Why read Damnation Island?

Book cover of Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York

Book description

"Enthralling; it is well worth the trip." --New York Journal of Books Conceived 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…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Damnation Island as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Stacy Kingsley

Author

If you ever wondered about Blackwell Island off of New York City, this is the book for you.

Over a hundred years, this island housed the insane, indigent, sick, and criminal (although this was often a word used loosely). The book takes you walking through the different institutional buildings created there in the 1800s. Through the eyes of its inhabitants, both those who worked there and those who were incarcerated there, this novel takes you on a tour of the island and through the lives of the poor, criminal, and mentally ill and how they were treated.

While things have…

From Stacy's 3 favorite reads in 2023.