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literaryvein-reblogs · 19 days ago

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Hii, so, i am going to write an au where my characters get sent to an asylum, one a child star and the other some student. How are the proceeds in the ins and outs of these things?

Writing Notes: Asylum

Mental Asylum - the historical equivalent of the modern psychiatric hospital.

The word asylum came from the earliest (religious) institutions which provided asylum in the sense of refuge to the mentally ill.

One of the oldest such institutions was Bethlem, which began in 1247 as part of the Priory of the New Order of our Lady of Bethlehem in the City of London.

Social campaigner Harriet Martineau summed up the poor state of public asylums:

In pauper asylums we see chains and strait-waistcoats, three or four half-naked creatures thrust into a chamber filled with straw, to exasperate each other with their clamour and attempts at violence; or else gibbering in idleness or moping in solitude.

The commonplace use of physical restraints on patients had its roots in the custodial nature of early asylums.

The function of mental institutions was simply to keep ‘inmates’ in custody.

The keepers were little more than guards and it was not uncommon for patients to be kept in chains or other restraints for most of the time.

The extent to which restraints were used varied from one asylum to another, but they were accepted as a necessary part of mental healthcare.

There were several justifications for the use of such restraints:

Restraints could control anti-social behaviour such as tearing clothes and exhibiting lewd or sexual behaviour.

Restraints stopped patients harming themselves or attempting to commit suicide. Patients were frequently strapped into their beds at night to stop them hurting themselves.

Some patients were so worried they would hurt themselves that they asked to be restrained.

Critics said the use of restraints demoralised and brutalised attendants as well as patients.

And the violence used by attendants to put uncooperative patients into restraints only increased the level of violence in the asylum.

In 1829 William Scrivinger, a patient at Lincoln Asylum, was found dead from strangulation after being strapped to his bed in a straitjacket and left overnight without supervision.

The incident persuaded the authorities at Lincoln to abolish all physical restraints and implement a non-restraint system.

Their system was very influential in 1800s asylum reform, and indicative of a wider change in attitude towards mental illness and the care of mentally ill people.

1752. The Quakers in Philadelphia were the first in America to make an organized effort to care for the mentally ill.

The newly-opened Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia provided rooms in the basement complete with shackles attached to the walls to house a small number of mentally ill patients.

Within a year or two, the press for admissions required additional space, and a ward was opened beside the hospital.

Eventually, a new Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane was opened in a suburb in 1856 and remained open under different names until 1998.

1792. The New York Hospital opened a ward for "curable" "insane" patients.

In 1808, a free-standing medical facility was built nearby for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, and in 1821 a larger facility called the Bloomingdale Asylum was built in what is now the Upper West Side.

In 1894, it was moved further away, to the suburb of White Plains and is currently under operation as the Payne-Whitney Westchester Hospital, a Division of the New York Hospital-Cornell Weill Medical Center.

1890. Across America.

Every state had built one or more publicly supported mental hospitals, which all expanded in size as the country’s population increased.

By mid-20th century, the hospitals housed over 500,000 patients but began to diminish in size as new methods of treatment became available.

The Decline of Asylums. To some extent the Victorian asylums were victims of their own success. With an ever-growing asylum population, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the sort of personalised moral treatment envisioned by the early reformers.

Medical superintendents and reformers started the century with the best of intentions, believing that a scientific approach to improved surroundings, and a humane approach to care could lead to rehabilitation and recovery.

And the new public asylums did make life easier for most pauper patients.

Working in the asylum community gave them purpose and kept them reasonably well fed.

In return for their good behaviour and hard work, they were rewarded with social activities such as plays, concerts and parties.

But with growing asylum populations, superintendents found that the only way to maintain control in the increasingly overcrowded and poorly staffed county asylums was to resort to restraints, padded cells and sedatives. John Conolly, an asylum superintendent, complained that:

the magistrates go on adding wing after wing and story after story [sic], contrary to the opinion of the profession and common sense, rendering the institution most unfavourable for the treatment of patients. [quoted in an article in the Edinburgh Review, 1871]

By the end of the century, the optimism around county asylums had virtually disappeared.

An inspector who visited Hanwell Asylum in 1893 described:

‘gloomy corridors and wards’,

an ‘absence of decoration, brightness and general smartness’ and

‘a want of sufficient ventilation’, conditions that were in stark contrast to the moral treatment days of asylum superintendents Ellis and Connelly.

His conclusion was damning:

It would be astonishing to find that any cures are ever made there.

By the early 1900s the term asylum had fallen out of favour.

Examples: In 1929, Hanwell was renamed Hanwell Mental Hospital. In 1937, all associations with the old Hanwell asylum were removed as it was renamed St Bernard’s Hospital.

McLean Hospital was founded on Feb. 25, 1811 and intended to treat both physical and mental illnesses, with a separate facility for each.

It was first known as the “Asylum for the Insane”. In 1826, The Asylum was renamed in honor of John McLean, a Boston merchant who bequeathed the hospital $25,000, payable on his widow’s passing.

Today, the term "asylum" is typically used to refer to (in international law) the protection granted by a state to a foreign citizen against his own state.

The person for whom asylum is established has no legal right to demand it, and the sheltering state has no obligation to grant it.

It is the protection given by a government to someone who has left another country in order to escape being harmed.

The definition: "a hospital where people who are mentally ill are cared for especially for long periods of time; a mental hospital" is now considered old-fashioned or outdated.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: Notes ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Hi, considering the setting of your story, you may use these references on past asylums as inspiration to create your own. You could also look through the sources above for more information because these are just excerpts. But if your setting is more current, you can get an idea on how modern-day psychiatric hospitals work through firsthand account. If that's not possible, (apart from books, documentaries etc.) you can also find a bit of the process in overviews like McLean's here. They also include more details on inpatient services that could serve as inspiration (e.g., for addiction). Once you find a present-day hospital you like to use as a model in your story, you can go through their website and they usually provide similar information. Hope this helps with your writing!

#writing notes #writing reference #writeblr #literature #writers on tumblr #dark academia #spilled ink #writing prompt #creative writing #light academia #writing inspiration #writing ideas #history #writing resources

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handweavers · 5 months ago

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kiran handweavers informal thesis on the 4 general naming conventions for streets in halifax and dartmouth, as follows:

1. Upper Street, Lower Street, North Street, South Street, Spring Garden Street (has gardens in the spring), Water St (near water), First St, Second St, Third St and so on

2. Dead white settler names ranging from 'old lady who ran the first orphanage' to 'name of boat that brought a lot of settlers' to 'guy who literally killed hundreds of people for money and power in 1832'

2a. Quaker shit like Jubilee St, Bliss St

2b. The most Celtic looking word you've ever seen west of the Emerald Isle

3. Names related to Maroon communities who escaped slavery in the West Indies as well as Africans who escaped bondage in the US and built the Afro-Nova Scotian community, and their Descendents (ex. Africville)

3a. Sometimes this overlaps with 2b, due to the presence of Irish and Scottish slaveowners and landlords in the Americas

4. Indigenous names and words, typically some variation of 'Micmac' (Mi'kmaq) including a shopping mall

#3 and 4 are the smallest categories sadly

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whencyclopedia · 3 months ago

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Dolley Madison

Dolley Madison (1768-1849), born Dolley Payne, was a prominent American First Lady, a function she held both during the presidency of her husband, James Madison, and for his predecessor, the widower Thomas Jefferson. Known for her elegance and charm, Madison acted as hostess of the White House, helping to define the role of the presidential spouse.

Early Life

Dolley Payne was born in the Quaker community of New Garden in Guilford County, North Carolina (present-day Greensboro), on 20 May 1768. She was one of eight children born to John Payne, a merchant, and his wife Mary Coles Payne, both of whom came from prominent Virginian families. Shortly after Dolley's birth, the family moved back to Virginia; although their reasons for moving are unclear, some historians have speculated that they had failed at business in North Carolina and wanted a fresh start, or that they were facing discrimination because of their Quaker religion. In any case, the family settled on a 176-acre farm in Hanover County, Virginia, where Dolley grew up. She spent her childhood working the land alongside her parents and siblings and was given a strict Quaker education.

Although John Payne had not been born into the Society of Friends – he had adopted the religion in 1765 to please his Quaker wife – he quickly proved a devoted Quaker himself. He stayed out of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) to adhere to the Quaker doctrine of pacifism, and his family was not much affected by the fighting. Prior to his conversion, Payne had been a slaveholder, but now became "doubtful and afterwards conscientiously scrupulous about…holding slaves as property" (quoted in Feldman, 384). He desperately wanted to emancipate his slaves, but, since Virginia forbade voluntary manumission, Payne was forced to pack up his family and move them yet again. This time, they went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which was not only the second largest city in the newly independent United States but also a bastion of Quakerism. Here, Payne freed his slaves and moved his family into a house on North Third Street. Partnering with his oldest son, he opened a business to manufacture and sell starch.

In Philadelphia, 15-year-old Dolley continued her Quaker education. Her father forbade her studies from including music or dancing, which most young ladies of her status were expected to know; indeed, Dolley's niece would later write that the Payne daughters were denied "the acquirement of those graceful and ornamental accomplishments which are too generally considered the most important parts of the female education" (quoted in Feldman, 384). Still, the teenage Dolley had no lack of suitors, all of whom she rejected so as to not "relinquish her girlhood" (ibid). But Dolley could not expect to remain a spinster forever, especially not once her family began to fall on hard times. John Payne's starch manufacturing business had never taken off and finally failed in 1789. He then decided to put the money saved from the sale of the Virginia farm into speculative land investments but soon lost this money as well. Payne suddenly found that his family was "reduced to poverty", although the biggest blow of all was when he found himself ostracized from Quaker meetings for his poor financial management.

Distraught and desperate, John Payne arranged for Dolley to marry John Todd, a young lawyer and a Quaker. Dolley accepted – whether there was any love between her and Todd, or whether she was just playing the dutiful daughter, is unknown. In any case, they were married in January 1790, although the Paynes were unable to provide a dowry. John Payne lived long enough to see his daughter married off before dying in October 1792, having never recovered from the stresses of his failures. In the shadow of her father's death, Dolley Payne Todd gave birth to two children of her own: her oldest son, John Payne Todd (called Payne) was born on 29 February 1792, while a second son, William Todd, was born on 4 July 1793. As Dolley was settling into her new life as a mother, little could she have known that it all would soon be upended by death and tragedy.

#History #DolleyMadison #FirstLady #JamesMadison

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historia-vitae-magistras · 1 year ago

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Christmas fic please?

☺️

The Blue Hour This is somewhat of a sequel to my other 18th-century fics 'When the Heart is Full the Tongue Will Speak" and "The Prison Ship," but it also stands alone. Valley Forge was arguably the worst winter of the war. Alfred's having a bad time. Matt tries to help. He has something for Alfred. This was supposed to be longer, but I had to say fuck it and put it in the queue, or it wasn't happening, so I'm so sorry for inflicting it on you. Apple pie reference is from the HC that Alfred's pie recipe comes from a nice Pennsylvania Quaker lady who took him in in the late 17th century when he was little after the Massachusetts witch crazes. This isn't a happy fic, but it is deeply loving. Also on ao3

Valley Forge, Christmas 1777

Alfred’s legs didn’t feel quite real as he approached the clearing. It was silent here. No animals. No people, either. Even the last chickadees, so faithful through the winter, had disappeared behind him as the previous winter sun faded from a depressing grey to pitch dark. He was a bit numb and more paranoid as he rounded a copse of trees and found himself staring at a pristine clearing. He recognized this house, grey stone with a heavy slate roof. There was no glass in the windows, but cheery, flickering firelight escaped through whatever slight cracks there were in the shutters. He hefted his rifle, bayonet attached, closer and approached, wary. The forest held its breath, and the fire crackling became louder as he approached. There was smoke from the chimney but no shadows of movement inside. He gripped his rifle. He should go home to his haphazard tar paper and log shack, but it was dark now, and Valley Forge was 30 miles behind.

He pushed open the door with a bang, rifle to his shoulder, and heard a surprised shout. A figure twisted, axe in hand, poised to hook it into Alfred’s neck and remove an arm at the shoulder like a branch from a trunk. Then, a note of laughter, and he was embraced.

Warmth hit him. First, Matt’s entire body was warm, and his clothes were fire-toasty. Then the smell of roasting meat floated, so solid it was almost visible, into his senses. Then, dizziness. Dizziness struck like a blow to the head. Alfred might have passed out on the floor if Matt hadn’t already had his arms around him.

Matt squeezed with more strength than Alfred had ever known his baby brother to have. The rifle was tugged from his hands, and he was suddenly sitting, sodden clothes and boots pulled off, feet stretched towards the fire. He might have vomited if he wasn’t so hallowed out. Matt was gone for only a moment, but Alfred grabbed a hold of him as soon as he was back.

“Have you changed your mind?” He grasped Matt’s sleeve with a shaking hand. “Did you come to your senses?”

“Have you?” Matt said, derisive even as he pressed a mug into Alfred’s hands. “Drink that, and the world will stop spinning.”

“Matthew---” He didn’t let go of Matt’s sleeve. “You haven’t come to—.”

“Bend the knee?” Matthew’s eyes flashed, and Alfred was all too aware of the axe on his belt and the rifle against the wall. “No. I’m not.”

“What are you doing here then?” He let Matt go and sipped on the contents of the mug—broth, salty and rich beyond belief. Matt was right. The world did stop spinning.

“It’s Christmas.”

“Is it?”

“It is,” Matt said with a watery smile. “I take it you got my note.”

“Pie at sundown,” Alfred recalled. “I got it. I could hardly believed you remembered that.”

“First apple pie you ever made me. I’ll remember it til the sun goes dark.” Matt was before him with a blanket and a stack of clothes. “Finish drinking that, put these on and then we’ll talk.”

They were his own clothes, what he’d left in the chest of drawers in Boston after he’d slipped his guards and disappeared across the border and into Quebec. He wanted to toss them back. They were the clothes of a crown subject, a boy with a British boot on his neck. Not the free man he wanted to be. That he was, but he hadn’t had a fresh shirt since his baby brother had dragged his corpse out of his shallow grave on the Hudson. He could wash it as often as he liked, but the linen was still wearing thin. His former things were practically new, the linen fresh and clean, the wool still warm. Alfred ran a hand over the fabric, still so chilled he hardly considered his pride as Matt turned away to tend to the bird slowly roasting over the fire and dressed. He glanced over his shoulder when Alfred slipped the shirt over his head. There hadn’t been a mirror to look at himself in months, and he didn’t want to. He knew his ribs were stark; he could feel them. Matt looked that kind of devastated that, if he hadn’t turned away, might have made Alfred cry.

“Have you had a decent meal since I saw you?” He didn’t look over his shoulder again until the shirt was over his head, and he’d buttoned the blue waistcoat over his chest. Everything was so ill-fitting now.

Alfred ignored him. “Does Father know you’re here?”

Matthew snorted. “It’s Christmas; he’s so deep into the officer’s nog when I left he won’t realize I’ve gone unless I’m not there for epiphany morning with tea going. So I shot a turkey and pissed off south to find you. Looks like its a good thing I did too.”

“I’m fine.” Alfred scowled. “There’s a camp of thousands of men 2 miles from here with nothing but rice and vinegar for Christmas dinner. Next to them, I’m all right.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said, and it damn well looked like he meant it, narrow shoulders bowed as he sat heavily onto one of the overturned logs he obviously meant to use as a kitchen chair for the occasion.

“You could feed a lot of people if you stayed. You’re a good hunter.”

“Don’t,” Matt said. “We’ve had this conversation. Look at you. You know I wouldn’t survive another war like this. You’re kissed by God himself and you look like death.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Rice and vinegar, eh? Yeah well. Try some turkey and see if it compares.”

“Why do you keep coming to see me if you won’t pick a side, Matt? You’re committing treason and you know it.”

“You’re my brother.”

His shrug was simple, unemotional. The sky was up, the Earth was down, the snow was cold, and Matt would haul and shoot a turkey and walk four days just to sneak him a decent meal. He teared up. Maybe it was the cold, the deprivation or just how much he missed home and heart and heart. Throat working, shoulders shaking even if he wasn’t crying, he grabbed Matt by the shoulders and squeezed for a third time, kissing him on the forehead about a dozen times and just feeling something so desperately affectionate he had to ride it out like dizziness.

“I missed you.” He said.

“You too.” Matt had clamped himself around Alfred, playing as if he just held on; he wouldn’t feel how much weight he’d dropped since summer. After a long moment, he made Alfred sit on one of the logs and tossed the rucksack while he struck flint and steel and put tinder to kindling. “Have you been sick? You look terrible,”

“Everyone is.” He said. There was no point in hiding it. “You know what it’s like. A moving army is a healthy army. A camped army is a sick army.”

“Why do you think I like the woods so much? I could run from the British as easily as from the typhus.”

“Yeah, well, they’re my people. I can’t leave them.”

“Do you have scurvy yet?”

“Gettering there.” He poked his tongue at his teeth. He had all of them, but he was always so tired. It couldn’t be far away.

Matt pivoted and took an orange in each hand, shoving them at Alfred. “Father... he’s in the habit of buying two.”

“I can’t take these!”

“Think of them as reparations.”

“Won’t you get scurvy?’

“I get lime juice twice a day. Just take anything you want out of my pack and eat it. Take the rest tomorrow. I’ll get a rabbit on my way back if I get hungry.”

“Why do you have to go back?”

“Stop asking me that. Pick something for me to make out of what’s in there, all right? Anything you want tonight, and you can take the rest tomorrow.”

“I want you to stay.”

Matt leaned against the wall by the hearth, arms crossed. “And I don’t want to die. So stop asking. That’s the agreement. Stay alive. Not stay with you.”

“You should be my right hand. It should be me and you against the world.”

“You’re the one fighting with the world, Alfred. I already have. I lost. Pick a vegetable, eat an orange, have some wine and stop trying to sentence me to death because you’re lonely again.”

He was tearing up, and so was Alfred. They looked away from each other, and Alfred went to the pack.

He opened food like he had once opened pewter inkwells at the apothecaries, looking for the blue ink he liked better than the quickly fading walnut; there were cranberries, potatoes, apples, stalks of celery, onions, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, honey cakes, tea, coffee, a jug of wassail and a smaller bottle of Madeira. Smaller quantities of sugar, flour, oats, rice, raisins and rye. There were more of his clothes that he hadn’t taken when he’d fled Boston nearly two years prior. And under all that, a length of blue cloth with shining brass buttons.

“Mattie.... What is that coat?”

His brother froze. He’d been dragging his knife down the side of the roasted bird and onto a rough-hewn platter. For one long moment, Alfred thought he might burst into tears.

“It’s for you.” He said.

“Whe did you get it?”

“General Montcalm.” He said. “It was too big so I hid it under the floorboards. Thought I’d wear it too the victory parade someday. It’s... it’s your colour now, isn’t it?”

“It— Yeah it is.”

“I hope its luckier for you than it was for me.” He said quietly. “I hope Lord Bonnefoy is better to you too.”

“Mattie.” Alfred said quietly.

Matt was standing there, eyes shut against tears, until he looked up at Alfred with those same big, hopeful eyes he’d always had before all this. Full of all the softness and warmth of Canada that may not have existed elsewhere that winter. Words stuck in his throat, and suddenly, so homesick he wanted to burst, Alfred opened his arms. Matt gave up on carving the bird, put down the plate, and allowed Alfred to pull him in again. If Matt had grown, it was only a little, and Alfred could still easily rest his cheek on Matt’s crown, which he did for a long moment.

“Thank you.” He said.

“It was meant for you,” Matt replied. “You’re... tall and capable like that. It will fit you, even when you fill it out again.”

“You’ll grow.” Alfred said. “Someday. And then we'll be fine."

Someday.

#hws america #hws canada #na bros #my writing || cacoethes scribendi #the ask box || probis pateo #alfred and matt || lonely boys with the longest borders #matthew || my country is winter #alfred || o beautiful for spacious skies

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