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Man working on a farm.

RFK Jr.’s 18th-Century Idea About Mental Health

The health secretary’s clearest plans for psychiatric treatment are a retreat to the past.
by Shayla Love via The Atlantic on April 4, 2025
Shulamith Firestone, 1997.

When the Battle's Lost and Won

Shulamith Firestone and the burdens of prophecy.
by Audrey Wollen via Harper’s on March 28, 2025
Magnifying glass on top of the book "The Mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley.

The Man Who Invented the “Psychopath”

Hervey Cleckley wanted to treat the most overlooked psychiatric patients. Instead his work was used to demonize them.
by Camille Bromley via The New Republic on November 7, 2024
Painting by Mary Cassatt titled "Mother and Child (Goodnight Hug)".

Beyond “Baby Blues”

“Postpartum depression” encompasses various debilitating changes in mood that can occur after giving birth. How did that language come to be?
by Rachel Louise Moran, Jess McAllen via The Baffler on September 30, 2024
Horace Greeley

This Presidential Candidate Died in a Sanatorium Less Than a Month After Losing the Election

Horace Greeley ran against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant in November 1872. Twenty-four days later, he died of unknown causes at a private mental health facility.
by Greg Daugherty via Smithsonian on September 19, 2024
A stone sign that reads "Gateways Hospital and Community Mental Health Center."

How Louis Ziskind Helped Deinstitutionalize Mental Healthcare

A community health center in Los Angeles that sought to get patients back into the community.
by Alex Sayf Cummings via Nursing Clio on September 4, 2024
Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C.

Immigration and Mental Health Collide, Again

Trump's seeming mixup of asylum-seeking refugees with patients in psychiatric institutions stems from a long rhetorical and political tradition.
by Jeremy Peschard via The Abusable Past on June 20, 2024
Still from Pretty Poison (1968).

The All-American Crack-Up in 1960s Hollywood Cinema

Starting in the 1960s, more and more Hollywood films depicted an increasingly violent and alienated American society quickly losing its mind.
by Eileen Jones via Jacobin on May 24, 2024
Morlok quadruplets with a teacher next to a chalkboard.

Sleepwalking to Madness in Mid-Century America

On Audrey Clare Farley’s “Girls and Their Monsters.”
by Ellen Wayland Smith via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 13, 2023
Woman at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital from behind.
partner

History Says NYC Mayor’s Mental Health Plan is Deeply Flawed

Involuntarily committing people with serious mental illness, however well intended, has long served to remove them from society instead of providing treatment.
by Jeremy Peschard via Made By History on March 13, 2023
Demonstrators protest involuntarily institutionalization of mentally ill homeless people.
partner

Locking Up the Mentally Ill Has a Long History

The prospect of removing people from communities to be put in institutions has been a project of social control.
by Elliott Young via Made By History on January 3, 2023
Colorful rainbow image of a brain.

Mental Illness Is Not in Your Head

Decades of biological research haven't improved diagnosis or treatment. We should look to society, not to the brain.
by Marco Ramos via Boston Review on May 17, 2022
Two prison employees standing outside a prison cell.

The Truth About Deinstitutionalization

A popular theory links the closing of state psychiatric hospitals to the increased incarceration of people with mental illness. The reality is more complicated.
by Alisa Roth via The Atlantic on May 25, 2021
An illustration of two men in 1770s clothing fighting in a river.

Has the World Gone Mad? An Interview with Sarah Swedberg

Swedberg's new book shows how prevalent concerns about mental illness were to the people of the early American republic.
by Sarah Swedberg, Rebecca Brannon via Nursing Clio on March 25, 2021
A microphone surrounded by multiple pairs of eyes against a brick background.

Cut Me Loose

A personal account of how one young woman travels to South Carolina in search of her family history and freedom narrative.
by Joshunda Sanders via Oxford American on November 19, 2019

“A Most Damnable Fraud?” Public (Mis)conceptions and the Insanity Defense

An upcoming Supreme Court case will test the "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea.
by Steph Chevalier-Crockett via Nursing Clio on September 19, 2019
Nurse administering electroshock therapy to a patient.

The Troubled History of Psychiatry

Challenges to the legitimacy of the profession have forced it to examine itself. What, exactly, constitutes a mental disorder?
by Jerome Groopman via The New Yorker on May 20, 2019
Side-by-side portraits of Franklin Pierce and Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix and Franklin Pierce: The Battle for the Mentally Ill

Dorothea Dix and Franklin Pierce were in many ways ideological soulmates, but he would not help her effort to improve conditions for the mentally ill.
via New England Historical Society on February 8, 2014
Frank Wisner's photo covered with official seals.

The Making of a Cold War Spy

The life and work of Frank Wisner, one of the CIA’s founding officers, offers us a portrait of American intelligence’s excesses.
by Adam Hochschild via The Nation on March 11, 2025
Police officer speaking to a homeless person in a New York subway station.
partner

Attacks in New York City Renew Questions About Forced Mental Health Treatment

New York City’s renewed efforts to tackle homelessness and untreated mental illness is raising questions about civil liberties, safety and effective care.
via Retro Report on January 10, 2025
President Ronald Reagan, pictured waving to a crowd shortly before John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate him on March 30, 1981.

The History of Presidential Assassination Attempts, From Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt

Before last weekend’s attack on Donald Trump, would-be assassins targeted Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and seven other presidents or candidates.
by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on July 17, 2024
American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, Hartford, Connecticut.

What Was Psychiatric Deinstitutionalization?

An interview with sociologist and historian of psychiatry Andrew Scull about the history and legacy of psychiatric deinstitutionalization.
by Andrew Scull via Damage on April 22, 2024
Book cover of: 'Through a Grid, Darkly: On Anna Shechtman’s “The Riddles of the Sphinx,”' in red lettering

Through a Grid, Darkly

The feminist history of the crossword puzzle: some of the form's early champions were women working for little to no pay.
by Adrienne Raphel via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 14, 2024
Content of Frank B's suitcase. A luggage tag, a black and white photograph of a young man in military uniform, a notebook with Frank's name written, a guide to Brooklyn, a copy of the Gospel of John, and an address book.

Tales From an Attic

Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives.
by Sierra Bellows via The American Scholar on March 4, 2024
Black and white portrait of Jones Very

The Voice of Unfiltered Spirit

In the poetry of Jones Very, whom his contemporaries considered “eccentric” and “mad," the self is detached from everything by an intoxicated egoism.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on January 18, 2024
Ivory Perry.

Ivory Perry, the Forgotten Civil Rights Hell-Raiser

Activists are often held up as exemplars of personal morality — but in every social struggle, ordinary people with complex lives rise up as leaders.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Jacobin on January 15, 2024
Photo of "Madness: Race and insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum" with photo of author Antonia Hylton alongside it.

What It Was Like to Be a Black Patient in a Jim Crow Asylum?

In March 1911, the segregated Crownsville asylum opened outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitting only Black patients.
by Julia Métraux, Antonia Hylton via Mother Jones on January 10, 2024
A drawing of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
partner

Did Meriwether Lewis Die by Suicide? The Answer Still Matters.

Lacking a sufficient support system, Meriwether Lewis did not have anyone close enough to help him.
by Jamie M. Bolker via Made By History on December 1, 2023
Lou Reed in front of a photography setup.

The Canonization of Lou Reed

In a new biography, the Velvet Underground front man embodies a New York that exists only in memory.
by Jeremy Lybarger via The New Republic on October 17, 2023
A picture of Huey Newton and Fredrika Newton embracing.

The Misunderstood Visionary Behind the Black Panther Party

Huey P. Newton has been mythologized and maligned since his murder 34 years ago. His family and friends offer an intimate look inside his life and mind.
by Jenny Rothenberg Gritz via Smithsonian on August 22, 2023
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