Little Lunatics: Children in America's Madhouses (1850-1930‪)‬

    Insane asylums were the one place where children never got to age out and leave. Reform schools, orphanages, poorhouses—yes! But not out of insane asylums. And they could go there young. Eleven-year-old Gertrude at the Mission State Hospital for the Insane. . . Walter, only eight, at the Asylum for the Insane in Warm Springs. . .  an unnamed boy, committed at birth because he came out of the womb a raving maniac. . . .

    Committed by parents who were angry, fed-up, relieved, and only occasionally sad, insane children were the most powerless of asylum inmates. They could be given good food and supervision or be starved and neglected. They might meet with staff who were eager to help them, or with authorities who were sure they would never get well. No matter what they encountered, children had no power, legal rights, or advocates to help them.

They had few outlets to express their misery or fear, but the records that remain give us a glimpse of what they experienced. This book explores the asylum era and illuminates what life was like for the children who were trapped behind asylum walls.