Religious Deviance and Psychological Medicine in the Second Great Awakening: The Asylum Narratives of Elizabeth T. Stone (b. 1811)
In 1842, after her release from McLean Asylum in Boston, Elizabeth T. Stone (b. 1811) published an exposé detailing her experience as a patient confined for religious insanity.1 Documenting a prison-like environment in which patients endured the hostility of attendants, the humiliation of invasive p...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2022
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| In: |
A journal of church and state
Year: 2022, Volume: 64, Issue: 3, Pages: 413-436 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Religion
/ Psychology
/ Medicine
/ USA
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| IxTheo Classification: | KBQ North America NCH Medical ethics ZD Psychology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In 1842, after her release from McLean Asylum in Boston, Elizabeth T. Stone (b. 1811) published an exposé detailing her experience as a patient confined for religious insanity.1 Documenting a prison-like environment in which patients endured the hostility of attendants, the humiliation of invasive physical examinations, and the ravages of seizure-inducing drugs, the book warned the public of the threat that asylums posed. This was merely the first of four books Stone would write about the “Bastiles” [sic] of New England over the next two decades.2 Her fourth book, published in 1861, was the most politically charged and philosophically ambitious of the series. Entitled The American Godhead, it adduced a trinity of powers in American society—“[t]he ordained ministry, legal or law power, and the medical faculty”—which worked in concert to undermine natural liberties. Religious freedoms in particular were the principal punitive target of this “Devil’s Godhead.”3 And so Stone, as a woman who had been confined chiefly for her religious behaviors, had been one of its banner victims ... |
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| ISSN: | 2040-4867 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: A journal of church and state
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jcs/csac020 |