“Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.” In 1887, investigative journalist for the New York World newspaper Nellie Bly went undercover to expose the dreadful conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum, a mental institution on Blackwell’s Island. Read more about Bly’s fearless investigation and how her work forever changed the field of journalism.
This blog post was written by Jennie Horton, a 2020 Librarian-in-Residence in the Serial & Government Publications Division. Unrest in Latin America caused many to flee to the United States. Exile newspapers, Spanish-language papers published in the US, helped immigrants stay connected to their homeland, language, and culture. Spanish-language newspapers first appeared in the United States in 1808 with El …