The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880

“Provides a fascinating glimpse of the origins of humane treatment of the mentally ill and a sound indictment of nineteenth-century pseudoscientific thought.”—CHOICE

“Eminently readable. . . . A great addition to the literature on asylums.”—Journal of Social History

“Gonaver’s monograph is a truly illuminating addition to canons of American medical history and racialized society, one that will inspire and fascinate students and scholars of slavery and madness in the nineteenth century.”—Journal of the Civil War Era

“The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry is a valuable institutional history, in addition to the contribution it makes to the history of race and medicine.”—Black Perspectives

“This is a timely, intriguing, and deeply researched social history, telling the story of how a racially hierarchical, internally segregated, asylum set at the heart of chattel slavery was absorbed into perhaps an even bleaker carceral system following the Civil War.”—Bulletin of the History of Medicine

“A welcome addition. . . . Studies such as these may indeed help us to better understand the racialized roots of heath inequality that continue to plague us today.”—H-Sci-Med-Tech

“Based on impeccable research and a deep excavation of the surviving records, Gonaver has rightly identified an important subject of historical investigation: the ways in which Southern institutions contributed to the development of modern American medicine.” — Jim Downs, author of Sick from Freedom: African American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction

“Gonaver’s meticulous attention to both individual patients and broader patterns of treatment make this a valuable study of nineteenth-century asylums. The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880 reveals how the key institutions of societal power — slavery, race, religion, marriage, and medical science — shaped both daily practices of care and debates over appropriate therapy.” — Sharla Fett, Occidental College