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Book ID: CBB313122849

The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880 (2019)

Gonaver, Wendy (Author)

University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 2019
Language: English

ISBN: 9781469648446

Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 268

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Medicine and race Public health Race Slavery Mental disorders and diseases Hospitals and clinics Psychiatry 19th century Virginia (U.S.) Southern states (U.S.) United States

Though the origins of asylums can be traced to Europe, the systematic segregation of the mentally ill into specialized institutions occurred in the United States only after 1800, just as the struggle to end slavery took hold. In this book, Wendy Gonaver examines the relationship between these two historical developments, showing how slavery and ideas about race shaped early mental health treatment in the United States, especially in the South. She reveals these connections through the histories of two asylums in Virginia: the Eastern Lunatic Asylum in Williamsburg, the first in the nation; and the Central Lunatic Asylum in Petersburg, the first created specifically for African Americans. Eastern Lunatic Asylum was the only institution to accept both slaves and free blacks as patients and to employ slaves as attendants.Drawing from these institutions' untapped archives, Gonaver reveals how slavery influenced ideas about patient liberty, about the proper relationship between caregiver and patient, about what constituted healthy religious belief and unhealthy fanaticism, and about gender. This early form of psychiatric care acted as a precursor to public health policy for generations, and Gonaver's book fills an important gap in the historiography of mental health and race in the nineteenth century.

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Reviewed By

Review Deborah Doroshow (2020) Review of "The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (pp. 450-452). unapi

Review Martin Anthony Summers (2020) Review of "The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880". Journal of American History (pp. 202-203). unapi

Review Christopher M. Blakley (2020) Review of "The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 596-597). unapi

Review Christienna Fryar (2020) Review of "The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880". Social History of Medicine (pp. 1390-1391). unapi

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