Care and Custody: Past Responses to Mental Health

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Guest post by Courtney Eger, Learning and Engagement Librarian

Design proposal of the Sheppard Asylum near Baltimore, MD by Calvert Vaux, 1860
Image courtesy of the National Library of Medicine

The week of October 3rd is Mental Illness Awareness Week, the perfect time for Ginsburg Health Sciences Library’s online programming around Care and Custody: Past Responses to Mental Health. In the United States, it was once common practice to commit people to asylums if they had a mental health condition and their family was unable to care for them. 

Over time, the horrors of institutional care were revealed (overcrowding, abuse, etc.).  Asylums were closed in a process called deinstitutionalization, creating issues of care in the community. New problems arose from this change, including an increase in incarceration for those with mental health conditions and more attention to community-based treatment programs. 

George Elder in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, photograph by Nelson Martinez, 1971
Image courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, Temple University

You can read more about this history at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) online exhibit website. There is even a Temple connection in the NLM’s exhibit: this photo of George Elder from the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center 

​The Ginsburg Health Sciences Library invites you to attend a series of online events and workshops related to this topic from October 4–7, 2021. Our lineup includes:

  • Two workshops
    • Bias in Mental Health Literature, presented by Courtney Eger
    • Searching for Mental Health Topics, presented by Stephanie Roth
  • Two online lectures
    • From Incarceration to Therapeutics in the Friends’ Asylum: Treating Philadelphia’s ‘Insane’ in the 19th Century. Dr. Darin Hayton of Haverford College will speak on local mental health history. 
    • Giving Asylum to Those Who Need It. Dr. Dominic Sisti of UPenn will speak about deinstitutionalization and mass incarceration. 
  • One panel
    • Mental Health and Academics: Tips and Strategies for College Students with speakers Janie Egan (Temple University Wellness Resource Center), Hannah Roach (student, Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Class of 2023), Janet A. Castellini (MSS, LCSW), and Jen Rowe (Disability Resources and Services)
    • (Please note—The panel #FreeBritney: A Case Study in Care vs Custody, originally planned for this week, has been postponed.)
  • In addition there will be Creative Self Care kits for health sciences students on campus. Stop by the Ginsburg or Podiatry Libraries on Monday, October 4 to pick up a create-your-own jigsaw puzzle kit (while supplies last!).

Learn more about these events at our program website or on our events page!

Image courtesy of the National Library of Medicine