Between 1842 and 1890, 23 American women published 33 memoirs of their experiences as patients in insane asylums. Through these memoirs, in a time inhospitable to them as public speakers, these 23 women enacted one of the first mental health patient’s rights movements. The memoirs are long out of print, and accessing them has involved effort and time commitment: over four years’ time, they were collected from research libraries, online databases, historical societies, medical libraries, and the Library of Congress.
Browse the Insane Asylum memoirs, 1842-1890 Collections
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Hospitals for the Insane. Viewed from the Standpoint of Personal Experience, by a Recovered Patient
From Alienist and Neurologist, 9: 51-57
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The Travels and Experience of Miss Phebe B. Davis of Barnard, Windsor County, Vt: Being a Sequel to Her Two Years and Three Months in the N.Y. State Lunatic Asylum at Utica, N.Y.1860
Syracuse, NY: J.G.K. Truair, stereotypers and printers
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The exposure on board the Atlantic & Pacific car of emancipation for the slaves of old Columbia, engineered by the lightning express; or, Christianity & Calvinism compared. With an appeal to the government to emancipate the slaves of the marriage union1864"The exposure on board the Atlantic & Pacific car of emancipation for the slaves of old Columbia, engineered by the lightning express; or, Christianity & Calvinism compared. With an appeal to the government to emancipate the slaves of the marriage union. Volume I. Ed. by a slave, now imprisoned in Jacksonville insane asylum, placed there by her husband for thinking" Chicago, Published by the Authoress |
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Testimony of Mrs. Caroline E. Lake of Aurora, Ill. Collected and Published by Mrs. E. P. W. Packard1868
Chicago: J. N. Clarke, Publisher. Included at the end of The Prisoner’s Hidden Life.
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Behind Bars1871
New York: Lee, Shepard, and Dillingham
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Modern Persecution, or Insane Asylums Unveiled. As Demonstrated by the Report of the Investigating Committee of the Legislature of Illinois. Vol. I1873
NY: Pelletreau & Raynor, Printers and Binders, No. 8 Church Street
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Modern Persecution, or, Married Women’s Liabilities. As Demonstrated by the Action of the Illinois Legislature. Vol. II1874
Hartford: Case, Lockwood and Brainard, Printers and Binders
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Lunatic Asylums, and How I Became an Inmate of One1876
Chicago: Ottaway and Colbert
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The Great Drama, or The Millennial Harbinger1878
Hartford, CT: The Press of the Case, Lockwood, and Brainard Co.
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The Memorial Scrapbook. A Combination of Precedents1883
Boston: n.p.
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The Right Spirit1885
Buffalo : The Courier Co.
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From Under a Cloud; or Personal Reminiscences of Insanity1886
Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.
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The Mystic Key, or The Asylum Secret Unlocked1886
Hartford, CT: The Press of the Case, Lockwood, and Brainard Co.
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Life among the Insane1887
The North American Review, 144, 363, pp. 190-199
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A Secret Institution1890
Bryant
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Wisconsin’s Shame. Insane Asylums or the American Bastile1894Wisconsin’s Shame. Insane Asylums or the American Bastile! Narrative of the Kidnapping of the Misses Trautman, of Sauk City, Wis., on a Sunday Afternoon, and Running Them into an Insane Asylum. Their Two Years’ Shocking Experience and Observation in the State hospitals at Mendota and Oshkosh, as Written by Themselves Third Edition. Chicago: Guiding Star Publishing House |