On page 178 of volume 2 of Isaac T. Hopper’s diary, he recounts the personal history of James E Kerr, who was an English immigrant convicted of grand larceny and was sent to Sing Sing Prison. He served two and a half years of his sentence before he was transferred to the State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. He remained within the institution to keep the books of the head doctor, or superintendent, for a time before seeking help with Hopper and the rest of the New York Prison Association.

The State Lunatic Asylum at Utica was built in 1843, during a period in mental health treatment where the environment was thought to play a huge role in curing diseased individuals exhibiting abnormal behavior and misconduct. [1] Interestingly enough, the building at Utica was constructed not by an architect, but by the then chairman of the board of trustees, William Clarke. However, a widely respected landscape designer was called into improve the conditions of the grounds to make it more aesthetically pleasing. This landscape designer, Andrew Jackson Downing, notably lined the main driveway with elms and other vegetation, which helped contribute to the imposing facade of one of the largest buildings in upstate New York at the time.[2] The monumental asylum was also one of the most costly in the entire country and an indicator of the prominence of New York state as a leader in social and institutional reform. [3]

However, the optimism of the period was not always helpful to the afflicted. Most doctors believed that 80 percent of insanity cases were curable, if they were treated in an institution outside the home. [4] Nineteenth century thought held that patients had the best chance of a cure if they were in an institution because conditions were carefully controlled to ensure appropriate and orderly moral standards which help ease a disordered mind. Additionally, appointments with doctors and matrons helped contribute to this supposed cure. [5] This hyperfixation on curing the insane led many superintendents to falsify records to show cure rates of 90 percent or higher to hide the actual abysmal rates of improvement within asylums. While highly problematic, this so-called “cult of curability” helped bring about the increased use of specialized treatment in newly constructed asylums in the 1830s and 1840s. [6]

Though the modern view is critical of nineteenth century treatment of the insane, it was still an improvement on the unspecialized care received by the insane prior to this time. The mentally ill were either insufficiently and cruelly treated at home, or were housed in jails and almshouses that were ill-equipped at handling their very specific needs. [7] The construction of the State Asylum at Utica was a signal of the changing attitudes present in the 1840s, which prompted reform efforts dedicated to the transfer of the mentally ill from almshouses to public asylums. [8]

While the asylum at Utica was indeed a symbol of the progress made in psychiatric care during this period, it also highlighted the brutality and insensitivity still heaped onto afflicted individuals. One of the most popular restraints, the crib, in nineteenth century asylums was first used at Utica. The crib was was a wooden structure shaped like a regular crib for a baby but with a lid on top in order to restrain patients. [9]This inhumanity was commonplace, according to the various accounts written of former patients experiences at the asylum. [10]

Besides any misgivings with the Utica asylum, there was also the provable fact that it could not even serve the majority of afflicted persons. An 1855 survey in New York state counted 2,123 indigent mad, and only 296 were housed at Utica. [11]This is a common theme found in nineteenth century institutions - they may seem insufficient by modern standards, but in their own time they were progressive, but only for a woefully small amount of people.

[1]  Carla Yanni, "The Linear Plan for Insane Asylums in the United States before 1866," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 62, no. 1 (2003): 24. doi:10.2307/3655082.

[2] Ibid., 30-31.

.[3] Dale Peterson, ed, “Five Months in NY State Lunatic Asylum,” In A Mad People’s History of Madness, 115, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982.

[4] Yanni, “The Linear Plan for Insane Asylums in the United States before 1866,” 24.

[5]  Ibid., 46.

[6] Peterson, ed, “Five Months in NY State Lunatic Asylum,” 113-114.

[7] Ibid., 108-111.

[8] Peterson, ed, “Five Months in NY State Lunatic Asylum,” 112; Carla Yanni, The Architecture of Madness Insane Asylums in the United States (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007): 81.

[9]  Peterson, ed, “Five Months in NY State Lunatic Asylum,”115.

[10] Peterson, ed, “Five Months in NY State Lunatic Asylum,”; Phebe B. Davis, Two Years and Three Months in the New York Lunatic Asylum at Utica: Together with the Outlines of Twenty Years Peregrinations in Syracuse (Syracuse, NY: The author, 1855), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.319510023820090&view=1up&seq….

[11 Peterson, ed, “Five Months in NY State Lunatic Asylum,” 115-6.