![]() ![]() The anecdotal rather than linear narrative approach captures the drama of the island’s inmates, but can make understanding the chronology challenging. Rogers in exposing the mistreatment of the confined tragic tales of young prisoners, like teenaged pickpocket Adelaide Irving, imprisoned for relatively minor crimes and never able to fully recover from her time there and truly nightmarish accounts of medical experimentation, including brain surgery administered under (ineffective) hypnosis rather than anesthesia. ![]() Episodes include the heroic muckraking efforts of journalists Nellie Bly and William P. ![]() Using the institutions that populated the island as an organizing principle, Horn selects colorful stories of individuals confined in the asylum, workhouse, hospital, almshouse, and penitentiary. Horn ( Imperfect Harmony) creates a vivid and at times horrifying portrait of Blackwell’s Island (today’s Roosevelt Island) in New York City’s East River during the late 19th century. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |