Nellie Bly, journalist, novelist, inventor, world traveler, human rights activist, feminist icon, and:
At the request of Joseph Pulitzer at The New York World
, Nellie spent an evening in front of a mirror practicing "crazy expressions" and then voluntarily committed herself to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island, in part to expose its horrors and in part to escape writing the fashion, theater, and gardening columns normally assigned to women in 1887. The writing and reporting in the book are fair though she can't hide her own humor and charm and her perspective on life helps lessen the depressing stories of the "inmates" that give a glimpse into the brutality of mental health care in America that remained essentially unchanged until the reforms of the 1970's.
Another character whose life
is much more interesting and important than the book she is best known for.