Mental Illness and American Society, 1875-1940

Gerald N. Grob's Mental Institutions in America: Social Policy to 1875 has become a classic of American social history. Here the author continues his investigations by a study of the complex interrelationships of patients, psychiatrists, mental hospitals, and government between 1875 and World War II. Challenging the now prevalent notion that mental

Gerald N. Grob's Mental Institutions in America: Social Policy to 1875 has become a classic of American social history. Here the author continues his investigations by a study of the complex interrelationships of patients, psychiatrists, mental hospitals, and government between 1875 and World War II. Challenging the now prevalent notion that mental hospitals in this period functioned as jails, he finds that, despite their shortcomings, they provided care for people unable to survive by themselves. From a rich variety of previously unexploited sources, he shows how professional and political concerns, rather than patient needs, changed American attitudes toward mental hospitals from support to antipathy.
Toward the end of the 1800s psychiatrists shifted their attention toward therapy and the mental hygiene movement and away from patient care. Concurrently, the patient population began to include more aged people and people with severe somatic disorders, whose condition recluded their caring for themselves. In probing these changes, this work clarifies a central issue of decent and humane health care.
Gerald N. Grob is Professor of History at Rutgers University. Among his works are Mental Institutions in America: Social Policy to 1875 (Free Press), Edward Jarvis and the Medical World of Nineteenth-Century America (Tennessee), and The State and the Mentality III (North Carolina).

Originally published in 1983.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.