1840 Census Map
The 1840 census was an important one in the study of insanity. In that year, a category called “Insane and Idiots” was added to the federal population count, and this category was further divided into “white” and “colored and slaves.”
Though most historians feel the 1840 census was somewhat unreliable, probably underestimating the insane by quite a bit, it still gives the first real snapshot of the country’s assessment of these citizens.
Of the 17, 062, 566 people in the country, 14,508 whites were counted as insane, and 2,926 colored and slave were seen as insane. The number of insane and idiots in proportion to the rest of the population was 1 in 990. By 1880 the ratio had increased to 204.3 to 100,000 of population.
Phrenological View of Mental Deficiency
Concerns About Controlling the Insane
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I still believe that the truth was hard to get at for census takers, when it came to families admitting insanity among their members. It’s certainly true that diseases weren’t true mental illness, even though symptoms may have struck alienists as similar. One thing I’ve come to appreciate in the diagnosis of women’s insanity is how inept medical care could have led to depression and melancholia. Childbirth and other reproductive medical conditions were often poorly handled or completely botched, leading to chronic suffering. I suspect that unrelieved pain and discomfort could have easily led to depression or ill-expressed frustration (considering the norms of the times); doctors would have considered the underlying cause of the symptoms to be the uterus.
What about real diseases, being counted as insanity? I’ld say insanity was overestimated.
Epilepsy and Venereal disease are not “mental illness”, but were thought to be.
Thanks, Adelaida. Most historians are convinced that the 1840 census was inaccurate because of the difficulty of canvassing everyone and getting truthful answers to what was then a shaming situation. (Canton itself wasn’t around in 1840). Besides the shame of insanity, a hint of it in the family tree might ruin chances for marriage, since many people thought it was inherited. Fathers couldn’t risk a bunch of old maids on their hands. đŸ™‚ I think most people kept insanity private. Remember those crazy aunts in the locked attics?
I am wondering why you think they were underestimating the number rather than overestimating it, considering the diagnosis of, for example, ‘wandering wombs’ or hysteria. Don’t you make the argument elsewhere that some of the people at Canton did not belong there? On the other hand, there must have been a large number of people locked up in their own houses. Hmmm. Hard to assess,
The census map and “Phrenological View of Mental Deficiency” are both fascinating in different ways.
Your blog continues to engage, Carla. Congrats.