Foote, S. B. (Author)
University of Minnesota Press
Publication date: 2018
Language: English
Physical Details: 312 pp.
Winner of the 2019 Minnesota Book Award for Minnesota Nonfiction. The stirring story of the reform movement that laid the groundwork for a modern mental health system in Minnesota. In 1940 Engla Schey, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants, took a job as a low-paid attendant at Anoka State Hospital, one of Minnesota’s seven asylums. She would work among people who were locked away under the shameful label “insane,” called inmates—and numbered more than 12,000 throughout the state. She acquired the knowledge and passion that would lead to “The Crusade for Forgotten Souls,” a campaign to reform the deplorable condition of mental institutions in Minnesota. This book chronicles that remarkable undertaking inspired and carried forward by ordinary people under the political leadership of Luther Youngdahl, a Swedish Republican who was the state’s governor from 1946 to 1951.Susan Bartlett Foote tells the story of those who made the crusade a success: Engla Schey, the catalyst; Reverend Arthur Foote, a modest visionary who guided Unitarians to constructive advocacy; Genevieve Steefel, an inveterate patient activist; and Geri Hoffner, an intrepid reporter whose twelve-part series for the Minneapolis Tribune galvanized the public. These reformers overcame barriers of class, ethnicity, and gender to stand behind the governor, who, at a turbulent moment in Minnesota politics, challenged his own party’s resistance to reform. The Crusade for Forgotten Souls recounts how these efforts broke the stigma of shame and silence surrounding mental illness, publicized the painful truth about the state’s asylums, built support among citizens, and resulted in the first legislative steps toward a modern mental health system that catapulted Minnesota to national leadership and empowered families of the mentally ill and disabled. Though their vision met resistance, the accomplishments of these early advocates for compassionate care of the mentally ill hold many lessons that resonate to this day, as this book makes compellingly clear.
...MoreReview Kylie M Smith (2020) Review of "The Crusade for Forgotten Souls: Reforming Minnesota's Mental Institutions, 1946–1954". History of Psychiatry (pp. 122-123).
Review Erin J Lux (2020) Review of "The Crusade for Forgotten Souls: Reforming Minnesota's Mental Institutions, 1946–1954". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 121-122).
Review Kathleen M Brian (2019) Review of "The Crusade for Forgotten Souls: Reforming Minnesota's Mental Institutions, 1946–1954". Social History of Medicine (pp. 205-207).
Similar Citations
Article
Leonardo Musci;
(2019)
L’archivio di Franco e Franca Basaglia
(/p/isis/citation/CBB359423830/)
Article
Annacarla Valeriano;
(2019)
Voci dalle cartelle. Alcune linee di ricerca dall’archivio storico del manicomio Sant’Antonio abate di Teramo
(/p/isis/citation/CBB521766391/)
Article
Mario Augusto Maieron;
(2018)
1978-2018. The Basaglia Law forty years after
(/p/isis/citation/CBB956923730/)
Article
Jabert, Alexander;
(2005)
Formas de administração da loucura na Primeira República: o caso do estado do Espírito Santo
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000640220/)
Article
Andrew Scull;
(2021)
"Community Care": Historical Perspective on Deinstitutionalization
(/p/isis/citation/CBB956009030/)
Article
Ben Harris;
(2021)
The Snake Pit: Mixing Marx with Freud in Hollywood
(/p/isis/citation/CBB458115058/)
Article
Liselotte Eriksson;
Johan Junkka;
Glenn Sandström;
Lotta Vikström;
(2022)
Supply or demand? Institutionalization of the mentally ill in the emerging Swedish welfare state, 1900–59
(/p/isis/citation/CBB007033408/)
Book
Mario Colucci;
Pierangelo Di Vittorio;
(2024)
Franco Basaglia. Pensiero, pratiche, politica
(/p/isis/citation/CBB690686526/)
Book
Paolo Francesco Peloso;
(2023)
Franco Basaglia, un profilo. Dalla critica dell’istituzione psichiatrica alla critica della società
(/p/isis/citation/CBB262800679/)
Chapter
Matteo Borri;
(2020)
L’evoluzione del trattamento morale: da Philippe Pinel a Emil Kraepelin
(/p/isis/citation/CBB980576552/)
Book
Franco Basaglia;
Marica Setaro;
(2024)
Fare l'impossibile. Ragionando di psichiatria e potere
(/p/isis/citation/CBB220510776/)
Article
Joelle M Abi-Rached;
(2021)
ʿAṣfūriyyeh: A History of Madness, Modernity, and War in the Middle East
(/p/isis/citation/CBB150396997/)
Article
Venancio, Ana Teresa A.;
(2012)
La asistencia psiquiátrica en la historia política brasileña
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001450431/)
Book
Dubach, Roswitha;
(2013)
Verhütungspolitik. Sterilisation im Spannungsfeld von Psychiatrie, Gesellschaft und individuellen Interessen in Zürich (1890--1970)
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001214214/)
Article
Vera Fusco;
Francesca Gollo;
Marco Salustri;
(2019)
Il Museo Laboratorio della Mente come risorsa per la salute mentale
(/p/isis/citation/CBB096289987/)
Book
Wheatley, Thelma;
(2013)
“And Neither Have I Wings to Fly”: Labelled and Locked up in Canada's Oldest Institution
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001420282/)
Article
Isabelle Perreault;
Marie-Claude Thifault;
(2019)
Behind Asylum Walls: Studying the Dialectic Between Psychiatrists and Patients at Montreal’s Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Hospital during the first half of the Twentieth Century
(/p/isis/citation/CBB698983135/)
Book
Michele Augusto Riva;
(2023)
Alle origini della psichiatria moderna. La figura e l’eredità di Carlo Lorenzo Cazzullo
(/p/isis/citation/CBB044632091/)
Article
Marica Setaro;
Silvia Calamai;
(2019)
sPazzi sonori. L’archivio di Anna Maria Bruzzone come orecchio della memoria
(/p/isis/citation/CBB884134913/)
Article
Wulf, Stefan;
Schmiedebach, Heinz-Peter;
(2008)
“Die sprachliche Verständigung ist selbstverständlich recht schwierig.” Die “geisteskranken Rückwanderer” aus Amerika in der Hamburger Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg 1909
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001220566/)
Be the first to comment!