After conscientious objectors doing alternate war work in mental hospitals brought national attentional to the deplorable conditions in mental institutions nationally, Minnesota's small but activist Unitarians chose to focus on the appallingly overcrowded and brutal Minnesotan mental institutions, relying on inside information from Engla Schey, an attendant then at the Rochester State Hospital. Susan Bartlett Foote writes a compelling story about the work done to reform Minnesota's mental institutions mostly during Luther Youngdahl's governorship from 1947 to 1951. Thank heaven for the Unitarians and Governor Luther Youngdahl.īTW: the author gives recognition to the wonderful collection and staff at the Anoka County Historical Society. However, seeing that the biggest crusader for the patients was a Norwegian woman who had a varied background (including being in the Salvation Army) and a driving spirit on compassion, I took heart that the day would be saved. Then lobotomies came onto the scene, and some of the administrators saw this as a way to control patients. Straight jackets were euphemistically called "camisoles," and patients so constrained were blindfolded and had their feet bound together. Treatment was minimal, and often, brutal to people who had been committed for such varying conditions as penury, senility, desertion, physical deformity, and mental illness. The word "asylum" does not mean a safe place when it comes to the facilities described in this book. The time period dealt with in this book is not that long ago, and it is chilling to think that treatment such as this took place on a regular basis in Minnesota. Truer words were never said when it comes to mental illness. Though their vision met resistance, the accomplishments of these early advocates for compassionate care of the mentally ill hold many lessons that resonate to this day, as this book makes compellingly clear. The Crusade for Forgotten Souls recounts how these efforts broke the stigma of shame and silence surrounding mental illness, publicized the painful truth about the state’s asylums, built support among citizens, and resulted in the first legislative steps toward a modern mental health system that catapulted Minnesota to national leadership and empowered families of the mentally ill and disabled. These reformers overcame barriers of class, ethnicity, and gender to stand behind the governor, who, at a turbulent moment in Minnesota politics, challenged his own party’s resistance to reform. Susan Bartlett Foote tells the story of those who made the crusade a Engla Schey, the catalyst Reverend Arthur Foote, a modest visionary who guided Unitarians to constructive advocacy Genevieve Steefel, an inveterate patient activist and Geri Hoffner, an intrepid reporter whose twelve-part series for the Minneapolis Tribune galvanized the public. This book chronicles that remarkable undertaking inspired and carried forward by ordinary people under the political leadership of Luther Youngdahl, a Swedish Republican who was the state’s governor from 1946 to 1951. She acquired the knowledge and passion that would lead to “The Crusade for Forgotten Souls,” a campaign to reform the deplorable condition of mental institutions in Minnesota. She would work among people who were locked away under the shameful label “insane,” called inmates-and numbered more than 12,000 throughout the state. In 1940 Engla Schey, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants, took a job as a low-paid attendant at Anoka State Hospital, one of Minnesota’s seven asylums. The stirring story of the reform movement that laid the groundwork for a modern mental health system in Minnesota Winner of the 2019 Minnesota Book Award for Minnesota Nonfiction
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