The Treatment of Ohio's African American Mental

Shades of Insanity: The Treatment of Ohio’s African American Mental Patients From 1838-1900 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Berkley, Amy N. 2020. Shades of Insanity: The Treatment of Ohio’s African American Mental Patients From 1838-1900. Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37365076 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Shades of Insanity: The Treatment of Ohio’s African-American Mental Patients from 1838-1900 A Thesis in the Field of History Amy Berkley for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies Harvard University March 2020 Abstract The current disparities within Ohio’s mental healthcare system stem from a long history of barriers to access as well as racist diagnostic and treatment methods. Despite the impetus to provide care for Ohio’s mentally ill during the asylum movement of the early nineteenth century, discriminatory notions about who should receive care prevented African Americans from entering the asylums. Barred from Ohio’s public institutions, African Americans were forced to endure unsanitary conditions as well as abusive treatment within the local infirmaries and jailhouses. After a lengthy legislative battle, colored citizens in Ohio won the right to use the state-established mental institutions, although their access was limited to one facility within the state. Situated in Cincinnati, an area of diverse views regarding black rights, the Longview Insane Asylum paved the way for Ohio’s care of African-American mentally ill. Although the first asylum in the state to admit African-American patients in 1867, Longview’s Colored Department reinforced racist understandings of mental illness through their diagnostic and treatment patterns, in which they displayed a clear tendency to label colored patients as violent and boisterous. When Longview struggled for adequate state funding amidst postbellum political tensions, they limited the admission of African Americans and resorted to the use of antiquated manual restraint to deal with chronic overcrowding. Thus, Ohio’s African Americans who already suffered from mental “otherness,” were forced to bear the weight of social “otherness” while seeking healing throughout the nineteenth century. Dedication For the “colored” patients of the Longview Insane Asylum. For Carol Miller (1946-2011) who taught me to never give up. iv Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to dedicate many thanks to the gracious archive assistants at the Ohio Historical Society for their undying support and attention to detail. Even when dealing with complications caused by the recent construction, the staff went out of their way to aid my research needs whether it be fielding my numerous phone calls, or procuring a mask and gloves for some of the documents that were categorized as “level 3 mold.” Secondly, I would like to thank my Thesis Director, John Stauffer, for his excellent guidance on my research. He thoughtfully critiqued my work, which helped me to delve deeper into some of the many nuances of the subject matter. Additionally, I am exceedingly grateful for the wonderful feedback provided by Kyle Stout. Last, but not least, I would like to extend many thanks to my husband, James Berkley, who always supported me, despite the many long nights and weekends. He has been my rock throughout this process, without whom, none of this would have been possible. v Table of Contents Dedication…………………………………………………………………………….iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………v I. Introduction …………………………………………………………………...1 II. Definition of Terms……………………………………………………………4 III. Ohio’s Institutionalization of Insanity (1820-1840)…………………………..7 IV. Ohio and Her “Queen City” at the Heart of the Black Rights Debate……….22 V. Developing Perspectives on Negro Insanity…………………………………37 VI. Expansion of Care……………………………………………………………67 VII. Policy Development for the Criminally Insane……………………………...86 VIII. The Longview Insane Asylum’s Avenue House………...…………………108 IX. Political Entanglements and Formal Oversight…………………………….149 X. Longview under Water: The Frightening Case of Miss Sally Easly……….186 XI. Long-Lasting Effects: The Struggle for Cultural Competency in Ohio’s Modern Mental Healthcare System…………………………………….…..208 XII. Tables……………………………………………………………………….219 XIII. Bibliography………………………………………………………………..220 vi I Introduction On August 22, 1895, tragedy struck Clermont County, Ohio, when Franklin Fridman, the wealthy President of the First National Bank of New Richmond was attacked by Noah Anderson while walking in the fields adjoining one of his houses.1 Using only his bare hands, Anderson reportedly “bore the aged banker to the earth, and then clutching his throat with the power of a demon, he literally chocked his helpless victim to death.”2 Anderson was considered to be “apparently insane” as “one of his hallucinations was that Fridman had deprived him of a large sum of money.”3 Anderson was never granted an official diagnosis of mental instability nor did he have a history of mental illness. This label of insanity was solely a result of his accusation that Fridman had taken advantage of him financially. Anderson was apprehended and taken to the New Richmond Jail, where an angry crowd gathered crying, “Lynch him, Hang the Coward.”4 Anderson pled for mercy from within his cell, but when removed by an attendant to be placed in a different jail, the mob seized Anderson and “bore him quickly to the nearest 1 “By Excited Lynchers,” Washington Post (1877-1922), Aug 22, 1895. https://search.proquest.com/docview/139604131?accountid=10225. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 1 tree, and in a brief time he was dead.”5 Anderson’s death was publicly justified in the Washington Post, which claimed, “the murdered man was endeared to every citizen, and his taking off was so sudden that his friends and neighbors seemed to have lost their reason.”6 The mob’s collective momentary insanity must have been considered justified, as no one was subsequently charged in the murder of Anderson. What provoked such unbridled public outrage that resulted in Anderson’s death? Why was nothing done about this unjust murder? These questions can be answered quite simply when taking into account that Anderson was an African American who was just one of the many unfortunate victims of Ohio’s postbellum mental healthcare system.7 Following years of active political pressure by numerous black rights advocates, Ohio’s African-American mentally ill were finally granted care through the provision of the Avenue House of the Longview Insane Asylum in the late 1860s. However, chronic problems of overcrowding, challenges with state-funding, ill-trained attendants, and inefficient oversight resulted in the continued racial subjugation of African Americans. In order to chart the development of Ohio’s mental healthcare practices from 1838 to 1900, it is necessary to examine the establishment of Ohio insane asylums, the developing understandings of “negro 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Popular Edition of the Laws of Ohio in force September, 1882: Revised Statutes of Ohio and Subsequent Volumes of Session Laws (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1882), 854. According to Title II, Ohio’s “Convict Insane” Law 7345-7347 passed in 1882, if a convict who is sentenced to death is found to be insane, the judge “must suspend the execution” until a series of procedures are attended to. Accordingly, had Anderson been a Caucasian male, he could have expected, like numerous others, to have been treated to a trial before his commitment to an insane asylum. 2 insanity,” Ohio’s legislative decisions regarding the criminally insane, and, most importantly, the casefiles of the Colored Department of Longview Insane Asylum. 3 II Definition of Terms African American: The term “African American” has evolved throughout America’s history,8 but has typically been defined as an “American of African and especially of black African descent.”9 The question that many Americans struggle with today is whether or not the term should be used to identify any immigrant or descendant of an immigrant from Africa regardless of the time of immigration.10 Although this term was used as early as the eighteenth century, it did not gain popularity until the late twentieth century. Therefore, I will use this term when describing the current and past mental health disparities facing peoples of black African descent, regardless of their immigration history.11 8 Jennifer Schuessler, “The Term ‘African-American’ Appears Earlier Than Thought: Reporter’s Notebook,” New York Times, April 21, 2015, Accessed 18 August 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/04/21/the-term-african-american-appears-earlier- than-thought-reporters-notebook/. 9 “African American,” Merriam-Webster.com, Accessed 25 August 2018: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/African American. 10 Ira Berlin, “The Changing Definition of African-American: How the Great Influx of People from Africa and the Caribbean since 1965 is Challenging What it Means to be African- American,” Smithsonian Magazine, February 2010, Accessed 19 August 2018: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-changing-definition-of-african-american-4905887/. 11 Tom W. Smith, “Changing Racial Labels: From ‘Colored’ to ‘Negro’ to ‘Black’ to ‘African American’,” Public Opinion Quarterly 56, no. 4 (1992): 496-514. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2749204. 4 Colored: I will use the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary definition of the term. Colored was a term used to denote “black people, Africans or their descendants, mixed or unmixed.”12 The way in which I will use this term in my thesis is according with the descriptions of individuals within the primary source documents of the time. Due to the limited descriptive information regarding patients’ backgrounds, I am forced to rely on how the individuals were described in Ohio in the nineteenth century.

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