pittsburgh Dispatch, author Nellie Bly was desperate for a job. One day, she walked into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and talked her way into a job. Pulitzer gave her a unique assignment: she must fake insanity to investigate the harsh conditions at Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island in New York. She agreed to take the assignment and wrote a series of articles for New York World, which were then compiled into the book that became Ten Days in a Mad-House.
After accepting the assignment and practicing her insanity, Bly recounts when she checked herself into a boardinghouse. At the boardinghouse, she tells the workers at the boardinghouse that they looked "crazy" and that she was afraid of them. The workers quickly determine that Bly, in fact, was the crazy one and had her sent to the court, where she said she had amnesia.
Bly then recounts her examination by doctors, all of whom declared that she was insane. One called her "positively demented" and said that she was a "hopeless case." Because of this, Bly was committed to an asylum.
Quickly after being committed, Bly stopped acting as if she had a mental illness and acted normally. Staff, however, didn't notice and began to think what was normal behavior were symptoms of her illness. Desperate to leave the asylum and its horrific conditions (Bly witnessed guards verbally and physically abusing patients, as well as giving patients spoiled and rotten food and condemning them to the cold with no blankets), Bly begged to leave. But her pleas were ignored.
Bly also spoke to her fellow patients and became convinced that they were as sane as she was. During this time, the abusive behavior intensified, and Bly witnessed horrible rituals, particularly a ritual involving cold bathwater that was rarely changed.
Ultimately, Bly left the insane asylum after ten days. Her articles helped to reform asylums across New York and the United States a whole. Speaking about her experiences in the asylum, Bly wrote that "I left the insane ward with pleasure and regret–pleasure that I was once more able to enjoy the free breath of heaven; regret that I could not have brought with me some of the unfortunate women who lived and suffered with me, and who, I am convinced, are just as sane as I was and am now myself."
