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The Mississippi State Hospital in the Jim Crow

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The Mississippi State Hospital in the Jim Crow Template A v3.0 (beta): Created by J. Nail 06/2015 Inhospitable in the Hospitality State: The Mississippi State Hospital in the Jim Crow South, 1865-1966 By TITLE PAGE Michael Thomas Murphy A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Mississippi State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Department of History Mississippi State, Mississippi May 2018 Copyright by COPYRIGHT PAGE Michael Thomas Murphy 2018 Inhospitable in the Hospitality State: The Mississippi State Hospital in the Jim Crow South, 1865-1966 By APPROVAL PAGE Michael Thomas Murphy Approved: ____________________________________ Major Professor Jason Morgan Ward ____________________________________ Committee Member Alan I Marcus ____________________________________ Committee Member Alison Collis Greene ____________________________________ Committee Member Judith A. Ridner ____________________________________ Graduate Coordinator Stephen Brain ____________________________________ Rick Travis Dean College of Arts & Sciences Name: Michael Thomas Murphy ABSTRACT Date of Degree: May 4, 2018 Institution: Mississippi State University Major Field: History Major Professor: Jason Morgan Ward Title of Study: Inhospitable in the Hospitality State: The Mississippi State Hospital in the Jim Crow South, 1865-1966 Pages in Study Error! Bookmark not defined.58 Candidate for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy This dissertation is an institutional history of the Mississippi State Hospital. Specifically, it is a study of the use of the Mississippi State Hospital and its predecessor as an institutional instrument to establish, maintain, reinforce state-sponsored racial segregation and white supremacy during the period of Jim Crow in Mississippi. If you were an African-American or poor-white Mississippian found mentally unstable during the period of Jim Crow, the Mississippi State Hospital and its predecessor represented a controlling and stigmatizing institution within an institution of societal control. Mississippi’s institution for its mentally ill and unstable residents became an instrument to reinforce the state’s racially, socially, and economically rigid society. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I came to pursue graduate studies in the Department of History at Mississippi State University ten months removed from nearly dying. I do not disconnect what occurred during those events in 2008 and 2009, and my graduate studies. I would like to thank the numerous groups of physicians, specialists, nurses, and staff members at Munroe Regional Medical Center and UF Health Shands Hospital. Attending graduate studies would not have come to fruition without these individuals. Prior to graduate school, several educators played a significant part in my appreciation of history. Frank Laga, Karl Sieg, Eli Jackson, and Doug Klepper helped initially develop my appreciation for history. While earning my B.A. at the University of Florida, I took courses with a number of historians who impacted the way I studied history. Juliana Barr, Jack Davis, Alan Petigny, Julian Pleasants, and Mark Thurner helped me hone my interests in the field. Steven Noll first taught me about the history of medicine and disability studies. He provided me with feedback on this dissertation several times. During my time in the Department of History at Mississippi State University I have taken several classes and worked with an abundance of talented, helpful, and generous-with-time historians. Stephen Brain, Richard Damms, James C. Giesen, Mark D. Hersey, Alexandra Hui, Andrew Lang, Mathew Lavine, Peter C. Messer, and Jason Phillips provided me with the opportunity to focus my interest in the field of history. ii Upon my arrival and in my first years at MSU, Sean Halverson, Kevin Johnson, Erinn McComb, Whitney Snow, and Alyssa Warrick provided me with advice on how to adapt to and survive in graduate school. While earning my PhD at MSU, several colleagues and their partners-Fraser and Tiffany Livingston, Owen Hyman, Karen Senaga, Jason Hauser, Niklas and Julia Trzaskowski, Stephen Powell, Susan Travis Brooks, Jeremy Montgomery, John Burrow, Doug Forrest, Nathan Drake, Nany Traylor-Heard, Katie Sullivan, Aaron Thomas, Michael Adams, Cameron Zinsou, Ryan Semmes, Eddie Rangel, Larsen Plyler, Sarah Lewin, Kayla Hester and Damarius Harris-have provided me with an insurmountable amount of feedback on and support for this dissertation. Fraser, Jason, Karen, and Owen each read several parts of this dissertation and provided me with invaluable feedback and suggestions. While doing research across the state of Mississippi, several publicly-funded institutions’ dedicated employees helped me navigate their collections. Mattie Abraham, Nekita Gandy, Dee Dee Baldwin, and Jana Hill helped me navigate Hodding Carter, II’s papers and the biennial reports housed in Special Collections at Mississippi State University. Leigh McWhite helped me traverse the Eastland papers and the several other collections housed at the University of Mississippi. Jennifer Brannock at the University of Southern Mississippi assisted me with locating the Beckwith letters. Several public employees at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History from my initial research through the last-minute visits in the fall of 2017 assisted me with research for this dissertation. I would also like to thank Molly Zuckerman and Nicholas Herrmann for the opportunity to be a part of the Asylum Hill Research Consortium. My research for the iii group can be seen throughout this dissertation, specifically my chapter on pellagra. Lastly, I would like to thank those who I’ve had the pleasure of working with on “’A Shaky Truce’: Starkville Civil Rights Struggles, 1960-1980”, specifically fellow graduate students and librarians Nick Timmerman, Kelli Nelson, Simon Marcy, Lindsay Drane, Daaiyah Heard, Hillary A. H. Richardson, Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, and Justin Whitney. This dissertation and my graduate school experience would not have been possible without the intellectual and financial support of the Department of History at Mississippi State University. I would like to thank Pam Wasson, Patsy Humphrey, and Brenda Harris for being extremely helpful in navigating the administrative and scheduling side of being a graduate student. Jason Ward has seen this project from its inception. He has provided me with feedback, support, and time when needed on this dissertation. Jason has also been extremely helpful in my understanding of the historical profession, and what it means to be an historian in one’s community. I would like to thank Alan I Marcus for the concise feedback on and guidance with this dissertation. He has also provided departmental financial support for me to present numerous parts of this dissertation and other projects at various conferences throughout the United States. Early on in this dissertation, Alison Collis Greene provided a list of books that served as a crash course on the history of public and private charity in the United States. Judith A. Ridner offered help and feedback on the addition of tables and images, and a better understanding of charitable institutions in the Early Republic. Judith also served as the lead historian on “’A Shake Truce,’” which provided myself and other graduate students on the project with the chance to actively learn how to be public historians. The courses I iv took with Alan, Alison, Judith also served as opportunities to gain a better understanding of not just my research and projects, but also the historical profession. Lastly, I would like to thank each of these individuals for their generosity with their time for myself and this dissertation. Finally, no one has been more supportive of my academic career than my immediate family and close friends. My parents, Michael and Elizabeth, have been supportive and encouraging, and have always found time to talk and visit on an annual basis. Also, several friends and their families-Nathan and Kim Huffman, Jesse Kelly and the Kelly family, James Carter, and Thomas McDonald-were generous with their support and time, and hospitable for much needed breaks from research and writing. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................1 II. THE BENVOLENT INSTITUTION: THE FOUNDING OF THE MISSISSIPPI STATE LUNATIC ASYLUM IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH .......................................................................18 III. “VERGING ON WHAT BEDLAM MUST HAVE BEEN LIKE’: THE MISSISSIPPI STATE LUNATIC ASYLUM’S TRANSITIONING ROLE IN THE REDEMPTION PERIOD .............69 IV. CONSUMED BY DEATH: DEPRESSION, NUTRITION, AND DISEASE AT THE MISSISSIPPI STATE INSANE HOSPITAL ......115 V. “IF I OWNED BOTH WHITFIELD AND HELL, I’D RENT OUT THIS HOLE AND MOVE INTO HELL: THE EXPOSURE OF THE MISSISSIPPI STATE HOSPITAL IN THE EPOCH OF DEINSTITUTIONAIZATION .............................................................154 VI. INSANITY AND ‘APPENDECTOMIES; THE EMPLOYMENT OF STATE HOSPITAL INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND COMPULSORY STERILIZATION DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN MISSISSIPPI............................................189
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