"We Had Very Good Times Together": A Mad People's History of Life on Asylum Wards in the Early-Twentieth Century United States

This article builds on the writing of former asylum inmates in the United States to analyze life on asylum wards between 1890 and 1950. Although published accounts of inmates’ experiences in American asylums have their own limitations as primary sources, they are nevertheless very revealing not only of the day-to-day life of institution inmates, but also of the ways in which former asylum inmates made sense of their experiences. The article relies upon insights from Disability Studies and Mad Studies to analyze life on the wards, work and socialization, relations among inmates, clandestine communication channels, and the formation of informal support groups, such as "suicide clubs" in institutions. "Mad writers" were almost equally women and men. They were white, and often well educated. They used the social and economic advantages that many of them had to create a public space from which they could critique the United States’ burgeoning asylum system. These accounts also laid the groundwork for later twentieth-century mad people’s movements.Dieser Aufsatz stützt sich auf die Schriften ehemaliger Anstaltsinsassen in den USA, um das Leben auf den Stationen zwischen 1890 und 1950 zu analysieren. Obwohl die veröffentlichten Ego-Dokumente als Quellen nicht unproblematisch sind, sind sie dennoch sehr aufschlussreich - nicht nur als alltagsgeschichtliche Einblicke, sondern auch für die Art und Weise, wie ehemalige Anstaltsinsassen ihre Erfahrungen verarbeitet und gedeutet haben. Der Aufsatz stützt sich auf Erkenntnisse aus den Disability Studies und den Mad Studies, um das Leben auf den Stationen, die Arbeit und die Sozialisation, die Beziehungen zwischen den Insassen, die geheimen Kommunikationskanäle und die Bildung informeller Selbsthilfegruppen, etwa die "Selbstmordclubs" in den Anstalten, zu analysieren. Die "verrückten Schriftsteller" waren fast zu gleichen Teilen Frauen und Männer. Sie waren weiß und oft gut ausgebildet. Sie nutzten die sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Vorteile, die viele von ihnen hatten, um einen öffentlichen Raum zu schaffen, von dem aus sie das wachsende Anstaltssystem der USA kritisieren konnten. Solche Berichte legten auch den Grundstein für die Bewegungen der "Verrückten in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts

Fixin the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century

Review of "Fixin the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century" by Molly Ladd-Taylo

A multiple timepoint pre-post evaluation of a ‘sexual respect’ dvd to improve competence in discussing sex with patients with disability

Sexual problems are common after chronic illnesses and disability, yet research indicates that this is a neglected area in healthcare services. Evaluation studies provide evidence of the effectiveness of education in enhancing professionals’ knowledge, skills, and comfort in addressing patients’ sexual concerns. However, there are limited evaluations aimed at improving ability to discuss sexuality when working with people with disabilities. The overall aim of this study was to evaluate a ‘Sexual Respect’ DVD as an intervention to improve competence in addressing ‘sexuality and disability’. A mixed methods design was used with both quantitative and qualitative components. Nursing students’ self-report ratings of knowledge, confidence, comfort and willingness (to discuss sexuality) levels were collected across four time points: baseline, pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up. Data were analysed using one-way repeated measures ANOVAs with post hoc comparisons. Open-ended qualitative comments relating to the barriers and facilitators to discussing sexuality were analysed using content analysis and subsequent frequency analysis. Reported barriers included lack of knowledge about sex¬uality and disability issues, the patient’s level of disability, and waiting for the patient to raise sexuality issues first. Facilitators included education/training, written information, and if the patient raised it first. Overall, the DVD intervention had a significant and positive impact on nursing students’ self-reported knowledge, confidence, comfort and willingness levels. The findings are discussed in relation to the PLISSIT model, which emphasises the importance of a proactive approach to addressing sexuality issues

Zola Award Winner: "I Ain't Had Much Schooling": The Ritual of the Examination and the Social Construction of Impairment

In this article, Rembis uses case files and other records from the state training school for girls in Geneva, Illinois, as well as published studies of female juvenile delinquents, to analyze the psychological evaluation of inmates from the perspective of both female experts and their female subjects. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, experts conducting research at Geneva consistently argued that an overwhelmingly high percentage of its inmates were "feebleminded" or "mentally defective." Analyzing the testing that occurred at Geneva reveals not only the importance of eugenics and other psy discourses in the construction of mental "defect," but also the contestation, negotiation, and redefinition that undergirded the formation of historically contingent definitions of impairment. Many disability theorists and activists have viewed impairment as a prediscursive state of being, as politically neutral, given, natural, and timeless. As this article shows impairment is not ahistorical. It too has a history, a genealogy. The ritual of modern psychological examination was a critical new modality of power that greatly affected the lives of its subjects; the examiner observed, measured, recorded, defined, and treated, all through a process in which power relations between scientist and subject were far from equal, but the ritual of the exam did afford its subjects some room for negotiation and redefinition. Young women incarcerated at Geneva actively participated in the examination and in the formation of their own individuality, and in some cases affected not only their own lived experience, but also dominant perceptions of "mental defect" and eugenic commitment

Announcement: Tyler Rigg Award Winner

No abstract availabl

Fixin the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century

Review of Fixin the Poor: Eugenic Sterilization and Child Welfare in the Twentieth Century by Molly Ladd-Taylo

Susan Burch, ed. Encyclopedia of American Disability History

No abstract availabl

Breeding up the human herd: Gender, power, and eugenicsin Illinois, 1890-1940

This dissertation is a gendered analysis of the creation and attempted implementation of America's first eugenic commitment law. On 1 July 1915, Illinois became the first state to enact a law that stated that any individual found to be "feebleminded" by a competent expert could be committed indefinitely. Women reformers played a critical role in the creation and attempted implementation of Illinois commitment law, and although the language of the law itself remained gender neutral, the arguments used to legitimize the creation of the law and the actual implementation of the law remained highly gender. Young poor and working-class women, not men, remained at the center of the debate over eugenic institutionalization in Illinois. Although Mark Haller argued in 1963 that indefinite institutionalization was one of the most popular eugenic reform measures in the United States, scholars are just beginning to make a detailed historical analysis of the relationships among gender, eugenics, and institutionalization. Illinois provides an excellent opportunity to build on this emerging body of scholarship. As many scholars have shown, Illinois was in the vanguard on most social reform issues. It was also a place where women played a significant role in social reform. Reformers in Illinois created the country's first juvenile court and were among the early advocates of the creation of a separate municipal court. They were also pioneers in labor and education reform, as well as myriad other social issues. The willingness of both female and male reformers in Illinois to experiment with modern state-sponsored social reform measures led to their eventual adoption of the eugenic commitment law, which they viewed as yet another way of using science and the state to improve society. Analyzing the creation and attempted implementation of Illinois' commitment law will expand our understanding of the relationship between "progressivism" and eugenics and, more importantly, our understanding of the role of women and gender in early-twentieth-century eugenics. This dissertation covers not only the legislative process and debates surrounding the eugenic commitment law, but also the rise of "scientific" testing and the emergence and transformation of sociology, psychology, and social work; the contested definition of expertise; the creation and transformation of mental health institutions; and the dynamics among the young subjects of eugenic institutionalization, their parents, and those experts and reformers responsible for their incarceration

Review of Defectives in the Land: Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics

No abstract available