socialmedian: The Madhouse of Colonial Williamsburg: An Interview With Shomer Zwelling

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The Madhouse of Colonial Williamsburg: An Interview With Shomer Zwelling

Source: History News Network

Oct 05, 2009

Summary

Chartered in 1770, Williamsburg's "Publick Hospital" was established "for the support and maintenance of Ideots, Lunaticks, and other Persons of unsound Minds" who threatened colonial society. The hospital hoped to restore its patients to their mental health -- or "reason," according to Enlightenment terminology -- and to provide a therapeutic environment for mentally ill individuals who had been placed in colonial jails or left unattended by their families. The 24-patient facility was erected a short half-mile walk from the colonial city's Capitol building where George Washington and Thomas Jefferson cast their revolutionary votes in Virginia's House of Burgesses. It opened in 1773. In 1885, with 400 patients in its care, the hospital burned mysteriously to the ground. In the centenary year of its destruction, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation reconstructed the facility, which now houses a section of the original hospital as well as two collections of colonial arts and antiques.

Shomer Zwelling, an American historian who helped direct the reconst

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