Unnatural Mothers: Nineteenth Century Understandings of Puerperal Insanity at Dix Hospital

Dorothea Dix Mental Hospital in Raleigh, NC operated as the state’s first and primary insane asylum. The Community Histories Workshop has been conducting a historical research project using archival material from the State Archives of North Carolina to study the asylum and its admitted patients. My thesis focuses on the female patients admitted to Dorothea Dix Mental Hospital and questions why gendered language was often used in their diagnosis of insanity when these language distinctions were not made for men. The transcription and study of the two unique primary source documents, the Dix Hospital patient admission ledger and the general case books, act as my core evidence. Secondary literature provides a frame to view how these female patients fit into the larger context of mental illness at the time. Through a specific focus on women diagnosed with “puerperal insanity,” I study the trends in the transcribed qualitative data of the women at Dix Hospital with this diagnosis. I also conducted case studies on two patients with puerperal insanity to understand their lives outside the hospital and potential social influences of their mental illness. My thesis aims to understand the concepts of insanity, femininity, and maternity during the turn of the century and how the female patients at Dix Hospital are situated in this historical context.Bachelor of Art