According to David Rothman, what are one or two of the most important forces bringing the insane asylum into existence in nineteenth-century America?
3 thoughts on “Rothman and the Birth of the Asylum”
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As both Katherine and Caroline have explained, Rothman depicts insane asylums as safe havens from the stresses of the everyday societal structures and demands of the time, which, he argues, had amplified as society had progressed. He explains that insanity was seen as a plague from which no one – rich or poor – was immune. Each segment of society, he explains, suffered from a set of societal stresses, and thus was susceptible to the ‘insanity bug.’ It makes sense, therefore, that in the mindset of the time, an extremely rigid and precise set of characteristics were required to be embodied by an environment in order to effectively counteract this ‘bug.’ Although the disease did not discriminate with regards to who it affected, it also did not vary with regards to how it affected, and thus the prescribed antidote was always the same.
Rothman proposed that rather than insanity originating from God’s will or from body chemistry, insanity originated from social organization. Society, Rothman explains, is plagued with dangers so that “it seemed as if Americans faced danger at every turn, and frequently succumbed to it,” (126). These dangers, as Katherine explained, arose from the new structure of society that had “a lack of fixity and stability”, giving rise to social mobility (115). This social mobility, however, led to ambition, which Rothman saw as giving rise to impossible dreams. For those that are able to successfully climb the social ladder, Rothman says that also poses a threat as the individuals may be disturbed by their change in living style. Inquiry and learning may also be dangerous because they may push an individual to stretch beyond their true mental capacity. Essentially, in Rothman’s view, the new social structure entices people to stretch beyond what they are truly capable of. Therefore, the only cure is to completely remove these individuals from these social structures which ask too much. The asylum was designed as a refuge from the demands of family, friends, and society. Only through isolation could the individual escape the causes of his or her madness.
Rothman identifies the highly fluid social structure of Jacksonian America one of the most significant forces of asylum creation. Rothman cites various physician accounts of the ways in which a social order defined by upward mobility, a rapidly growing intellectual economy, and increasing individualism strained the faculties of citizens. While these traits in society were markers of American ‘exceptionalism’ and a booming industrial economy, they were also threatening breaks from a traditional order of filial occupation, more limited education, and easily predictable lifestyles. To doctors in this era, society was a cauldron of threats to mental stability and fortitude. As Rothman notes, “since mobility strained every faculty, the price of transit was often insanity.” The logical next step for physicians, once they pinpointed this danger, was to create havens of quiet order, far removed from the stressors looming in bustling Jacksonian society. The insane asylum was, by all accounts, a necessary built environment for healing, relaxing, and reconstructing troubled minds. The home and the family were too enmeshed in the dangerous society to combat its effects on the mind, and any institutions in a city center were too proximate to the goings-on of urban life. Therefore, physicians made a strong case for establishing insane asylums as necessities for mental health services in the 19th century.