Asylums, Treatment Centers, and Genetic Jails: A History of State Hospitals, Early Psychiatric Treatment, and Mental Health in Minnesota

In a time when those who were labeled “feeble-minded” and “defective” were locked away and forgotten by their relatives, when patients could be sterilized against their will, and treatments included inducing insulin shock and restraining patients by any means possible, state hospitals in Minnesota proliferated. Sometimes patients were released relatively unscathed, but many times, they lived out the rest of their lives in deplorable, unsanitary conditions. Michael Resman, a former occupational therapist for the Rochester State Hospital, brings these facts and more to light, in order that we might not forget our past.