Ten Days in a Mad-House

"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." -Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad-House
Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) by Nellie Bly describes what happened when the author, a reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, went undercover and had herself committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island. Bly's groundbreaking exposé of abuses in the treatment of mental health patients, which was originally published as a series of articles, led to significant reforms in the mental health system. In 2015 the book was turned into a movie starring Caroline Barry and Christopher Lambert.