Lyddie: Chapter 15 - Rachel

Vermont Asylum for the Insane in Brattleboro 1845
The Brattleboro asylum was a home for people with mental illness who could not be cared for by their families.

Thomas Martin Easterly, “Vermont Asylum For The Insane,” Daguerreotype, 1845. Photo courtesy of Vermont Historical Society

One week after Lyddie writes to her mother, Uncle Judah shows up at the boardinghouse. He explains to Lyddie that he and her Aunt Clarissa have sent Lyddie’s mother to an asylum because they could no longer care for her. They plan to sell the family farm to pay for her care. Lyddie is outraged. She vows to retrieve her mother and return her family to the farm. When she asks Judah about her younger sister, Rachel, Lyddie is shocked to learn that she’s sitting outside. Though her sister is malnourished, scared, and too young to work in the mill, Lyddie begs Mrs. Bedlow to allow Rachel to stay. In the meantime, she writes to Charlie, hoping he can stop Judah from selling the farm.

At work, Lyddie struggles with Brigid, who is not keeping up. The overseer tells Lyddie that if Brigid doesn’t improve, she will be fired. Lyddie decides to combine her looms with Brigid’s and tend them together until she is up to speed. Back at the boardinghouse, Lyddie struggles with Rachel’s presence. She optimistically thinks Rachel may be able to work in the mill as a doffer.

Fact Check: Asylums

Did families send those who were “troubled” to asylums?

What do we know?

In the 1840s, families might send a troubled relative to an asylum. Residents of asylums suffered from a wide range of medical and social issues that weren’t fully understood. Some asylums treated their residents very poorly and were not much better than jails, designed to keep those inside away from society, by force if necessary. Social reform movements of the early nineteenth century included advocacy for asylum reform. The Asylum at Brattleboro was part of this movement and its goal was to “cure”, not simply contain, its patients. Doctors encouraged residents to take part in physical activities, spend time outside every day, and take their meals together like family.

What is the evidence?

Primary Source:

“…During this time two hundred and thirty-nine patients have received the benefits of the asylum. Among these we have had patients manifesting every condition…from the lowest state…by which he is incapable of attending even to the wants of life, to the violent and furious…who, reckless of consequences, exposes himself to all the dangers which are connected with such a state…:

Murray, Orson S. “Fourth Annual Report” Vermont Telegraph. Volume XIII. No. 9 (Brandon, VT) Nov. 18, 1840. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025661/1840-11-18/ed-1/seq-1/>

Primary Source:

“Dr. Benedict could very easily have relieved me from all I suffered by a few words that sounded like humanity. By so doing, he would have gained my confidence and respect, and I could have felt more at home there; but he appeared to think that authority was far better than humanity. ... [The doctors] appeared determined to rule me by brute force; but what did they accomplish ... Because they had injured me, and then they were mad because they saw the state of excitement I was in when they entered. They tried to drive me out of that state of mind with brute force.”

Davis, Phebe B. Two Year and Three Months in the N.Y. State Lunatic Asylum, at Utica, together with the outlines of twenty years peregrinations in Syracuse, Syracuse. 1855.

Secondary Source:

The Brattleboro superintendent’s “vision of the ideal asylum was in keeping with the most advanced thought of the day about the treatment of the mentally ill. Like other asylum superintendents, he reassured the families of prospective patients that the hospital bore no ‘resemblance to a place of confinement’ and that ‘no harsh treatment will ever be for a moment allowed.’ Some patients shared the ‘enjoyments of [the] social life’ of the doctor and his family, others reaped the benefits of his ‘constant care and watchfulness.’ All profited from the ‘truly parental’ atmosphere and from Rockwell's daily visits. When the asylum first opened, Rockwell's [the superintendent] program of activities had the male patients cooperating in the farm and garden work and the women riding out in carriages ‘every fair day,’ walking ‘abroad,’ or busy in sewing circles. ‘Every evening after tea’ the patients joined in ‘family worship;’ at other times they gathered in the library to read or on the lawn to play battledore, chess, or draughts.”

McGovern, Constance M. “The Insane, the Asylum, and the State in Nineteenth-Century Vermont.” The Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, 52, no. 4 (Fall 1984): 205-224.

Secondary Source:

“From the early 1830s until just before the Civil War, a great utopian movement to rehabilitate the insane resulted in the construction of dozens of publicly funded asylums, primarily but not exclusively in the Northern states. There, patients were attended to by medical staff who controlled their diet, exercise routines, drug intake, and—not least importantly—cultural pursuits: their habits in literature, worship, handicrafts, and the like…Although asylum physicians insisted that insanity was at its roots a disease of the brain that called for medical intervention, they also believed that mental illness often had a psychological or ‘moral’ etiology [cause], and that a carefully controlled environment was as essential to the cure as the administration of medical treatment.”

Reiss, Benjamin. "Introduction: Sanative Culture." In Theaters of Madness: Insane Asylums and Nineteenth-Century American Culture University of Chicago Press, 2008. Chicago Scholarship Online, 2013

Voices from the Field

"Mental Illness" by Nancy Tomes, Distinguished Professor of History, Stony Brook University

Writing Prompts

Opinion

In this chapter, Lyddie’s younger sister Rachel surprisingly arrives in Lowell. How might Lyddie’s daily routine change now that the has Rachel to think about and care for? Link your opinions and reasons using words and phrases (e.g., for instance, in order to, in addition).

Informative/explanatory

Lyddie writes to Charlie asking him to talk to Judah about selling the farm. She says he won’t listen to Lyddie. Why might Judah listen to Charlie but not Lyddie? Cite evidence from the text.

Narrative

Rachel doesn’t speak a word to Lyddie after Uncle Judah brings her to Lowell. Re-tell Rachel’s arrival in Lowell from Rachel’s point of view. Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details.