This month, the NBCB Book Club is reading Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th-Century New York, by Stacy Horn.
This event will be held in a member's home, located at 238 Franklin St. in Greenpoint. The apartment does not have a buzzer, so please call Brad (718-612-2962) or Thiago (646-642-8301) when you arrive.
"Today we call it Roosevelt Island. Then, it was Blackwell's, site of a lunatic asylum, two prisons, an almshouse, and a number of hospitals. Conceived as the most modern, humane incarceration facility the world had ever seen, Blackwell's Island quickly became, in the words of a visiting Charles Dickens, 'a lounging, listless madhouse.'
"In the first contemporary investigative account of Blackwell's, Stacy Horn tells this chilling narrative through the gripping voices of the island's inhabitants, as well as the period's officials, reformers, and journalists, including the celebrated Nellie Bly. Digging through city records, newspaper articles, and archival reports, Horn brings this forgotten history alive: there was terrible overcrowding; prisoners were enlisted to care for the insane; punishment was harsh and unfair; and treatment was nonexistent."
No registration necessary, but please bring a snack to share.
Questions? bhkerr [at] gmail [dot] com