This is an old revision of the document!
1. Gonaver mentions a census in 1840 that pointed to a disproportionately high rate of insanity among African Americans in Maine; what sort of observations were made regarding mental health in the census and how was this information procured? - Morgan
2. An identified source of distress among Civil War veterans in Virginia was the fall of the Confederacy and race relations following the war. How did this impact relationships between black and white patients and black and white patients and attendants? - Morgan
1. In chapter 3 of The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840-1880 it is interesting that at a time when religion seems important to the culture and morals that people are considered to be mentally ill with “religious excitement”. What would be the differences here that would take them out of the “norm” for religion and into what would have been considered a state of excitement? — Ruth Curran
2. In chapter 4 of The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840-1880 the author argues that “Asylum administrators increasingly chose to focus on women’s reproductive and sexual organs . . .” as the source for their mental instability instead of the violence they were exposed to from slavery and domestic violence. Could the source of such a large problem truly be considered this way so as to keep from having to come up with a solution to the cultural violence? Beyond domestic violence and violence from slavery, were there other kinds of violence people were exposed to that was acceptable to name as the cause for trauma? — Ruth Curran