Psychiatric Jim Crow: Desegregation at the Crownsville State Hospital, 1948-1970

Nursing and eugenics in the early 20th century United States

BACKGROUND

Research has documented how ideas about race, class, ethnicity, ableism, and structural hierarchies determine health outcomes and disparities today. The historical role of nursing practice and education needs further exploration.

PURPOSE

This study aims to better understand how some nurses thought about and interacted with eugenics in the early 20th century.

METHODS

Historical analysis of primary and secondary sources.

DISCUSSION

In the early 20th century, reformers of the day, including some nurses, demonstrated much ambiguity of thinking as they pushed for eugenic improvement of the "human race" while also enhancing environmental changes, such as good nutrition and clean, safe housing.

CONCLUSION

Nursing's past relationship with eugenics sheds light on the history and construction of the system leading to health disparities among marginalized groups. Nurses must acknowledge the historical roots and context of their education and practice as we engage in critical conversations about social inequities.

Picturing the Institution of Social Death: Visual Rhetorics of Postwar Asylum Exposé Photography

This paper examines how photography shaped the American public's perception of psychiatric hospitals during the immediate post-WWII period. I will analyze photographs that appeared in popular exposé articles of that period and that used photography as a visual aid for disclosing the poor conditions of state hospitals, intending to promote reform efforts focused on turning antiquated asylums into modern hospitals. Existing scholarship has mentioned how these photographs had a significant influence on shaping the public's view of asylum conditions. Through a close examination of these photographs, I will argue that they often contained unintentional messages which stigmatized disabled people.