About My Blog

Insanity, Indians, and American History
(Asylums And Insanity Treatments in the Early 1900s)

Few people have heard of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians (or Hiawatha, as it was often called locally) in South Dakota, or have cared much about its history. I hope to change that through my book   VANISHED IN HIAWATHA: The Story of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians.

I created a blog to publish information about this special asylum as well as other asylums throughout the country that I couldn’t include in my book. Within the blog, I use the language of the times, which is taken from letters, official documents, newspapers, and other sources. I hope to give a flavor of the times as well as context to the period, so you can understand how the mentally ill were incarcerated and treated in the past.

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