In Tuscaloosa,  the Alabama Insane Hospital was an institution to help cure the mentally ill.  The Alabama legislature established it in 1852.  The doors were opened by 1861.  The first superintendent, Dr. Peter Bryce, contended that moral therapy was the best way to treat mental illness.  Popularized by a private mental institution called The Retreat, founded by William Tuke and popularized by Samual Tuke, moral therapy relied upon a few beliefs.  As detailed in the book “Description of The Retreat,” at the very core, it supposes that all human beings are rational beings.  Mentally ill patients are just behaving irrationally.

Consequently, patients get better by being treated rationally.  They are encouraged to change their behavior by rules and supervision.  The staff enforces rewards and punishments.  Bryce’s staff expected patients to dine at the table, converse politely, and do regular chores.  Physical constraints were not allowed except if necessary to correct behavior.

Andrew Sheffield presented a challenge to the staff at the Alabama Insane Hospital, later renamed Bryce Hospital.  She never married and never managed to conform to how a proper Victorian woman should behave.  Andrew got addicted to chloral hydrate, an opiate commonly used as a sleep aid.  Further, she became involved in an abusive relationship with a doctor who supported her habit.  The last straw was when she tried to burn down a neighbor’s house because the neighbor was feuding with the doctor.  Andrew was facing an attempted arson charge.  Andrew’s family decided that she was better off going to the insane asylum.  They could not handle her, and perhaps more importantly, madness carried less of a stigma than prison.  So in 1890, Andrew Sheffield, escorted by a Marshall County sheriff and her nephew, boarded a train to Tuscaloosa.

This blog and book that ultimately grows from its research will be a journey between Andrew Sheffield and Bryce Hospital.  It is a story about how they both interacted with each other and how Andrew navigated through this new environment and maintained her agency.  How did Bryce Hospital try to use moral therapy to force Andrew to conform, and why didn’t it succeed? 

Citation: 

“A Victorian Mental Asylum | Science Museum.” Accessed November 5, 2023. https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/victorian-mental-asylum.

Hughes, John S. The Letters of a Victorian Madwoman. University of South Carolina Press, 1993.