The Dark Story of the Asylum That Sent Children on Orphan Trains: Blackwell's Island

Blackwell's Island sat in the middle of New York City's East River for over a century, holding the city's mentally ill, its criminals, its poorest residents, and thousands of children nobody wanted. In 1887, journalist Nellie Bly went undercover inside the asylum and exposed conditions that shocked the nation. But the asylum was only part of the story. The children trapped on that island would be loaded onto trains and shipped to strangers across America in what became the largest child relocation program in history. Today the island is called Roosevelt Island, and luxury apartments sit where patients were once beaten and children were locked away. This is the story of Blackwell's Island. Ward Files documents the abandoned asylums, forgotten institutions, and dark chapters of American history that shaped the country we live in today. TOPICS COVERED: Blackwell's Island history, Roosevelt Island dark past, New York City Lunatic Asylum, Nellie Bly Ten Days in a Mad-House, orphan trains history, Children's Aid Society, Charles Loring Brace, orphan train riders, eden ahbez Nature Boy, asylum abuse 1800s, psychiatric hospital history, Kirkbride asylum, almshouse conditions, children institutionalized, American foster care origins SOURCES: National Park Service — Blackwell's Island Roosevelt Island Nellie Bly — Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887) Children's Aid Society Archives National Orphan Train Complex — Concordia Kansas Katherine Ziff — Asylum on the Hill PBS American Experience — The Orphan Trains (1995) Jacob Riis — How the Other Half Lives New York Historical Society Archives #WardFiles #BlackwellsIsland #RooseveltIsland #NellieBly #OrphanTrains #AsylumHistory #AbandonedAsylum #DarkHistory #MentalAsylum #NewYorkHistory #ForgottenHistory #AmericanHistory #PsychiatricHospital #Documentary