WEBVTT - Special Episode: Antonia Hylton & Madness 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.559 Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this Podcast Will 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.360 Kill You. Welcome to another episode of the tp w 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.520 k Y book Club, where I bring on authors of 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.080 popular science and medicine books to ask them all about 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.840 their latest work. This is truly one of my favorite 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.080 things to do because I get to learn about so 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:09.200 many fascinating topics like just this season alone, we've covered measles, 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.840 the history of the pelvic exam, phase therapy, the aerobiome, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.520 and we've got more on deck for the rest of 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.559 the season. 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Drop. It is twenty twenty five. We 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.000 are a quarter of the way into the twenty first century, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.720 and we are still failing in many ways to deliver 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:41.160 mental health care to those in need. Stigma, shame, dismissal, sexism, 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:45.120 and racism are all embedded in the way we view 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.360 and treat mental health issues, affecting who is deemed worthy 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.120 of receiving care and what type of care they receive. 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.600 And as the police have increasingly and inappropriately been called 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.240 on to respond to mental health health crises, Black Americans 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:06.040 and other people of color experiencing a crisis are disproportionately 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:10.560 more likely to be harmed or killed by police, imprisoned, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.120 rather than given the help and mental health resources that 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.000 white Americans are more likely to receive. The roots of 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:23.120 these inequalities, which are ingrained in our current medical andcarceral systems, 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:28.160 stretch back generations. To make lasting and effective changes in 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.080 the way we approach mental health in this country, we 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.880 need to turn to the past to understand its role 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:38.080 in shaping are present in madness, race, and insanity. In 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.280 a Jim Crow Asylum, author Antonia Hilton explores the story 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:47.119 of Crownsville Hospital, a segregated asylum in ann Arundel County, Maryland, 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.720 built in nineteen eleven by its first patients, twelve black men. 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.360 Over the decades of its operation, during which it grew 0:03:55.400 --> 0:04:00.560 into a compound housing thousands of patients, Crownsville became, in anyways, 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.480 a microcosm of the dynamics between race, mental illness, medicine, 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.200 and the civil rights movement playing out across the United States. 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:14.560 Expertly blending oral histories with archival materials, Hilton, who is 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.080 an Emmy Award winning anchor and correspondent for MSNBC and 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:23.120 NBC and New York Times bestselling author, presents a nuanced 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:28.720 and moving examination of an overcrowded, understaffed Jim Crow institution 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.280 that shaped the lives of those who lived or worked there. 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.480 Hilton also reveals how the shift in focus from asylums 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:41.800 to prisons in jails was reflected in Crownsville's operation. Madness 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:47.240 is an urgent, necessary, and powerful work that sheds much 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:51.600 needed light on the intersections between race, racism, and mental illness. 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.000 I'm really excited to share this conversation with you all, 0:04:55.080 --> 0:05:21.240 so let's take a quick break and get started. Antonia, 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:23.040 thank you so much for joining me today. 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:25.760 Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to do this. 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:31.080 In your book Madness, you tell the truly haunting and 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.320 heartbreaking story of Crownsville Hospital, which is one of the 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.599 last segregated asylums in the US. How did you first 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:38.760 come across this story? 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.800 Well, I first came across the story of Crownsville my 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:47.320 freshman year of college, and it was there's sort of 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.039 two origin stories I always tell people about how I 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.560 came to this place. The simple one is it's my 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:55.920 freshman year. I'm trying to figure out who I want 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:57.560 to be and what I want to study, and I 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.400 stumble into a class called Madness in Medicine that I 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.800 didn't even know was something that could exist, A course 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.159 all about the history of mental health care treatment in 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.720 the Europe in the United States, and I learn all 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:15.480 about the development of the asylum, the development of medications 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:20.000 to treat mental health challenges, and as I grow deeper 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.000 and deeper into the course, there's this thing gnawing at me, 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.480 which is that I'm learning about the history of mental 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.479 health care mostly from the perspective of European or white 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:32.960 American people. And I knew something was wrong with that, 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.640 not just from you know, basic instinct, but because I 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.479 have family members who were very deeply impacted by the 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.600 system themselves in the US history of mental health challenges 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.920 in my family, and so I knew that there were 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.920 black people, black patients, black providers who worked in these spaces, 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.080 who contributed and tried, and I just went looking for 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.320 a way to learn more about that at first. And 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.520 so I go looking to find out about the asylums 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.800 the institute US that worked with black patients, And what 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.600 I found was a system of segregated asylums built in 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.560 the decades after slavery came to an end in the US, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:17.920 and many of them closed down, were the subject of scandal, burned, files, destroyed. 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.480 There's one asylum that a great grandfather of mine spent 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.520 some time in that has been turned into a kind 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:28.760 of Halloween theme park sort of experience. Yeah, I made 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.600 the same face when I first found that out. Wow. 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.400 And so in many cases I just kept hitting these 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.120 like dead ends. Okay, not much here, there's just a 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.960 paragraph about it here. And then I found Crownsville. And 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.200 Crownsville is unique and not unique in a number of ways. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.640 Unique in that it is one of the only ones 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.440 that were part of this network, a segregated asylum with 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:57.080 existing records, living people and patients who had been at 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.120 this place, and a campus that is still standing even 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.320 to this day. In fact, it's in really the heart 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:07.000 of Maryland, in an Arundel County, and the county and 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.200 the state is engaged in a massive sort of rehabilitation 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.560 and reimagining project as we speak. And so there was 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.960 this opportunity to feel the place, to see it, to 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.040 walk through it, to talk and sit with people who 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:25.080 knew it intimately, and then to also petition the state 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:27.800 of Maryland for access to its records. And that was 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.400 unlike really any other opportunity. I'd say. There's one similar 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:36.160 place in Virginia called Central state that there's similar opportunity there, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:40.640 but this was so rare, and so I just dove 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:45.240 in and I became obsessed. The longer story, and perhaps 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.959 the more true story, is that when I was eleven 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.080 years old, I had a conversation with my father about, 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.520 you know, cousins, and my cousins had just been visiting 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.880 our house and I asked my dad, you know, I 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:00.679 guess something must have clicked in my I had, Hey, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:02.360 why haven't I met any of your cousins? Do I 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.959 know any of your cousins? You must have some And 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:07.640 he said, well, you know, there's an uncle who you 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.080 think is an uncle, but he's technically a cousin, but 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.160 you call him uncle. And that's something that I know 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.800 many people can relate to. And then he said, and 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.240 then you know, some of my cousins have lost touch 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.880 with them. One was incarcerated, and then one was killed 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.760 by a police officer in the middle of a mental 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.000 health episode, and we don't talk about him very much. 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.800 And that was my first time ever learning that my 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.760 dad had had a cousin named Maynard growing up, who 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.040 he had loved and admired. He kind of wanted to 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.200 be Maynard and in many ways, he actually did follow 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.440 in that cousin's footsteps. My dad is a lawyer. Maynard 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:45.520 was a lawyer when my dad was little, and he 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:50.240 developed schizophrenia and was killed by a police officer during 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.920 an interaction in public on the steps of a federal 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.200 building in Mobile, Alabama in the seventies. And I was 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.400 too young at the time to talk to my father 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.760 about that. I didn't really know how to ask good questions. 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.640 But then I became older and I asked a little 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.000 bit more. I became a journalist, I became a pest, 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.360 and I started to understand who Maynard was and just 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.760 how much his death had transformed my family. And I 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.600 think that in a way, for me, this story really 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.400 goes back to my childhood, to the discovery that there 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.480 had been all these stories in my family, these experiences 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.880 people who had tried and failed to seek treatment in 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.960 the system that set me on this path. Made me 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.880 so curious in my bones to try to understand this 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.400 that it set me up to be in a place 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.280 where then when I am this young student, it all 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.000 kind of clicked together. And so that's why I always 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:42.720 tell both of those stories, because there's this sort of 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.960 surface level story. But then there's like the what said 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:51.400 times has felt for me like this, like familial mission 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.160 I have been on almost like I don't know so 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.240 much that I had a choice. It just sort of 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.400 feels like all these things fell into place and they 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.400 were right, and they were the thing I had to do, 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.719 and that is what brought me to Crownsville and to 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:05.080 this unbelievable story. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.160 I mean, there are so many elements to the story 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.400 that you tell and in your book that it's not 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.040 just the effects of Crownsville Echo today, it's that they, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.800 you know, have dictated, They have made the world that 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:20.800 we have today in terms of mental health care. And 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.520 I think it really helps sort of contextualize how today 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.200 we are still failing in many respects to provide adequate 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.040 mental health care. And I want to go through the 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.480 full story, but I want to touch on something that 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.400 you mentioned early on, which is the difficulty in obtaining 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.200 source materials. And I'd love to hear more about your 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.679 research method and your process for incorporating these different types 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.839 of source materials together, like which elements do you pull from? 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.440 What was that entire experience like for you. 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.520 Oh boy, it was a lot it's short answers because 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.120 I was so young. So keep in mind, you know, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.080 I begin this process as a literal teenager. I'm like 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.640 nineteen years eighteen, nineteen years old. There's a lot I 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:08.920 did not know about the world and how all of 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:14.199 this worked. And so my first real task at working 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.920 with I was really lucky to have Evelyn Hammonds at 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.080 Harvard as my PSIS advisor. I had her help and 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.600 some other people in the Harvard History of Science Department 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:25.079 really guide me through this. I don't know that I 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.400 would have gotten it done without them, but the process 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:32.439 of going through Institutional Review Board Human Subjects Research Approval 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.120 and getting the State of Maryland to give me permission 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.640 to come to the state archives and access records that 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.360 they typically refuse to share. In fact, it's a point 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.840 of contention for many people in the black community in 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.760 Maryland who have routinely asked for access to these records 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.480 and been denied it. And so I think I didn't 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:52.720 appreciate how hard it was going to be. I thought, Okay, 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.199 there's some rules on this website. I'm going to follow 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.120 all the rules. I'm going to take the tests they 0:12:58.120 --> 0:12:59.480 tell me to take, and then they're going to let 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.679 me go. But you know, there were some politics that 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.520 got into the way and some people that dragged their feet, 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.439 and so it was helpful to have the backing of 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.640 that institution to come in and sort of apply some 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.640 pressure to make sure that I could get in there 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.160 and get my work done. And so that was to me. 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.839 I thought, like, Holy Grail, I'm going to go into 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.440 the state archives and everything will be there. I will 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.000 know everything about this place as soon as I can 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:32.400 get my hands on these primary source documents. And then 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:37.320 I finally do, and it is incredible. Let me not 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.520 downplay what's in there. I mean, there were monthly reports. 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.200 There were writings and letters that superintendents who ran the 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.520 institution had written to themselves or privately to other state leaders. 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:53.840 There were certain patient records, but whole lot of patient 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:59.800 records missing. And I very quickly realized this wasn't the 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:01.920 hoil that I thought it was going to be. That 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.440 most of what happens when an institution of that nature 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.199 closes down and people preserve what remains is the sort 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.240 of clinical perspective and the leadership perspective is preserved, but 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:20.119 the patient story that is not respected that's not maintained, 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.640 that's not preserved as as well. And in fact, as 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:25.480 I later learned in my journey, I didn't know this 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:29.440 at the time. Employees of the institution alleged that there 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.480 was a systematic effort to destroy a lot of the 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.160 patient stories because there was a fear from the state 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.080 in their view that perhaps lawsuits could come from that, 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:38.920 that it would be more trouble than it was worth. 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.680 And so I realized, even as a very young person 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:47.000 sitting there in the Maryland State Archives, oh wow, I'm 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.720 going to need to launch like a big oral history project. 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.360 I need to go talk to people. I need to 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.240 meet people. I'm going to need to make up for 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.560 the voices that are missing in this place and find 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.920 them elsewhere. And that it took a long time because 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.400 humans are human and you have to build trusts with people. 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.480 You have to call them, write them snail mail. I 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.000 mean a lot of the former employees they were at 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.600 the time and they still are quite elderly, and so 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.440 I couldn't text them and DM them on Instagram or something. 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:23.640 I had to really do some like shoe leather reporting work. 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.480 And in some cases there were some people I was 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:32.360 able to meet very quickly Pauler's for example, Paulers worked 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.120 at the institution for forty years, social worker who dedicated 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.720 his life to children at Crownsville. He was very quickly 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.440 willing to speak, but so many people had been affected. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.320 I'd been traumatized in some cases by what they experienced 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:47.320 at Crownsville, and so it took a while to build 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.840 their trust. There are people in this book who took three, five, 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.080 seven years to decide to talk to me, and I 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.320 had to be really patient with that and respect that 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.600 there were people who didn't want to talk on the phone, 0:15:58.600 --> 0:15:59.880 but they were willing to talk if I came and 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:01.680 knocked on the door and I sat on their porch. 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:06.480 And so the level of investment and patience that comes 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.760 with that, I really I grew into it in a way. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:11.760 I started out as this young person who was just 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.560 calling people up, and I should be grateful that anyone 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:17.880 answered to a nineteen year old's phone calls. First of all, 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.720 let me say that. But then I became an adult 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.080 and a professional journalist, and I got the resources to 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.920 be able to do the sort of real like sitting 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.800 in the community and being present work, and that is 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:38.080 what transformed everything. I think those stories, those memories, they 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.080 are the richest part of this book. You know, the records, 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.280 they are fascinating, They are valuable. I worked with so 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.960 many of them in the story. But it's so helpful 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.960 to have the sort of sites, smells, sounds, and stories 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.480 from people who were so personally impacted by all this, 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.640 whether they were the patients or they were the providers, 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:01.000 and in many cases they really fill in critical gaps 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.240 or you know, the records in some cases actually confirmed 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:07.960 some of the stories that were found out in the community. 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.560 And with an institution like Crownsville, it's huge for anyone 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.000 listening who lives in the Maryland area, like it is 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.800 worth driving by and seeing this place because you'll get 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.679 a sense of just the immensity the number of people 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.960 who were touched by this place over the almost one 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.440 hundred years that it was in operation. And what comes 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:32.159 with that is there's amount of community rumor and storytelling 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.040 and all of that that you have to wade through. 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.120 And having the community and having the trust in the community, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.359 and then having the records and bringing those complimentary pieces together, 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.399 it allowed me to find a way to tell a 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.680 story that had either been both sort of simultaneously pushed 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:54.119 under the rug but also sort of festered as a 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.560 mythological thing for a really long time. And it was 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.800 the ability to do both of those things that helped 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.840 me find the truth, the core of what happened there. 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:09.480 And I see the record, the sort of painstaking archival 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.080 and research process as being just as important as the 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:14.399 oral history endeavor to. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.000 Let's take a quick break and when we get back, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:37.840 there's still so much to discuss. Welcome back everyone. I've 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.400 been chatting with Antonia Hilton about her book Madness, Race 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.400 and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum. Let's get back 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:49.920 into things. What emerges is this really rich, sweeping perspective 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.119 like the storytelling of asylums and the representation of asylums 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.280 that happens often in popular media like movies, is very 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.440 one sided, one dimensional, or just one perspective. And that's 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.399 one of the things I really appreciated about your book. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.280 And I would love to turn to the beginning. Why 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.879 was this institution and other institutions like it? Why was 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.760 it built and how did its surrounding context both the 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.800 time period in which it was established and the location 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.560 that it was established in how did that shape what 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:21.400 it would become. 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.640 The context is everything Crownsville is created. It is founded 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.840 in nineteen eleven, and this is a fascinating time in 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.640 the United States. Were a couple decades after the end 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:37.200 of slavery, and there have been these immense contradictions in 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.400 American society. I mean, black people have in some cases, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:45.560 they've become lawmakers, they've started incredibly successful towns and communities 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.960 in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they're gaining ground. But 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.880 then there is a massive backlash and backsliding that starts 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.760 to steal some of that ground back. And there's an 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.640 effort and a lot of that effort actually begin in Maryland. 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.440 A lot of people don't know this. You know, Maryland 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.840 passed one of the first segregation ordinances in the entire country, 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.960 if not I think the very first segregation ordinance in fact. 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.360 So there is this effort to try to put black 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.560 people back in their place. But there also is for 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.600 the black people who you know, haven't found the Tulsas, 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.920 who haven't maybe found their footing yet. There's this sort 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:29.000 of incessant writing going on in white intellectual circles. So doctors, lawyers, 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:33.439 politicians who are really obsessed with what they describe as 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:40.040 this problem of Negro insanity, Negro alcoholism, Negro waywardness. They 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.159 are observing that there are all these black people who 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.440 seem to be traumatized and struggling and unable to adjust 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:50.359 to life post enslavement. And you know, looking back on 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.920 it for us now, that perhaps doesn't seem so surprising 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.000 that people found that experience, you know, hundreds of years 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:58.680 of enslavement to be traumatizing for their families. But at 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.560 that time, you would think think they thought that everyone 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.760 would get over it in a year or two. That 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.160 just simply hadn't been the case. So they're writing in 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.320 these letters to each other or they're publishing in medical 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:15.160 journals these observations that were incredibly dehumanizing. On the other hand, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.199 then they're expressing pity and saying, well, we need to 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.159 do something about it. We got to do something about it. 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.800 But what they decide to do is create a place 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:26.080 to treat them. But they must be separate from white 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:31.040 people because these antebellum attitudes that black people are inherently different, 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:35.000 they seeped into everything. I mean, I think people understand, okay, 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.359 separate Water Fountain, separate schools, but they forget I mean, 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.200 it went into healthcare treatment. It meant into basic conceptions 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.480 of how the mind in different people would work. And 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:47.840 so they make the decision that there need to be 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.480 these separate places for treatment, and Maryland takes it one 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:56.280 step farther. They decide that they're going to create this asylum, 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.600 but they don't really want to pay for it, and 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.000 they're going to ask, not ask, They're going to force 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.119 these patients to build it for themselves. So it begins 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.360 with twelve black men who are brought from almshouses, poorhouses 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.639 around the state, brought into a forest and if you 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.480 know the Maryland area, it's sort of the modern Bacon 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.879 Ridge natural area, and there's nothing there, nothing, not a 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.200 place to sleep, no cabins, and they are told they 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:28.600 have to get to work, build yourself an asylum, move railways, 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:35.600 move tracks, construct roads, clear ground. I mean really monumental labor. 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.000 They're working side by side with contractors hired by the state, 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.720 but the patients did an immense amount of the backbreaking, 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.159 really physical labor. And weeks go by as they're doing this, 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.760 and they bring new patients in and new men in 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:57.080 and actually also boys. There are state records describing you know, 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:00.680 putting boys who are about ten to twelve years old 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:05.040 who are disabled, physically disabled to work and being proud 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:06.879 that they were able to get them to carry you know, 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:10.520 pails of water or other items around and get them 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:13.600 to contribute to this effort. And the sort of tone 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:16.480 is always that they should be grateful that they're given 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:19.520 this work, that it must make them feel better, you know, 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.840 and that once this project is done, they'll march into 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.360 the rooms that they just built and they'll become its 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:30.919 first patients. So that is how Crownsville begins, and that 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.960 is the racial and political context at the time. 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:39.840 How was mental health like was mental health a concept? 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:43.760 How was mental health different than mental illness? And what 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:49.520 were the prevailing ideas around treatments or therapies and you know, 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:53.280 what options were available to for instance, a black person 0:23:53.400 --> 0:23:57.680 in nineteen eleven in Maryland that if they were experiencing 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.760 a crisis, where could they go? Could they go anywhere? 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.080 I really appreciate this question. Actually, you might be the 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:08.439 first interviewer to ask me that in that way, because 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:10.800 I think it gives me the chance to make an 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.480 important point which is that I think often, you know, 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.160 in twenty twenty five, we look back at a time 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:18.359 like nineteen eleven and we think, well, people just didn't 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:22.840 know anything, like it was all pretty horrible. And look, 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:25.800 a lot of the mental health care treatment, the majority 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:27.960 of what was available was terrible for everybody. I mean, 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:33.280 if you actually talk to psychiatrists and biochemists and to 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:35.600 therapists and people who work in the space today, they'll 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:37.920