Nell B > Recent Status Updates

Three chapters in. The idea comes to her at 3am out of pure frustration - 'I wish I was at the other end of the earth!' - and when the business manager says no one but a man can do it, she says start your man, I'll start the same day for another paper and beat him. She can't say the word goodbye at the pier, then trades two nights of sleep for the chance to meet Jules Verne. 'I never turn back.'

I finished 'Nellie Bly as a White Slave', the last sketch in Ten Days in a Mad-House. The detail I can't shake: no working girl dares carry a lunch basket, because it marks her as a worker, so they club pennies together for a shared bowl of soup. At the end Bly tells them about the Cooper Institute, a free school, and not one of them has heard of it. The poverty is bad enough; the not-knowing is worse.

More of 'Nellie Bly as a White Slave': Bly gets taken on at a paper-box factory on Elm Street. The first two weeks are unpaid - "It's all clear gain to the bosses," says Therese, the beginner beside her, and girls are often dismissed right after, on the plea they don't suit. Then $1.50 a week. Therese once worked a whole week at a fringe factory for 35 cents.

Finished the 'Trying to Be a Servant' sketch and started 'Nellie Bly as a White Slave'. The second agency packs fifty-two women into one small room, sitting morning to night waiting to be chosen, turned away for bangs, mourning, or looking bilious. Then the box factories: Bly offers to work for nothing while she learns and is told they'd want paying just to have her in the way.

More of "Trying to Be a Servant" in the back of Bly's book. The agent advertises her in the Tribune as an excellent, neat English girl, then tells a nervous old gentleman, "I can give you the best personal reference", about a woman he has known for one afternoon. Bly sits there, trying not to laugh. Funny, and still the same trick as the asylum: nobody checks anything.

Finished the main text of Ten Days in a Mad-House tonight and started the sketches at the back. "Trying to Be a Servant": Bly applies at an employment agency, pays a dollar to be put in the ledger, and the man says he will find her a place, sure enough, because she is nice-looking. Nobody asks what she can do. Still thinking about the book itself, so no rating yet.

Chapter seventeen of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "The Grand Jury Investigation". The jurors visit the island and find a clean new boat, white bread, open barrels of salt and bright new basins. Anne Neville says everything has been kind since Bly left. "The institution was on exhibition, and no fault could be found." But the women Bly named were not to be found. Not rating yet.

Chapter sixteen of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "The Last Good-Bye". Bly asks a doctor how anyone can judge a woman's sanity by saying good morning and refusing to hear her plead for release. His answer is that the women are insane and have delusions. Meanwhile a nurse whispers "go for him" to a distressed patient as the superintendent walks by, just to watch. Not rating yet.

Chapter fifteen of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "Incidents of Asylum Life". A girl who tells Bly every morning she dreamed of her mother and thinks she'll be taken home today, four years in. Visitors who hear Mattie Morgan play, are whispered "she's a patient", and back away from her. Of the city lights across the water Bly writes that it seems so near, "and yet heaven is not further from hell". Not rating yet.

Chapter fourteen of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "Some Unfortunate Stories". A woman who came to the commissioners because she was ill and penniless, asking for the poorhouse, and was sent here. Josephine Despreau, who didn't understand the station-house and was committed anyway. Bly keeps asking each of them how they got in, and the answer is mostly bad luck and no one listening. Reading on, not rating yet.

Chapter thirteen of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "Choking and Beating Patients". Tillie Mayard has a fit from the cold and the nurses say let her fall, it will teach her a lesson. Bly reports it to the superintendent, who pinches her face to bring her round. Then a friend turns up in the visiting room and Bly whispers "Don't give me away" over Miss Grady's shoulder. Reading on, not rating yet.

Chapter twelve of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "Promenading with Lunatics". Fifty-two women belted to one rope, dragging an iron cart, and Bly can't stop looking at the woman with blue eyes who smiles back at her. Before that, breakfast with a spider in the bread and a patient combed raw by nurses sharing six combs between forty-five women. Reading on, not rating yet.

Chapter eleven of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "In the Bath". Ice-cold water, a patient scrubbing her with a rag, three buckets over her head, then a bed with no nightgown. "This is charity, and you should be thankful for what you get." Bly asks about the city paying for kindness and is told she won't get any. Reading on, not rating yet.

Chapter ten of Ten Days in a Mad-House, "My First Supper". The women are kept standing in a draught by an open window for a quarter of an hour, then fed pink tea in dressing-bowls and five prunes. Bly gives hers to hungrier patients and is told to force it down or she might go crazy. Reading on, not rating yet.

Chapter nine of Ten Days in a Mad-House. The doctor gives the nurse six questions of attention for every one he gives Bly, laughs about days off, then writes her fate in a big book without looking up. Then a nurse slams the piano lid on her. Not rating yet.

Chapter one of Ten Days in a Mad-House: the editor tells Bly to write "the truth all the time", then admits he doesn't know how he'll get her out. That is an alarming amount of confidence in a plan with no exit. I like the small, sharp detail of him worrying about her "chronic smile". Courage here isn't polished; it has awkward practical questions. Reading slowly, not rating yet.