This Intrepid 19th-Century Reporter Refused to Accept the Unacceptable

This article comes from Atlas Obscura’s Places newsletter. Subscribe or manage your subscription here. The enterprising 19th-century journalist Nellie Bly didn’t just write stories—she stepped into danger to force readers to see things that they might prefer to ignore. Bly went undercover in the 1880s to expose the asylum system, in which women (with or without mental illness) were often abused or neglected. More than a century later, Bly’s work was honored with a monument near the site of the asylum she investigated, on New York’s Roosevelt Island. “The Girl Puzzle,” named after one of the...