" fascinating look at a piece of nearly forgotten New York City history-one that will make you thankful for modern conveniences." “This is an essential-and heartbreaking-book for readers seeking to better understand contemporary public policy.” Horn has created a bleak but worthwhile depiction of institutional failure, with relevance for persistent debates over the treatment of the mentally ill and incarcerated.” “Horn 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. History buffs will be terrified by what occurred a century ago.” Stacy Horn lucidly, and not without indignation, documents the island’s bleak history, detailing the political and moral failures that sustained this hell, failures still evident today in the prison at Rikers Island.” Damnation Island shows how far we’ve come in caring for the least fortunate among us-and reminds us how much work still remains. And we follow the extraordinary Reverend William Glenney French as he ministers to Blackwell’s residents, battles the bureaucratic mazes of the Department of Correction and a corrupt City Hall, testifies at salacious trials, and in his diary wonders about man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. We also hear from the era’s officials, reformers, and journalists, including the celebrated undercover reporter Nellie Bly. "Enthralling it is well worth the trip.” - New York Journal of BooksĬonceived as the most modern, humane incarceration facility the world had ever seen, New York’s Blackwell’s Island, site of a lunatic asylum, two prisons, an almshouse, and a number of hospitals, quickly became, in the words of a visiting Charles Dickens, "a lounging, listless madhouse." Digging through city records, newspaper articles, and archival reports, Stacy Horn tells a gripping narrative through the voices of the island’s inhabitants.
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