3/26 - ...her

Argument

  • every time there’s an economic downturn, those that have money feel threatened by those that don’t have money

    • unworthy - people who lack moral fortitude

      • you’re not worth getting those jobs I know exist

      • 80s Welfare Queen - women who had children to get more money

        • didn’t want jobs

        • not worthy of help

    • unfit - because of a medical or biological pathology, you dont deserve equal treatment

      • more recent, medical terminology on “normalcy”

almshouse - people who were kept where they cant pay their bills

  • restrained in 8×8 cells or smaller

    • cant lay down or stand up all the way

  • rationed

People took those out of almshouses and put them into asylums

  • “lets help them! Lets separate them from the unworthy people”

    • beat it out of ‘em

      • King George III

19th Century - US

  • set aside a group of people for help

    • go to almshouses for those who’ve lived there for years

Willard Asylum

  • Big building in the middle, with wings extending out

    • main office int he center, with rooms for patients extending into the wings

      • closer to the main building = crazier

      • further = close to release

  • the main cause for admition is starvation

    • warmth

    • food

    • clothing

    • work

    • go from being unfit to fit and capable within 3 months

      • gave you food and work, so you’re fit

1873 - railroad crisis where laborers are pushed out of the work force and forced into destitute

  • automation booming

    • people replaced by machines

  • during economic downturn, manual labor jobs are deemed unnecessary and become cut off first

2 Types of Institutions

Your ability to work makes you more valuable as a human being

Acceptable

acute insane - can return to work force

chronic insane - people put on cottages in farm and live with supervision and suport themselves

These people essentially were put in a building with the necessary amenities to maintain a semblance of normal life, while receiving ongoing mental health support and guidance from staff. They were “fixable” in some way

Less Acceptable

feeble-minded - includes people who’s insanity that differed from the norm

  • cant

    • run around naked

    • arson

    • murder

  • epilepsy

    • seizures were crazy back then

    • brain damage

      • end up in asylums despite not being insane

  • having an accident

The feeble-minded had training schools. It was originally for children where they go during the day and go home when the day is done; there was even summer break.

  • Syracuse training school closed in 1983

  • Girls taught cooking and home-ec; boys did farm work

    • self-established living

      • girls did the house work, boys worked on the land (…we can’t let them leave gang, they’re keeping the town alive lowkey)

At the turn of the century, factory life came more profitable but these individuals were not fit for working with machines

  • Rome Custodial Asylum for Adults

When you separate these individuals and isolate them, they are removed from the American experience and remove them from the population. If you are unfit to be in the population, you are unworthy to reproduce.

“retardation” is connected to immoral sexuality? They don’t have the same sexual values of those that are deemed normal.

  • having more kids make you feeble-minded

    • Catholics

    • the poor

  1. insane

  2. feeble-minded

  3. delinquent

Orphans

Kids could be swiped up from the street if you were found without parents and playing in the street, and put into orphanages if their parents didn’t pick em up fast enough. Additionally, some parents dropped their kids off at the local orphanage to hold them for the weekend. 

  • they might not be there on Monday

  • if you are deemed immoral or susceptible to immoral influences, you’re sold and shipped to the Midwest to be adopted (…shopped) by farmworkers

    • some stayed and did fine

    • some died

    • some ran away

  • Justified that if you stayed in NYC and the urban environment, you would become a delinquent and therefor feeble and therefore unfit.

Mary J O Crella

  • girl taken to a mental asylum at the age of 12 in 1857

    • physically and mentally “imbicle”

    • dirty

      • could be both physically and morally

    • fragile

    • unfit

      • smth physically wrong with her

  • physically small, feeble, and has eczema

    • this girl is NOT WELL

    • eczema indicated skin version of tuberculosis

  • When she learned to sew, it makes her useful and worthy

    • she can contribute to the institution she’s in

    • EVERYONE worked

  • “Her cutaneous trouble has left but there is nothing of her nor never will be”

    • she was 13

  • In April, she’s labeled demented, which indicates medical/mental issues

    • insanity

  • there’s an argument that she is in the wrong place, and should be transferred to Syracuse

  • when she learned to count, it’s a sign she can be trained and remember, which is later overturned as it finds how she cant retain information

Mary’s parents were both drunks, and it was unclear if he fathered all three girls. They are unfit to be parents and produced kids who were unfit to be within the population. They are shipped off to a facility where they work and contribute amongst themselves. Their labor is used and exploited, then they die.