To be entirely honest, I haven’t thought much about drafting my ADE critical introduction yet. However, I can try to type out some of my thought process for planning it here, as this seems to be an appropriate use of the reflection blog. I’m happy with my thesis and main points right now, I just need to make them clear in the introduction. In terms of contextual and background information, I still need to work on finding some secondary sources to help with that, as most of the sources I found weren’t very applicable to Ten Days in a Mad-House. I’d like to include some information on mental hospitals and asylums at the time that the piece was written, so hopefully I can find some source(s) that look at those institutions in America, which was something I struggled with when originally drafting the bibliography. A secondary source that was suggested to me by Professor Tuttle, Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl Stunt Reporting in Late Nineteenth-Century America worked really well for a secondary annotation, but also included a lot of context for the reporting style utilized in Ten Days in a Mad-House, and how it was influenced by the culture at the time. I don’t have a lot of general knowledge about the culture and gender roles during the 1800’s, since I haven’t read many books or other texts from that period, so I’ll need to find time to do that sort of research.
Good start, MK! I have a few thoughts for you here. First, in terms of gender ideology of the time, it may help you to consider that Bly was writing during the same time as Gilman–the late 19th century. Any insights you have from our discussion of Gilman, you can apply to help make sense of what Bly’s world was like. I’m glad that the Lutes essay helpful. If you want more context on the tensions around white women’s gender conformity, you could check, out this essay (focus on the section on so-called new womanhood to see not just how women were challenging older models but how the culture reacted to that punitively): http://web.a.ebscohost.com.une.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=f1feb153-6a3b-4903-92c8-9e463346e174%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=18461632&db=a9h.
HOWEVER: I don’t want you to feel you have to do lots of new research to establish the context for Bly–I realize it’s a little tricky since we did not read it in class. But that’s why I’m also saying you can consult your notes on Gilman if that helps you. As for Bly’s biography, something like the American National Biography is a reputable, scholarly reference source for that: https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1601472.
As for mental institutions of the time, you may find enough in Lutes itself (don’t forget to avail yourself of the endnotes–those are often a goldmine of info. Note 16 refers to a couple of sources that provide further info on asylums if you want to hunt those down.). Again: do only as much outside research as you feel is necessary. You definitely are NOT expected to do any at all. I am happy to chat about this more as you decide which kind of contextualization you may want to do. Keep up the good work!