Ask a New Question
Menu

"Nelly Bly Undercover"

by Dr. Howard Markel

Getting committed proved rather easy, even if neither Bly nor her editors had a clear plan of getting her released once the story was filed. She took a room at a cheap boarding house, “Temporary Home for Females, No. 84 Second Avenue,” under the name Bly Brown and began questioning and imitating the women who seemed most insane to her. Soon enough, it was Bly who was deemed crazy. The matron of the house enlisted a few cops to escort Bly to the Essex Market Police Courtroom, where an impatient judge named Duffy pronounced her insane and ordered her to the famed insane ward at Bellevue Hospital, the city’s largest charitable hospital.

© NewsHour Productions LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Question
Use the excerpt from the “How Nellie Bly went undercover to expose abuse of the mentally ill” article to answer the question.

Which of the following would be an invalid inference to make about this excerpt?

(1 point)
Responses

The mentally insane were considered a danger to society.
The mentally insane were considered a danger to society.

People considered the mentally insane to be unable to determine their own status.
People considered the mentally insane to be unable to determine their own status.

People found it important to give the mentally insane a safe place to live.
People found it important to give the mentally insane a safe place to live.

Only someone who was medically qualified could declare someone mentally insane.
Only someone who was medically qualified could declare someone mentally insane.
Skip to navigation

1 answer

The invalid inference to make about the excerpt is:

People found it important to give the mentally insane a safe place to live.

This statement cannot be inferred from the provided excerpt, as it does not mention the conditions or the intentions behind the establishment or treatment of the insane within the boarding house or the Bellevue Hospital. Instead, it focuses on how Bly was able to present herself as insane, reflecting more on societal perceptions than on the provision of safe living conditions for the mentally ill.