Nellie Bly, circa 1890

Alienists’ assessments of their patients’ mental conditions could be suspect at the best of times. They were particularly suspect when alienists dealt with people who did not fit the norms of an Anglo-centric society. Newly arrived immigrants were vulnerable to a misinterpretation of their mental status, and of course, non-English speaking Native Americans could easily be misunderstood or be so frustrated and frightened that they couldn’t communicate effectively. One reporter’s experiment showed how easily alienists could be fooled.

Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum

In 1887 New York World reporter, Nellie Bly, posed as an insane woman by practicing “insane gestures” and later claiming she had amnesia. She was sent to Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum after several doctors examined her and declared her definitely insane. She was, “Positively demented,” said one, “I consider it a hopeless case. She needs to be put where someone will take care of her.”

Nellie Bly’s Book

Worse than the alienists’ initial assessment was their later inability to see past it. Bly dropped her insanity act immediately and yet made no impression on the doctors who had decided she was insane. She wrote, “From the moment I entered the insane ward on the Island, I made no attempt to keep up the assumed role of insanity. I talked and acted just as I do in ordinary life. Yet strange to say, the more sanely I talked and acted, the crazier I was thought to be by all….”

When Nellie was released after ten days–and wrote about her experience in the New York World–embarrassed doctors could not explain how they had been so easily fooled. A New York grand jury promptly launched an investigation into conditions at the asylum, which Bly had written about in horrifying detail.