I was unaware of Lisa Louise Cooke's GenealogyGems website, but I'm sure I'll be a frequent visitor. I tested googles' NewsTimeline tool. I searched on these terms: Longview Cincinnati 1879. Up came three articles about the "Longview Insane Asylum" placed within the context of other news stories of the day. What an incredible tool!
Regular readers of this blog know that I have been researching the Longview Insane Asylum in preparation for a post I intend to write about my gg-grandfather who died while a patient there in 1879. The state of this mental health facility was deplorable. If you read my post on "Graham Crackers and Corn Flakes" you realize just how little we knew about the causes of mental illness.
It's one thing to not understand what causes mental illness, but it's quite another to treat the "inmates" with so little compassion. This article was published in the Three Rivers Tribune, April 3, 1979.
To describe this kind of treatment and then conclude that the attendant "has the sympathy of all the attendants" is just beyond my comprehension. It seems that if you weren't "insane" when you arrived, you would become insane once admitted for "treatment".
If you haven't tried out this tool yet, search on one of the topics you are researching. I'd be interested in whether or not your search proves as interesting as mine.
Kathy, thanks for sharing about this timeline tool. It is new to me and I will have to try it out. I hope it sheds light on some of my areas of interest.
ReplyDeleteI read your comment at 2338 W. Washington Blvd. about blog2print. I think you should write a post about it (if you haven't already - and if you did, I missed it!). I'm sure there are others who would like to read more about it and some who could possibly add their experiences in the comment section.
Thanks again for alerting us to the NewsTimeline tool.
Great post, Kathleen and a great tool as well!
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