The young woman, of course, never read any of the press reports on Blackwell’s Island. Her days consisted of sitting on the stiff-backed benches from morning until night, save for the meals in the dining hall, during which she could only avert her eyes from the inedible food. Her nights consisted of lying on her bed, staring at the rafters, listening to patients wailing, occasionally trying to comfort one of the women pleading for their daughters or husbands or mothers. By the third day, she was half-crazed from not eating or sleeping. Two of the guards made it clear that for sexual favors she could have warmth and food choices other than putrid meat or molded toast, but she wanted no part of that either. If delusion and a blinding headache were her lot, so be it.
Over the next week, the young woman saw more things that shocked her. An elderly woman who cried uncontrollably was beaten and then tossed on a bed unconscious. The next morning, she was dead. The doctors attributed her demise to “convulsions,” and that was the end of it. Patients injected freely with morphine or chloral would beg for water when the drugs made them thirsty, and the nurses would deny them even a drop. Nurses would take raisins and grapes and nuts left over from the doctors’ meals and eat them slowly in front of the patients to torment them. Women who upset the nurses, whatever the reason, were put on the “rope gang,” where they were dragged around by the hair, kicked, and choked, while one of the nurses stood guard in case a doctor approached. One victim of the rope gang did tell a doctor what had happened, but he dismissed her complaints as the ravings of a madwoman and never bothered to investigate further.
And then, ten days after the young woman had been taken away from the Essex Market Court to Bellevue State Hospital, the public’s prayers were answered. Attorney Peter A. Hendricks, a prominent member of the New York bar, came forward and arranged for the young woman’s release to the custody of anonymous clients. All seven newspapers trumpeted this development on their front pages. The Sun attributed it to the vigilance of the Sun’s loyal readers. The Times credited the medical staff at Bellevue, concluding that it had achieved “gratifying results,” and with further care, “the poor waif might have a complete recovery.” Two days after the release, however, the World gave a fuller account of exactly what had happened:
INSIDE THE MADHOUSE
Nellie Bly’s Experience in the Blackwell’s Island Asylum
Ten Days with Lunatics
How the City’s Unfortunate Wards Are Fed and Treated
Attendants Who Harass and Abuse Patients and Laugh at Their Miseries
The young woman in the Essex Market courtroom had not been insane at all, but a 24-year-old reporter named Nellie Bly, out to reveal the horrors of Bellevue. And she held back nothing, setting out in detail everything she had experienced and witnessed.
Her powerful account swept the country. Newspapers all over North America carried the story, extolling Nellie Bly’s daring and courage and castigating Bellevue State Hospital and the city of New York. The embarrassed New York Times dropped all mention of the story it had placed on page one every day for two weeks, but the Sun unabashedly interviewed medical personnel and ran a story on Nellie Bly’s stay in the asylum, with a rare headline praising a rival’s reporter:
PLAYING MAD WOMAN
Nellie Bly Too Sharp for the Island Doctors
The Sun Finishes Up Its Story of the “Pretty Crazy Girl”
Sitting at the writing desk in her tiny Harlem bedroom, her mother asleep on their bed, Nellie felt unabashed pride. The New York City Council had toured the hospital with her and appropriated an additional $1 million to the Department of Public Charities and Corrections to improve conditions at Bellevue. The entire nursing staff was either fired or placed under arrest, and the mayor took personal responsibility for installing a new administration. Journalistically, her feat was unprecedented. No reporter had ever become a victim in order to write a major story. Reporters would routinely identify themselves and even give their subjects a chance to comment before a story was published, but Nellie had seen people get away with murder that way. The rules of journalism, she smiled to herself, were about to change.
Just as revolutionary, and an even greater source of pride, was the fact that the person so dramatically changing the practice of American journalism was a woman. No woman had ever had a front-page story before, certainly not like this.
But the ten days had been hell. Their memory would not go away soon. Her limbs ached, her lungs felt singed, and her stomach could still not tolerate solid food. She wrote about it every day in her journal, sometimes twice a day. Yet it had all been worth it.
Nellie reread again and again the telegram she had received only minutes ago. Colonel John Cockerill, the editor in chief at the New York World, wanted to see her immediately. Of New York’s seven major newspapers, six—including The Sun, the most sophisticated, and the Herald, the wealthiest—were owned by well-heeled Republicans and spouted the pro-capitalist, anti-labor, and anti-immigrant polemics of their publishers. The seventh, the World, was owned by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-born immigrant of reputedly Jewish ancestry, and directed toward the middle class, the poor, and the scandalmongers. That the World had catapulted into first place in both circulation and revenues in only four years under Pulitzer’s ownership stuck in the craws of established newspapermen, who considered their papers far better written, far better edited, and infinitely more American. The World was where she belonged.
To be invited back to the World by Cockerill was a remarkable accomplishment—one more reason her story had been worth it. She had taken quite a chance leaving the Pittsburg Dispatch a year before. Her editors had reassigned her to gardening and fashion stories after advertisers complained about her investigative pieces. She quit on the spot, even though she had several family members to support. She had moved to New York City with her frail mother and for eight months tried to find newspaper work, but literally could not even get through a front door, as company after company along Newspaper Row stationed bodyguards to keep out unwanted job seekers and irate readers. Several sentries offered to provide assistance in return for an afternoon of fornication, but Nellie would have none of that and told them so in most indelicate terms. Though she tried everything from polite conversation to amusing chitchat to righteous indignation, the guards unfailingly shooed her away, laying hands and billy clubs wherever and whenever they liked.
Finally, fighting exhaustion and despair and destitution, she managed to convince Flaherty, the goon at the World who had given her the hardest time, to pass her clippings from the Pittsburg Dispatch to management, along with word that she had an “irresistible story to tell, and the editors would look like fools if it were published elsewhere.” Eventually she was informed that Colonel Cockerill, the managing editor, would see her, and was shown into a cluttered cloakroom by the main door, away from the regular traffic.
Two hours later Colonel Cockerill, an imposing figure with a thick mustache and military bearing, had walked into the cloakroom and listened to the idea—she would travel to Europe and return in steerage class to report on the immigrant experience—then summarily dismissed it as too ambitious for an inexperienced reporter, especially a woman.
“What if something were to happen to you on the journey?” he had said. “What if you become ill or even die? How would it look for the World to put a woman in such a vulnerable position for the sake of a story?”
“I will write out a document before I go, absolving you of all responsibility.”
“No.” He was adamant, and handed her back her clippings.
“Good day, sir,” she had said tartly, making no attempt to hide her disappointment. She had expected more from the editor of the World. He was as small-minded as the others.
“I may have a counterproposal,” he had said as she opened the door.
He had then mentioned the asylum story idea, clearly not expecting her to accept the assignment. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if
he meant it. But the World was pushing the edges of American journalism, and as soon as Nellie realized Cockerill was serious, she accepted on the spot. What Cockerill didn’t know, of course, was that Nellie would have gone through far worse to work for the World. This was her first moment of hope in eight months.
“When do I start?” she had said without hesitation.
“Right now. But we need to keep this story a secret until you finish.”
With a hint of summer in the fresh May air and the remnants of the Great Blizzard finally beginning to melt, Nellie walked briskly past the complex web of streetcar lines on Newspaper Row—five blocks from Wall Street and two blocks from City Hall—and up the concrete steps of the World’s eight-story headquarters. Her mood matched the sunny day, for the first time since moving to New York. No doubt Cockerill knew that the publishers of the Sun and the Tribune had invited her in for interviews—“no doubt” because she’d made sure he learned of it. But in truth, she preferred to work for the World. As the biggest and boldest paper in New York, it suited her style perfectly.
She wasn’t sure what Cockerill had in mind. He would probably offer her another assignment, but she wanted something more: a permanent position, at a good salary, to deliver stories that would set New York journalism on fire.
“Not so fast.”
It was Flaherty, the oversized guard who had turned her away every day for eight months. She hadn’t seen him since Cockerill had assigned her the asylum story; to maintain secrecy, Nellie had stayed away from the World, and a runner had delivered her copy to the editors.
“Good morning, Mr. Flaherty,” she said with a chill, no longer needing to make nice.
But Flaherty moved to block her way, his face right up to hers. “And where do you think you’re going?” It was the same expression, said with the same brogue and disdain, he had used with her every day for eight months.
“I believe this should gain my admission.” She produced the telegram from Cockerill, with the assurance of a checkmate.
“That is of no concern to me,” he said.
“It is from Colonel Cockerill himself—”
“I have my instructions.” He towered over her. He also had a mean streak.
Flaherty had been a street cop for ten years in the lower Bronx, reputedly banging the heads of Italian street thugs on every corner, and if he didn’t want someone getting into a building, that person wasn’t getting in. He also didn’t like being turned down for sex, even if he was married with four children. But Nellie Bly had a temper of her own and didn’t care one whit that Flaherty was a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier or even that he carried a gun.
“Listen to me, you foul-smelling imbecile. If you could read, you would know I had a front-page story in the World with my name in the headline. Two stories, in fact. And the editor in charge has summoned me here—”
“That may be, but Mr. Pulitzer would like to see you.”
Invoking the name of the World’s publisher quieted her abruptly, something that rarely occurred with Nellie Bly.
“Right away. In his office. Mr. Cockerill is with him.”
She saw a faint smile at the corners of Flaherty’s mouth. He enjoyed letting this uppity woman know he could still keep her out at any time, he didn’t care how many front-page stories she had. Pleased with himself, he stepped aside to let her pass. But she hesitated.
“Mr. Flaherty. May I ask you a question?”
“What is it?”
“You remember when I told you I had a story and asked to see Mr. Cockerill, and you didn’t turn me away?”
“I remember.”
“You were the only guard on this entire street who let me in.”
“I know that,” he said, his chest swelling with pride.
“You do?”
“Yes. All of the guards tell one another what goes on. It makes our jobs easier.”
“Then why did you pass along my request when no one else would?”
“You’re Irish, Miss Bly,” he said with a lilt. “We need to stick together. If you’d been a guinea or a kike, I’d have thrown you out on your ear.”
“And if I had been a guinea or a kike, Mr. Flaherty, I would thank God Almighty not to be of the same race as the likes of you.” She spit on his shoes with total contempt and strode past him through the doors.
Chapter Two
Joseph Pulitzer
She should have known Pulitzer would want to see her, she said to herself, as the Otis Company elevator lifted her through the eight-story rotunda, past the marble steps, majestic tapestries, and electric chandeliers. The World had not gotten to the top of the newspaper heap by being conventional. Pulitzer was known for aggressively going after whatever he wanted. He had arrived in America as a teenager during the Civil War, penniless and speaking no English, and within twenty years owned two of the country’s largest papers, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The New York World. He was a self-promoter on the scale of P.T. Barnum. Nellie particularly remembered his reaction when the asylum story broke. He had been in St. Louis and was quoted in the Post-Dispatch as saying that “Nellie Bly is our very bright and very talented new staff member, and I will reward her with a handsome check. With our help, she thoroughly understands the profession which she has chosen. She has a great future before her.”
As she walked down the marble floor, past the massive Ionic columns toward the twelve-foot-high oak doors and the two male secretaries seated at large desks beside them, Nellie told herself not to be intimidated; she had interviewed two of the richest men in America, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, for the Dispatch. Then again, as rich and powerful as they were, they didn’t own The New York World and have her dreams in their hands.
One of the secretaries rose from his chair. “Miss Bly?”
“Yes.”
“Wait here.” No warmth, no friendliness, no offering her a chair. The secretary, like most men at the time, wasn’t keen on having a woman at his place of work. He went inside, making sure to close the door behind him. The secretary at the other desk continued with his work as if she weren’t there.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Yes, thank you, it is,” he replied curtly.
Ignored, she stood there awkwardly and waited for the other secretary to return.
Finally, after she’d mentally run through a dozen barbs, the first secretary came out. “Mr. Pulitzer will see you.”
With no assistance from either man, she opened the heavy wooden door to behold the largest office she had ever seen. At least, as far as she could tell it was the largest.
Pulitzer, who had notoriously bad eyesight, kept the lights dim in his office. His oak desk was fully eight feet wide, and the ceilings appeared to be fifteen feet high. Several overhead gas lamps with green shades provided what light there was, while sunlight peeked through curtains that sheltered archway-shaped windows ten feet tall. Oriental rugs on the dark wood floor set off leather couches, Gustav Stickley sitting chairs, and a long wooden table with piles of papers on it. Bookcases stuffed with newspapers and books lined the walls. For a moment, Nellie thought she had entered a library.
Both men rose to greet her, although Pulitzer was so short he wasn’t much taller standing than sitting. He had wild, unkempt hair, a dark goatee, pince-nez glasses, and a gray wool suit and vest befitting his station as the nation’s premier publisher. Most striking were his eyes, of unbounded energy and intensity and perhaps even a touch of insanity. He walked over to her and extended his hand.
“Mizbly. Dis iz a playzure.”
Nellie had heard that Pulitzer, an immigrant, spoke with a thick Hungarian accent, but she hadn’t expected one quite this thick. She could barely understand him. Yet he plunged into animated conversation, seemingly oblivious to his impenetrable pronunciation. She strained to listen, hoping to get the gist of his words.
“Congratulations on your story,” he said, pumping her hand. “Wond
erful! Just wonderful!”
“Thank you, Mr. Pulitzer. And thank you and Colonel Cockerill for the opportunity.”
“Ah, you were right, Cockerill. She is a charmer. Please, Miss Bly. Sit down.”
He indicated the leather couch. Nellie hesitated to sit on something so luxurious—furniture like that was for admiring, not using—but she implored herself not to think small-town, and obliged her host.
“Cockerill and I want to express appreciation.” She wasn’t sure what he said.
“Excuse me?”
Irritation flashed across Pulitzer’s face. Cockerill jumped right in. “Mr. Pulitzer believes in rewarding performance, Miss Bly.”
Suddenly she understood the roles. Pulitzer hated when someone asked him to repeat himself; it ruined his image as the people’s publisher. Cockerill was there for cover, to fill in the holes whenever someone couldn’t understand him.
“We would like for you to work for the World, on the permanent staff.”
“I would like that very much, Mr. Pulitzer. Very much.” She tried to hide her excitement.
“And you will have your own byline.”
“Usually a reporter must work eight or ten years for that,” chimed in Cockerill.
The New Colossus Page 2