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What Next?

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

Writers need to keep busy with writing projects, even though there’s a lot out there to distract us. I’ve been wanting to write a book about insane asylums in general for a long time, and after Vanished In Hiawatha was published, got busy with an outline and some thoughts on how to present the information.

Next came a round of reading and researching, and then the re-immersion into the writing process. It can be a real chore to write again once you take a break from it, but I find that I always enjoy it once I make myself sit down and get started. I finished a couple of chapters and wrote a proposal, hoping to send it out with a quick turnaround–approved, of course!

That hasn’t happened yet, so I am staying busy with an e-book on insane asylums. This will be quite different from the history that I have in mind for a hardback, but it will still give readers a lot of interesting information. I’ve been writing a blog about the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians for several years, and I’ve included many snippets of information about insane asylums in general, their history, and some of the practices and routines followed by many alienists (early psychiatrists). I hope that many readers will gamble on exploring a new topic or diving more deeply into one they’re already interested in with this e-book, since this format is so inexpensive.

Here’s hoping!

Ups and Downs

Museum of the American Indian, courtesy Smithsonian Institution

Writers know that working on a book can be both exhilarating and frustrating, but at least at this point, most of the outcome you desire depends on you. Once the book has been published, though, much of the control leaves your hands and seems to fly out into an indifferent world. This can also be exhilarating and frustrating.

There are several wonderful things that happen when a book launches: You get a box of books in the mail or via UPS that contain “x” number of copies of your masterpiece, which you are then free to inscribe and distribute to your nearest and dearest. Everyone you know is interested in the book and promises to help you publicize it. You know your publisher/publicist/mother–whoever–is trying to get reviews for you. You may or may not be waiting anxiously to read those, but the world is pretty exciting at that point.

After awhile, though, your publisher moves on to other things, and no one seems to be that interested in helping you get the word out. That’s when you have to take delight in the things that do happen. My husband and I took a trip to Washington, DC and visited the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian. I wanted to give the bookstore manager a copy of my publisher’s flyer if the store wasn’t carrying the book. When my husband spotted Vanished in Hiawatha on the bookshelf already, my face probably lit up enough to illuminate the store! I, instead, went over and thanked the manager for carrying it.

Not too many exciting things have happened since then, but I make sure that I remember that moment. Nothing is too small to enjoy or be grateful for, and I’m grateful for the moments I’ve had.

What’s Your Platform?

A Pile of Unsolicited Manuscripts Taken by Editor Kate Sullivan

Some people may write as a hobby, but those I will term “authors” write because they enjoy it AND because they want others to read and enjoy their work. Publishing is not the uphill battle it used to be, since so many good venues for self-publication are available for authors with specialty topics or works that aren’t accepted at traditional publishing houses. –And believe me, non-acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean poor work! Traditional publishers might have 50 – 150 slots for new books each year, yet receive 5,000 manuscripts. To gain an acceptance anywhere is like winning the lottery!

For nonfiction authors in particular, publishers will ask: “What is your platform?” What in the world does that mean? Publishers are simply asking authors what sort of built-in audience they might have access to. For instance, someone who regularly lectures or speaks in public will already have a name in his or her particular specialty. If the person writes a book on the topic, that author has an established audience familiar with his/her name. Publishers love this!

It pays, of course, to establish your platform before you approach publishers. It is so discouraging to send in your proposal only to hear that question over and over–and to know that you don’t have that built-in audience they want. What can you do, then?

One easy first step is to create a website and write a blog. Work on your blog and write the actual book at the same time–you’ll be in the right place mentally and creatively to make the most of your research. Even if you don’t reach a huge audience, over time you will accumulate material that you may be able to use for an ebook that doesn’t cost much (if anything) to publish. The material shouldn’t be anything you plan to cover in your proposed book, just information you couldn’t include or which goes off on interesting tangents that are related but not usable for your purposes.

The Incurable Insane

Chapin House at Willard Asylum for the Chronically Insane

Alienists believed that early intervention in recent cases of insanity led to high cure rates–at least 40% and perhaps higher. However, patients who did not receive treatment until their cases were advanced or of long standing, were much less likely to recover. (See last post.) These latter were exactly the kind of patients that most families eventually wanted to turn over to asylums, and superintendents were eventually faced with the dilemma of how to use their limited resources most effectively.

Some of those who were interested in this growing problem suggested that special asylums just for the incurably insane be built. Caretaking for such individuals would be cheaper than including them in an establishment that were designed for more acute cases, and wouldn’t drain the staff manpower away from patients who stood a better chance of being cured. Though asylum superintendents didn’t like to spend their resources on the incurably insane, some of them were quite vocal about not building asylums just for these patients.

An article in the American Journal of Insanity (1844) made one superintendent’s position very plain:

— No one can predict which patients might be cured; of the people in that particular asylum, fully one-third couldn’t really be placed into one category or the other.

— Many incurables were simply “monomaniacs” (deranged only on one or two subjects) and sane on all others. Why should they be denied the comforts and amenities given to those who are hopeful of being cured?

— It would be impossible to make sure incurables weren’t abused or neglected. The author of the article said in particular: “In all Asylums, the fact that some are well and soon to leave the Asylum is the greatest safeguard against abuse.”

— If asylums for incurables didn’t have proper staffs of doctors and other appropriate caretakers, how would they be any better than poorhouses?

Others pointed out that to send someone to an asylum for incurables would destroy the individual’s last shred of hope and might well cause him or her to never be cured.

Cures and Controversy

Insane Asylums Could Be Beautiful, Architecturally

Though it took years to make asylum care acceptable to the mainstream public, ordinary citizens did eventually begin to believe in the professionalism and experience provided by these institutions. After that, they began using asylums in increasing numbers. Asylums definitely relieved family members from the anxiety of caring for mentally ill loved ones, and took the drudgery and constant attendance that some patients required off family caretakers’ shoulders. Eventually insane asylums became popular enough to become overcrowded, and the question of how to manage “incurable” patients arose.

Many alienists believed that if they could intervene in a case of insanity soon after it manifested (an acute case), they stood a good chance of curing it. However, when families kept mentally ill members at home until they ran out of time, money, or the physical ability to continue providing care, the situation was less hopeful. These long-standing cases, alienists feared, were incurable.

What should be done with such patients? Superintendents hated to divert money and time from their more acute (and therefore curable) patients to the chronically insane who were nearly impossible to cure. Yet, these long-term patients still needed care. The idea of special asylums for “incurables” soon came up for consideration. My next post will discuss the position that many in the profession took toward asylums for the incurably insane.

No End to the Sentence

Elizabeth Packard Being Taken to an Asylum Against Her Will, courtesy National Library of Medicine

After researching insane asylums for many years, I’ve come to the conclusion that they have been–and still are–a necessary evil. I went into this topic simply fascinated by the history of asylums and how they came to be. (This is also the subject of the book I’m currently writing.) I could see how humane they were in comparison to what had come before. Patients who had previously been locked in unheated outhouses, basements, or thrown into jail–often without adequate food or clothing–could now rest in rooms that were warm and clean. Prior to the 1830s, life was dismal indeed for anyone considered insane.

But the reality of life in an asylum is terrible to consider. Imagine going for a carriage ride with a spouse or friends to take tea with a new acquaintance, only to find that you have arrived at an insane asylum and are going to be kept there. Or, imagine appearing before a judge to explain or justify some sort of irrational behavior (and who hasn’t acted irrationally at some point?) only to be judged insane and “sentenced” to an insane asylum. The scariest part of either scenario was the open-endedness of the sentence. If that same person had committed a crime, he or she would spend a definite amount of time in jail and then get out. Not so with the insane patient . . . his or her fate depended upon the discretion/personality/judgment of the asylum’s superintendent!

Where to Start

Early South Dakota Homesteaders, courtesy State Archives of the South Dakota State Historical Society

One of the difficulties of writing history is knowing where to find the relevant information. When I began writing about the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, there wasn’t much out there about it–not in books or on the internet. My first real clue in the search was the mention of something called the “Silk Report,” which was the summary of an investigation made into the asylum in 1929. I knew it was something I needed to get.

Sometimes the best place to start is the most obvious place. Since this asylum had been in Canton, South Dakota, I figured the state’s archives would have at least some information about it. The State Archives of the South Dakota State Historical Society is the actual entity which reviews and preserves historical material for the state, and so I contacted them to ask about the Silk Report. They sent it to me for a nominal copying fee, and from there I was hooked. The report was full of information and description, and I knew right away that I had a story worth telling.