Tag Archives: New York Lunatic Asylum

Many Kinds of Cruelty

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A Book Written by a Former Asylum Patient

One of the worst kinds of abuse patients at insane asylums suffered occurred simply because of the situation. Many patients were tricked into accompanying relatives or friends to an asylum, or to a sanity commission that had been convened to arrange for commitment. Elizabeth Stone recounted her own commitment as this kind of deception. Her brother asked her to take a ride with him and conveyed her to McLean Asylum , where he abruptly left her without telling her where she was and what was going on. Stone was distressed beyond words when she finally realized what had happened, and later wrote: “O! That a dagger had been plunged into my heart in the midnight hour!”

Once in an asylum, many patients were frightened, angry, and bewildered. Many were distraught and emotionally overwhelmed by a sense of betrayal and shock at what had occurred. Women from sheltered homes were often terrified by the chaos around them. Patient accounts speak of real fear–of both patients and doctors whom they did not trust–and fear that they would never be released. Some learned to adapt and become model patients, hoping that by exhibiting desirable behavior, they might be set free. For far too many, the trip to the asylum was the last trip they would every make. By the time family members committed a person to an asylum, they were generally ready to be rid of him or her for a very long time.

McLean Asylum for the Insane

Scene From New York Lunatic Asylum, Blackwell's Island, 1898 Woodcut

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Skimping on Pay

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Patients Working in Laundry Room at Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1898

How much attendants were paid (see last post) mattered a great deal to superintendents, and generally not for the right reasons. The public began to exert extraordinary pressure on institutions to accept their afflicted family members, which resulted in overcrowding at nearly every insane asylum in the country. Doctors couldn’t cure patients when they had too many to properly care for, and asylums began to lose their roles as sanctuaries and restorative institutions.

With cure rates down, superintendents had to look for other reasons the public should continue to endorse the use of asylums. One argument was that it was much cheaper to keep patients at an asylum than at home or in jails. Many superintendents prided themselves on how cheaply they could run their asylums, and often compared their rates with unfavorably high rates at other asylums. Salaries were nearly always the largest single expense  at asylums, so superintendents had an incentive to hire the cheapest staff they could find. Unfortunately, as Beers pointed out, one could expect very little from an attendant who would work for eighteen dollars a month.

Patients on Floor in Eloise Women's Mental Ward in Michigan

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A Growing Population of the Insane

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AMSAII, courtesy National Library of Medicine

In 1844, thirteen superintendents of insane asylums met to exchange ideas about how to best run institutions for the insane. From this meeting, they formed the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (AMSAII). As recognized experts in a very young field, they felt themselves the top authority on all matters concerning mental disease. Some of the superintendents were somewhat arrogant, but were undoubtedly sincere and enthusiastic.

In 1844, the Association proposed some ground rules for asylums. Among other propositions, they agreed that asylums should be in the country, but easily accessible from a large town. Each site should have about 50 acres of landscaped grounds besides other acreage for its needs. Superintendents felt strongly that no building should hold more than 200 patients, and only 250 at the very most. In 1866, they increased that acceptable number to 600. The original members would have been shocked to find how quickly overcrowding became one of the worst features of asylums, with sometimes thousands of patients crammed together in filth and disorder.

Crowded New York Lunatic Asylum

Unruly Patients at Blackwell's Island, from Harper's Magazine, 1860, courtesy New York Public Library

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