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Home Sweet Home: Domesticity In English And Scottish Insane Asylums, 1890-1914, Vesna Curlic

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis considers the implementation of domestic aesthetics and activities in the insane asylum at the end of the nineteenth century. Doctors sought to bring elements of the Victorian home into the asylum as part of a modern, humane regime of mental healthcare, which I call “institutional domesticity.” I argue that this process was fraught with challenges. While implementation of domesticity was relatively successful in regard to asylum activities, like labour and employment, domesticity reached its limitations in the physical asylum space. Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates the ways in which all asylum actors, including patients, staff, community members, and the …