hospitals, psychiatric

Provides insights into American psychiatric care in the twentieth century through an examination of the contents of ten suitcases found in the attic of Willard Psychiatric Center in upstate New York, filled with patients' belongings, coupled with a look at the written record.

A history of mental illness and its treatment in the United States, discussing what madness is, exploring what it is like to be mad, examining madness in the colonial era, chronicling the rise and fall of asylums, looking at the experiences of mad patients in asylums, and detailing the quest to find a therapeutic intervention that will restore sanity.