She witnessed her mum being abused by her second husband and so that makes her all the more determined to stand up for herself and stand out.

It was really terrible all she had to endure but amazing in that she did this to bring the truth out and to get these people the real care and help they needed. The New York newspapers are uninterested in Nellie’s previous success, women journalists are not welcome on Park Row. She has problems, confronts the men in power, and comes out the other side with a job and apartment? D. in English at University College London, where she focused on early-twentieth-century women's writing and was awarded the West Scholarship and the Rosa Morison Scholarship "for distinguished work in the study of English Language and Literature".

The reality of perishing there herself gives Nellie chills, but this assignment might be her only chance to break through in the male dominated world. I flew through the book it’s not an easy read due to the content but it’s an important read we owe it to all those poor unfortunates know just what hell they went through. Trigger warnings: forced institutionalizing, self- induced vomiting (not ed related), drugging, sexist notions, use of dated labels (“lunatics” etc. An extraordinary portrait of a woman way ahead of her time, Madwoman is the story of a quest for the truth that changed the world. Mental health reform and destigmatization is a huge passion for me, so I really should’ve already read up on this a while ago.

It was not easy to read about the horrible living conditions, torture and emotional trauma the women faced. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Determined to become a journalist in a male-dominated world Nellie tries to make a name for herself exposing deplorable conditions of working women in Pittsburgh, but in doing so angers the (male) business owners who threaten to pull their advertising from the newspaper if her articles continue. She wrote harsh but true articles and then moves to New York where she feels she can really start writing about the hard stuff. Though I’m quite familiar with Nellie’s stint on Blackwell’s Island, much of Nellie’s past was unknown to me, so I appreciated learning more about her family life and what led her to her career in journalism during a period when women were actively dissuaded from higher education and white collar work.The third person viewpoint removes the reader from events, I wanted to walk with Nellie, not observing her as a reporter might. The daughter of a judge, ‘Pink’ as she was nicknamed by her family, was encouraged to be curious and learn about a range of subjects, including those generally thought to be unsuitable for women at the time. And the subtext regarding women's lack of autonomy is sledgehammered home with a complete lack of artistry. The World newspaper gives her a chance when she decides to do an exposé on the rumored mistreatment of women in the insane asylum. Louisa subsequently turned to literature, gaining a First Class degree and a PhD in English at University College London, where she focused on early twentieth century women’s writing.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Treger definitely gets across how awful those places were, and the horrors that were committed against people.What an absolutely stunning read this was and many congratulations to Louisa Treger for writing such a wonderful historical novel with such compassion and feeling . She is determined to succeed, and she clearly sees it doing with articles that are personal and emotional, giving intimate glimpses into working class female workers. Desperate to prove her worth to the owners of The Globe, she comes up with a rather dangerous plan : to fake insanity and have herself committed to the asylum on Blackwell’s Island, where she will work undercover to expose the horrid conditions the patients live in. Abusive and vicious staff, scant and poor food, freezing conditions and hideous punishments rapidly take their dehumanising toll - and even worse is threatened. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

I would have liked hearing about her family life if it weren't for the way the narrator treated me like I was stupid and had to be explicitly told what I should think about women not being allowed to wear pants or ride horses standing up. Sux years later, working in service to help support her family, an editorial in the Pittsburgh Dispatch revives her aspirations, and she convinces the paper to publish a series of articles, adopting the nom de plume, Nellie Bly. Showing how her father's death and her mother's subsequent remarriage to an abusive husband affected her outlook on life.

After her father's sudden death, her mother married a brutal and abusive man, and they were plunged into poverty and despair. Treger's story, which in its first half explores and interprets Nellie's early life diligently, really takes fire in its second part as it touches on what Nellie might have been thinking and feeling as she was locked all night in a rat-infested cell; forcibly dunked in filthy, cold water; or half strangled by a vengeful nurse after speaking out about conditions.