Slow to Change

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Western North Carolina Insane Asylum

Early alienists knew little about why a person became insane, but they were always willing to guess. The superintendent of Western North Carolina Insane Asylum reported on the causes for admission to the facility in 1888. They included: the Civil War, disappointment, jealousy, menstrual irregularity, nostalgia, and political excitement. In 1908, the same asylum listed these causes for admission: brooding over sin, cigarette smoking, climacteric worry, desire to marry, ear disease, fear of child-birth, fear of pregnancy, fright, and hard work and nose bleed.

We seem to be living in more enlightened times, but today’s psychiatric profession has its own absurdities. The current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists “caffeine-induced sleep disorder” and “mathematics disorder” as valid mental illnesses. Their list has risen from 265 recognized disorders in 1980 to 365 today.

Insane Asylum, Phoenix, Arizona

Patient in an Insane Asylum, photographed by Dr. Hugh Welch (Britain)

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Fun at the Asylum

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Patients Putting on a Play, Long Island State Hospital

Especially in their early years, most asylums took pride in offering patients light entertainment of various sorts, to help them get their minds off whatever had brought on their troubles. Many asylums had libraries with books and current magazines for patients, and staff encouraged reading, letter-writing, fancy sewing, and other calm pursuits. The community often took an interest in the local asylum, with local churches volunteering to sing and lead Bible studies there. Asylums also budgeted for lectures, magic lantern shows, and movies.

Social Room at Arizona Insane Asylum

Chapel in Asylum, 1896, courtesy Library of Congress

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Children at Asylums

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An Epileptic Boy, from Criminal Man, 1911

Children lived at insane asylums. They were the children of  patients or children of staff, or sometimes they were the patients. Married staff who lived on the grounds of an asylum had no choice but to raise their children where they were placed. At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, Dr. Hummer’s two boys ran through the wards freely, often aggravating the attendants with their noisiness and mess. Presumably, children at other asylums did the same things, and enjoyed playing in the park-like settings and wide lawns that were such a feature of large asylums.

At Southwestern Lunatic Asylum in Virginia, one patient with a young baby refused to be separated from her child, and the baby was allowed to stay for awhile. Sometimes patients became pregnant at asylums, and their babies were allowed to stay until other arrangements could be made. One child born to a  patient at  the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians stayed until she was four years old.

Canton Asylum took in a few young children; the youngest actually entering as a patient was six years old. A 1958 newspaper article from the Nevada State Journal described how children lived at the Nevada State Hospital (former Nevada Insane Asylum). The paper said the children stayed in a small ward with older [insane or feeble-minded] women, who cared for them. They played outside in fair weather, and played inside otherwise. Children ranged in age from four to seventeen, and usually lived in wards with members of their own sex once they reached age twelve.

Nevada Hospital for Mental Disease, circa 1890, Dr. H. Bergstein with son and Staff, courtesy University of Nevada School of Medicine

Nevada Insane Asylum, circa 1980, courtesy University of Nevada School of Medicine

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Insane Asylum Graveyards

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Poughkeepsie, NY Lunatic Asylum

Large public insane asylums were built primarily for people who could not afford private care. Many families, relieved at finding a place for a difficult member, left him or her at an asylum for life. And death. Asylums had to set up cemeteries for patients whose bodies weren’t claimed by families, or who had entered as paupers.

St. Elizabeths in Washington, DC was unusual in that its patients were also military veterans. The institution served as a military hospital during the Civil War, and the grounds contain a separate Civil War cemetery for military patients who died while they were hospitalized. (This time period is when St. Elizabeths got its current name. Civil War soldiers were embarrassed to write home that they were staying at the Government Hospital for the Insane, so they referred to it as St. Elizabeths, the colonial name of the land on which the hospital was located.)

Philadelphia Insane Asylum, circa 1861, where "eighteen raving maniacs were burned to death" in February, 1885

St. Elizabeths Hospital Military Cemeteries

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Dying Insane

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Bromide Advertisement

Many patients at insane asylums had physical, as well as mental, health problems. Epilepsy was a particular problem for doctors, who could not even control the condition until bromides were introduced to calm symptoms. Aside from the usual causes of death like heart failure or exhaustion, patients sometimes died from suicide, or after a violent episode with attendants or fellow patients in which rough treatment could have been a contributing factor. One patient at Southwestern Lunatic Asylum in Virginia died from “swallowing pins, needles, and buttons, to which she was much addicted.” Another unusual cause of death, at Western North Carolina Insane Asylum, was from “gangrene of external genitals.”

The minutes of an 1892 meeting of  Southwestern Asylum’s executive committee discussed the death of an inmate who had simply walked off the grounds one day in the middle of  December. Staff searched for him unsuccessfully, and his body was discovered two weeks later, some distance from the asylum. He had doubtless died of exposure. Though they deplored the man’s death, the committee decided that they would rather allow patients a degree of freedom and risk such an incident, as deprive all of freedom on the off chance that someone else might escape in the future.

 

Southwestern Lunatic Asylum

Western North Carolina Insane Asylum, circa 1886, courtesy Burke County Public Library

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Dr. Turner’s Travels

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Mesa Grande Indian Chief Cinon Mataweer, courtesy San Diego Historical Society

As the only physician at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, Doctor John Turner was necessarily a valuable employee. However, he was on the road to pick up patients  more than anyone else on staff. In March, 1906, Turner went to Pennsylvania to visit his sick father. At the time of this visit, a Mesa Grande Indian who had escaped the asylum in 1904, Moxey, committed some sort of crime in Virginia and wound up in jail.

Turner had to go to Virginia and get Moxey, then return to the asylum. He brought back both the patient and his father, who was very ill. One of Turner’s chief complaints about Gifford’s management of the asylum, was that Turner had to do much of the traveling associated with picking up patients and retrieving them if they escaped. His absence caused problems with the health of his patients, and Turner’s complaint to Charles Dickson, supervisor of Indian schools, instigated an inspection that brought superintendent O. S. Gifford sharp reproach.

O.S. Gifford

Mesa Grande Indian, c. 1906, courtesy Dan Diego Historical Society

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Employees at Canton Asylum

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Settlers Wait to Enter Surplus Lands at Fort Hall Reservation,1902, courtesy Library of Congress

When the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians first opened, employees took on a variety of tasks not necessarily in their job descriptions. Dr. Turner, the assistant superintendent and the only doctor at the asylum, often traveled out-of-state to escort new patients to the asylum.

On February 4, 1905, the Sioux Valley News reported that Turner and an employee named Hans Loe, had just returned from Fort Hall in Idaho with two Shoshone patients. That week, the financial clerk also returned from a trip to bring back an Apache patient. Turner was scheduled to go to Indian Territory to pick up an insane woman at Union Agency, while O. S. Gifford was set to go to Minnesota to get a patient from White Earth reservation.

Though this may have been an especially busy week, employees obviously could not give patients their full attention.

Indians Making Maple Sugar at Cass Lake, 1905, courtesy Minnesota Historical Society

White Settlers in Indian Territory, 1883, courtesy Robert E. Cunningham Oklahoma History Collection

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Difficult to Leave

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Cato Sells, Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1913-1921)

Allen Owl, a patient at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, demonstrates how difficult it was to convince Dr. Hummer that a patient could safely leave his care. Owl wrote to the commissioner of Indian Affairs on December 16, 1919, and ended his letter by saying: “Would be glad to get my discharge from this place. Also will obey the public & government laws from now on.”

Hummer wrote to the commissioner in reply: . . . “In other words he is about as well as he ever will be. He has a good home here, is well taken care of, is well-behaved and trusted with parole privileges of the grounds and an occasional pass to town to the picture shows. In addition to which he was permitted to work with neighboring farmers this season, earning about one hundred and fifty or sixty dollars.”

Unfortunately for Owl, Hummer added, “This, however, does not mean that he could or would do as well were he discharged and thrown upon his own resources. . . . Accordingly, I must recommend adversely to his request and hope that your Office will write him a nice letter to that effect.”

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Waiting and Wondering

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Though some families initiated their member’s confinement to an asylum, others missed their presence very much. Particularly in the case of patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, who may have been sent to the facility for reasons other than insanity, families often pleaded to have  a patient released. Dr. Hummer usually dodged responsibility by claiming he could not release anyone without the permission of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The reality was that the commissioner would almost always take his cue from Hummer’s assessment and wishes in the matter.

Frank Cox wrote to the commissioner on July 14, 1926, saying that Dr. Hummer had told him he needed the commissioner’s permission to release his son, John Charles. Cox said, “I am his father and all his family would like to have him home if possible. I am 52 yeas old, I know I can provide for him. I have lost my wife and John being around me it would me a little joy to live for.”

Edgar B. Meritt, courtesy Library of Congress

The assistant commissioner (Edgar Meritt) replied, “You are advised that this is not deemed for the best interests either of you or of your son, inasmuch as it is not shown that John Charles Cox has been pronounced sane, and having once been committed to an insane asylum it would not be safe to have him returned to your home until a cure has been effected. For this reason your request will have to be denied unless Dr. Hummer can give a certificate of sanity.”

Visitors to the Texas State Lunatic Asylum, courtesy Austin Library

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Other Families

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Interior Staircase, New York City Lunatic Asylum

Early superintendents of insane asylums asked for large, beautiful facilities amid a park-like setting, because they thought the environment within imposing structures would help cure their patients. Asylums were built to serve the poor and middle class, rather than the rich, and these lovely “homes” were deliberately built to be as unlike a patient’s typical home as possible.

Alienists (early mental health experts) believed that insanity was often caused by something in the patient’s home environment. By leaving that unhealthy environment, patients could renew their minds and get well. Family visits were actively discouraged, and it wasn’t until late in the century that superintendents began to consider trial visits home, or furloughs, as beneficial.

Dr. Hummer, the superintendent of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians for the majority of its existence, did not seem to move with the times. He always discouraged visits by family members, and only once or twice allowed a patient to go home on a trial basis.

Social Room at Arizona Insane Asylum

Visitors Arriving at Missouri State Hospital for the Insane

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