Gendering the Nation Online Museum Exhibit
Created by the class of HIST 465 (Topics in Women's History) 2015-16
Queens University, Canada
Women in Asylums
The exhibit, Women of Asylums, intends to demonstrate and concentrate on the broader subject of gender within social institutions, while narrowing its focus to women within the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries in psychiatric facilities within North America. This particular museum exhibit focuses on the manner in which women within diverse psychiatric institutions lived, and how their individual and collective experiences of treatment and care differed from that of their male counterparts.
As guardians of the home and family, women were believed to be emotional, dependent, and gentle by nature. This perception of femininity led to the popular conclusion that women were susceptible to disease and illness, and was a basis for the diagnosis of “insanity” in many female patients. Within the nineteenth and early-twentieth century, these women were occasionally institutionalized due to their opinions and disobedience of not conforming to the idea of an “ideal women”, for behaving in ways that the male society did not agree with, and/or curable, preventable illnesses. By placing these women in asylums and institutions, men controlled and silenced women’s voices, giving men the authority over the mental health of women in all aspects within society. It is a critical part in our history to recognize the vulnerability of the female gender within this era and to also criticize the actual treatments prescribed and used on female patients of mental disorders throughout this specific time period. This in-depth focus on women’s lives within these asylums has, not only, led to more knowledge in this particular subject, but has aided in a more comprehensive insight into gender history.
Admittance Chart
This chart demonstrates the list of the female patients age, ethnicity, marital status, number of children and diagnosis; all appear to be large contributing factors to their admission to institutions, in particular, Mendota Mental Health Hospital. Women admitted to asylums like Mendota, showed symptoms of insanity, and with these symptoms were later given a diagnosis that justified their insanity and stay at the asylum. These women were admitted to an institutionalized facility for many stated causes, including, insanity due to religious beliefs, childbirth and promiscuity. Many of the women admitted to mental asylums were admitted for similar and re-occurring issues only targeted towards women.
Mendota Mental Health Hospital. (2004, July 2). Department of Health and Family Services. Retrieved March 15th, 2016. www.dhfs.state.wi.us.
Utica Crib
Restraints, and other forms of devices, like the Utica Crib, was known to be used to protect patients from harming others, or, especially female patients, from harming themselves. Restraining tools, like this one in particular, were used well into the late-nineteenth century; this photo was taken in the 1840s. Utica cribs were made out of intricately carved wood or iron. Patients would sleep in it for extended periods of time, using them as a restraint bed. It was used as a form of cruel confinement used on women who were “more excitable” or as a form of punishment for misbehavior.
Dr. Stanley B. Burns. “Patients & Promise: A photographic History of Mental and Mood Disorders.” 2006.
Dr. R. Maurice Bucke: "Insane women on the whole are more unmanageable than are insane men."
Restraints
RThis photograph shows restraints that were used amongst asylum patients, both men and women. Shown are iron handcuffs, muffs, wrist/body restraints, and ankle bands. Restraints like this were commonly used within the late-nineteenth century to early-twentieth century, but certain types were later outlawed in the 1930s. Dr. Bucke, a Medical Superintendent at the London Asylum for the Insane from 1877 to 1902, explained that restraints were used on women more often. Because the criminally insane, predominantly men, who committed violent crimes, were imprisoned. These restraints, although synonymous and used for the same purposes on each gender, were targeted and used more frequently on female patients.
Dr. Stanley B. Burns. “Patients & Promise: A photographic History of Mental and Mood Disorders.” 2006.
Patients
This photograph is a portrait of a clinically diagnosed mentally insane patient Emma Riches, a 27-year-old mother of four, who was diagnosed with “insanity caused by childbirth”. Emma was likely admitted to the asylum by her husband, due to what is now known as “postpartum depression”, a common diagnosis amongst women after childbirth. This diagnosis was a common diagnosis amongst women during the turn of the twentieth century.
Hering, Henry. Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives. 1869.
Female hysteria was once a common medical diagnosis during the 1870s and later into the early 1900s, characterized by nervous, eccentric, and erratic behaviour. This image is a poster advertising the cure for female hysteria with the use of an electrical invention for “vaginal massages”. Physicians throughout North American asylums used this form of treatment to try to cure female patients, by correcting their immoral behaviour. It was thought that over 1/4 of mentally ill women suffered from female hysteria.
Johnson, Bryan. “Top 10 Shocking Historical Beliefs and Practices”. November 23rd, 2010. http://listverse.com/2010/11/23/top-10-shocking-historical-beliefs-and-practices/
“London June 3rd 1884
My Dear Sister, I was glad to receive a letter from my dear daughter Lydia today and pleased to hear you are all well. I am not well myself. I can scarcely walk. It does not agree with me here and I wish some of you would come and take me out for a visit if you can't come write to me. I need summer clothes very bad. I will now close with [love] to you all. I remain your loving Sister.
Mrs. J. N.”
This first hand perspective of a female patient demonstrates a cohesively stable person. Showing her isolation, discontent, and maltreatment within the confinement of the London Asylum for the Insane, in London, Ontario during the late-nineteenth century. By looking at this primary source we are able to understand the perspective and life of a patient within insane asylums during this time period. This short personal letter shows us that this helpless woman is a sister, mother, and wife, making this unknown individual more relatable. This artifact in particular is of great importance because it reflects the challenge regarding the lack of documentation that reveals the experience of the patients in their own words.
“Restoring Perspective: Patient Letters”. Archives and Research Collection Centre: University of Western Ontario Archives. London, Ontario. 2009.
Uterus Repositioning
This artifact is of a female uterus corrective surgical tool, which assisted with the repositioning of a “displaced” uterus. The surgical tool represents the unusual and inhumane medical treatments and instruments used in purpose for “correcting” the female body. This particular tool, and many others, were used at the London Asylum for the Insane, throughout the years of 1895 and 1898 by superintendent Dr. R. Maurice Bucke who advocated gynecological surgery on women. Bucke believed that there was a connection between “damaged” female reproductive organs and insanity. Women within these asylums were victims to surgical procedures conducted on their reproductive organs due to a thought connection with female insanity and promiscuity.
Pessary. UWO Medical Artifact Collection, 2004. Archives and Research Collection Centre: University of Western Ontario Archives. London, Ontario. 2009.
Moral Therapy
Moral therapy began with the influence of the Enlightenment in the nineteenth century; it was believed to be a more humane form of treatment that could improve both the patient and society. Its goals were to implement a routine comparable to what a person would have experienced outside of the asylum. With its introduction in the late 1800s, it instilled and reflected middle class notions of work and social conformity, with a goal of making these patients functioning members of society.Mental illness among women was thought to be the result of heredity, environment or morality causes, most commonly associated with women of lower classes and racial diverse backgrounds. In contrast, society was viewed as a source of stability and morality, this influence was used in hope to influence and correct mental illness amongst women. The goal for asylums was to use these societal ideals within their treatment plans, creating activities and work, hoping that patients would be able to eventually move back into society.
Sewing - Moral Therapy
This early-twentieth century image shows a "class of deteriorated patients", women sewing at the Utica State Hospital, an asylum for the mentally “insane”. The photograph reflects a shift in treatment, as patients who were claimed to be “deteriorated” and “non-functioning”, were able to participate in everyday life activities as part of their moral therapy. Like this particular activity, it was targeted towards the female gender in particular. These activities represent the average middle class housewife and the ideal tasks they would have to perform, attempting to create a domestic setting. The hope and goal of this treatment was that it would create a feeling of usefulness and competence for the female patients.
"Restoring Perspective: Moral therapy”. Archives and Research Collection Centre: University of Western Ontario Archives. London, Ontario. 2009.
Farming - Moral Therapy
This photograph, taken within the early-twentieth century, represents an attempt to create a functioning work environment for female patients, giving them a purpose within their community, the asylum. This form of therapy, farming, mimicked aspects of a regular form of employment. The goal was to eventually reintegrate these women back into a normative middle or working class society. This demonstrates the gradual shift of an evolution towards better treatment and care towards these women.
"Restoring Perspective: Moral therapy”. Archives and Research Collection Centre: University of Western Ontario Archives. London, Ontario. 2009.
Gendered Patients
Traditional gender roles and class distinctions shaped the formations of insanity and the methods and forms of treatment used within late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century asylums. As seen within this photograph taken in 1895, by adhering to social conventions, women had to wear clothing appropriately characterized as “dressing like a lady”, participating in upper or middle class leisurely activities. By conforming to these roles, it was thought that it would aid in curing many female patients of lower classes, teaching them to become more socially acceptable. This form of moral therapy mimicked Victorian culture, placing women in stereotypically traditional gender roles intended to both cure women and prepare them for society.
"Restoring Perspective: Moral therapy”. Archives and Research Collection Centre: University of Western Ontario Archives. London, Ontario. 2009.
Community Within a Community
The reasoning for the creation of asylums was to aid, if not cure, the mentally ill or insane within the turn of the twentieth century. The overall focus of asylums was the patients within them, which protected and contained these women within its walls, creating a community of hundreds of individuals. The people who ran these institutions, the staff, had a community themselves. This self-sufficient community provided both housing and services to the patients and employees. Both communities were cohesively intertwined, functioning together.The staff included hundreds of individuals with various roles. Medical staff included a medical superintendent, physicians, nurses, and attendants. The general staff consisted of matrons, farmers, laundresses, cooks and masons. Although, asylum employees consisted of both men and women, the majority of these staff members were women, with wage levels much lower than their male colleagues. The overall success of these asylums relied on both the medical and general staff. The majority of these staff members and workers lived on the site of the asylum, participating in special occasions, club activities, and sporting events. This created not only a place of work for these individuals but gave them the opportunity to become a part of a community within a community.
Female Staff Members
This photo is of nurses at the Mimico Insane Asylum, in Etobicoke, Ontario, taken in 1936. There was a shortage of qualified psychiatric nurses for asylums across Ontario, Canada within the beginning of the twentieth century. This in turn forced the provincial Department of Health to establish nursing schools throughout the province. Nurses’ Residences and facilities were built, to accommodate more female staff members. This provided classrooms and various accommodations for more nurses. These nurses worked extremely long hours and received very low wages in return.
"Barc, Agatha. “Asylum by the Lake”. Archives of Ontario. May 28th, 2005.
Page Created by Emma
“In the 1960s at the London Psychiatric Hospital, female employees were able to have one 3-month maternity leave. This 3-month period was unpaid, with no benefits from the hospital - meaning that individuals paid for their own medical bills, without receiving any income. If a woman chose to have a second child, she was required to resign her position. After she had the child, she could reapply for her position at the hospital, and if it was vacant, she might be rehired. If she was, she lost any years of service or seniority she may have had and started over as a new employee.”
This first hand account of a staff member, who worked for the asylum for over 30 years, explains and brings to light the injustices, for not only female patients within the asylum, but also female staff members from the 1960s and prior. Women made up the majority of the workforce at asylums. Through this primary source we are able to recognize the history of women’s injustices working in various positions within these institutions. The maltreatment and gender discrimination was not only targeted towards patients, but also happened to working female staff members as well, illuminating the gender discrimination throughout the entire asylum community.
"Irene Pike, Payroll Supervisor, 1961-1993, London Psychiatric Hospital. “Restoring Perspective”. Archives and Research Collection Centre: University of Western Ontario Archives. London, Ontario. 2009.