American Studies Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2740
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Item Mental Illness in Maryland: Public Perception, Discourse, and Treatment, from the Colonial Period to 1964(2006-05-01) Schoeberlein, Robert William; Mintz, Lawrence E.; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is an overview of the public perception of, discourse concerning, and treatment of Maryland's mentally ill citizens from the Colonial Period to 1964. The present day view of the mentally ill in the early colony is, at best, fragmentary. The numbers of such Marylanders were small and little information exists to frame a picture of what constituted their daily life or the level of care until about 1785. The decision to confine individuals at home or at an institution entered public discourse. Certain families entrusted their relatives to hospitals. Mentally ill people constituted a highly visible presence during the first half of the nineteenth century. A vacillating public interest and tepid financial support for their cause, however, prevented access to higher quality care for the majority. County almshouses and jails continued to house the "pauper insane" in a regressive manner. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the rights and well-being of mentally ill citizens came to public notice. The possibility of a sane individual being unjustly confined within a mental hospital fired the public imagination. Court cases and patient exposés persuaded legislators that some laws and formalized state oversight of institutions were required. The first three decades of the twentieth century marked an epoch of progress. A reform campaign resulted in the transfer of all patients from the county almshouses into modern, newly-constructed state mental hospitals. The insular settings, however, ultimately made them less visible. The Great Depression and Second World War era induced shortages that adversely affected state hospital patients. Many such patients languished in sub-standard conditions. A troubling 1949 photographic exposé ultimately pressured state officials to bring system-wide improvements. The 1950s ushered in a new era for Maryland's mentally ill citizens. The advent of psychotropic drugs allowed patients to leave the hospitals. Programs to assist in the transition back into the community were developed by the State and public advocates. Members of a once faceless, inarticulate group came to be perceived as individuals who could contribute to and enrich the life of our communities.Item Imagined Pasts, Imagined Futures: Race, Politics, Memory, and the Revitalization of Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland(2005-12-05) Johansen, Bruce Richard; Caughey, John L.; Corbin Sies, Mary; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Title of dissertation: IMAGINED PASTS, IMAGINED FUTURES: RACE, POLITICS, MEMORY, AND THE REVITALIZATION OF DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND Bruce Richard Johansen, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation directed by: Professor John L. Caughey Professor Mary Corbin Sies Department of American Studies Through ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and archival research, this study explores differences in people's perceptions of an aging, inner-ring suburb, during a period in which revitalization has transformed its built environment, and its population has become more diverse. To examine how three sets of active residents have thought about and acted in response to transpiring material, social, and cultural changes, my interdisciplinary research draws on methodologies and literatures from anthropology, geography, urban and suburban history, cultural criticism, sociology, and political science. Subjects featured identify as historic preservationists, civil rights activists, and/or through affiliations with an organization devoted to making leadership and civic participation more representative of a multicultural community. I demonstrate that there are significant differences in perception among members of these three sets, and that these variations stem from divergent individual and collective constructions of reality that are rooted in a range of histories, cultures, values, imaginings, and needs. I show that these different orientations affect how individuals relate to their surroundings, which is then reflected in public discourse. I investigate how these differences are exacerbated by internal group dynamics and external political structures that have kept segments of the community divided during the twenty years that revitalization plans have been debated. I illustrate that a reliance on public hearings as the main form of public discourse deepens adversarial relations by inhibiting dialogue and consequently an understanding of the diverse array of perspectives on the commercial built environment that exist. I convey how internal group dynamics that exclude community members with contrary points of view mirrors what occurs in public hearings, further diminishing the effectiveness of civic groups. Finally, this dissertation argues that new processes must be designed to assist oversight of revitalization in multicultural communities like Silver Spring, Maryland, a subject that to date has been insufficiently investigated. I contend that unifying diverse segments of such communities is possible if areas of common concern are identified and new forms of cooperative dialogue and practices of leadership pursued.Item THE SWEETS OF INDEPENDENCE: A READING OF THE "JAMES CARROLL DAYBOOK, 1714-21"(2005-04-20) Flanagan, Charles M.; Sies, Mary C.; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is a study of the "James Carroll Daybook," a journal of transactions that a colonial Maryland planter and merchant used between 1714 and 1721. This Irish Catholic partisan's career is illustrative of early eighteenth century mercantile culture in which one could gain elite status by using intellectual skills to master the market and by owning consumer goods. The dissertation is, thus, a material culture study of the commerce that yielded Carroll a fortune and secured his social standing. The literature of the eighteenth-century consumer revolution provides the intellectual foundation of this study, which uses a method derived from performance theory to analyze sequences of trade as dialogues about value. Carroll's accounts are organized in topical chapters about domestic furnishings, local trade, Atlantic trade, consumption, and preserving a legacy. Each chapter studies related transactions in the context of scholarship, yielding a case study showing the consumer revolution in action. This study complements quantitative social histories by examining a living network of trade and detailing the differentiated use of goods by people from all social ranks. This dissertation discusses an important era of change in colonial Maryland. It studies the commercial accounts of a merchant and analyzes trade as dialogue about how people valued material items. It examines Carroll's role as an advocate for Catholic rights in the colony, showing him as a defiant figure who used consumption to assert his status and Catholic interests. It also details his contributions to a Catholic gentry faction in Maryland politics. It presents a close study of Carroll's local and trans-Atlantic business, to show how local trade, the slave trade, and the import trade worked. It demonstrates the lucrative quality of skilled accounting in managing commercial data and demonstrates the role of a merchant as a credit source in a society without banks. It discusses Carroll's consumer buying and spending, including his use of consumer goods as forms of payment, and his plans to educate an heir. In sum, this is a study of the commerce that provided opportunities for James Carroll and a study of material culture in colonial Maryland.