Documenting the Invisible: Picturing Mental Illness Pre-Deinstitutionalization and its Impact

This paper examines photographs of patients in asylums during the Great Depression and World War II. Relying on theory from medical humanities, social theory, disability studies, feminist studies, the history of psychiatry, and the history of art, it considers the iconography used to represent mental illness and the ways mentally ill individuals were presented as disordered and lacking humanity. The didactic nature of photography emphasizes how the artists imbued their mediums with medical credibility and authority. Depictions of healthy people in mental health clinics during this time period provide a point of contrast to images of the mentally ill. The photographs of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Jerry Cooke, and Esther Bubley from the 1930-40s reveal the state of mental health care and show the mentally ill as a complex, marginalized community. Viewed in a historical context, commonalities among the photographic depictions of mentally ill individuals emerge that deemphasize humanity and individuality and highlight disorder and patriarchal, psychiatric authority. Finally, this paper argues that the work of these photographers contributed to the cultural milieu that led to the great deinstitutionalization of the second half of the twentieth century in which hundreds of thousands of patients were released from asylums.