The Abandoned America thing was my idea to collect the histories and photographs of asylums (at first) into somewhere where they could be shared and heard. Both a literal and figurative descriptor of people and places left behind.
I've learned so much from so many people. So many stories of those who have lost jobs, health care, homes, communities. It's a job collecting and storing pain. I never stopped believing in its importance but it never stopped hurting. Every day in a new way.
You see the ship is going down. You tell yourself it's an important moment in time that people will wonder about for decades to come. You try to document it as best you can because what else is there to do.
You're still on the ship. The cold water is still rushing to greet you. You aren't able to make it to a lifeboat, you know that.
You just record the stories of those who are in the same position as best you can. Maybe some day someone else will find it and find it useful. That's the hope.
@artistwithouttalent @AbandonedAmerica Ok, now you got me going. Kaiser Family Foundation has a whole paper on the topic: https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/7684.pdf with a section on history.
I'm always going to push back against the concept of one heroic or villainous politician because that's how we wind up with Democratic presidents and Republican state judiciaries. Plus I think it's just plain wrong.
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@artistwithouttalent @AbandonedAmerica
« Governors and state legislatures were strongly motivated by cost concerns. State hospitals (despite appalling conditions) required a 300-percent increase in spending over a 10-year period, and were a substantial drain on state budgets. Yet deinstitutionalization initially progressed very slowly (by 1962 the resident population in institutions had fallen only to 505,000).»
@artistwithouttalent @AbandonedAmerica
Ok, that paper doesn't crisply prove my point (that Reagan wasn't the single villain, even in California), but I think it sort of does by showing that deinstitutionalization was a general trend. It does name both Carter and Reagan, but they both show up late in the game, really.
Plus, it's just plain interesting (and, yes, tragic).
Of all the American ruins, asylums are perhaps the most iconic - but how did so many come to be left to rot across the country? In this two part episode we'll cover the history of the American state hospital system with my guest, Matt Lambros, creator of the After the Final Curtain podcast and book series. How were individuals with mental illness treated before the asylums were built? What led to their foundation, which was so idealistic and progressive, and how did the ambitious plan to provide humane care go so wrong that the term asylum became synonymous with a house of horrors? Show Notes Support the Abandoned America podcast on Patreon Follow Matt Lambros' work on After the Final Curtain View more abandoned state hospitals on Abandoned America Intro/Outro music credit: Rival Consoles
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