Many of the horrible stereotypes that surround asylums and mental health facilities are founded in real life. For hundreds of years, any person who was deemed a nuisance or unsuitable for public life was sentenced to spend the rest of their days isolated from society in terrible living conditions.
In the late 19th century, a woman by the name of Nellie Bly was admitted into one such asylum, located in New York City. The only catch, however, was that Bly was not 'insane.' Indeed, she was a reporter who pretended to be insane so she could expose the horrible conditions that women were subjected to in the city’s most notorious hospital.
How did Bly succeed in doing that? And what did she uncover? Click on to read more.