Week 6 post

https://asylumprojects.org/images/9/9e/petersburg21.png

This image is from the Central State Hospital in Petersburg, Virginia. (More commonly known as the Central Lunatic Asylum) This image shows several African American “insane patients” building a road. This picture struck me initially because I thought the patients were doing field/agricultural work, which was one of the main methods supervisors and attendants used to occupy patient’s time. Putting African-American insane patients to work was seen as one of the better courses of action by institutions because they were deemed to be inherently and genetically inferior.