Tag: Ten Days in a Madhouse

This multimedia adaptation by Douglas Baker is based upon the real-life account of Nellie Bly of her spell in New York’s notorious Blackwell’s Island Asylum in 1887. It documents her initial unsuccessful attempts to be employed as a journalist by the misogynist editor of the New York World, John Cockerill, who, taking advantage of her youthful enthusiasm to pursue investigative stories, sent her undercover to be committed to the asylum as a patient. The abuses of patients that she uncovered were published in The World and led eventually to the closing down of the asylum, as well as to a surge in young female investigative journalists. Although there are many characters in this story, there is only one actor, playing the role of Nellie Bly.  Most of the other characters are portraye...