Writing Mad Lives in the Age of the Asylum

Writing Mad Lives in the Age of the Asylum describes a history of madness and the asylum by focusing on the inmates who published pamphlets, memorials, memoirs, and newspaper and magazine articles about their experiences. Michael Rembis draws from these sources, as well as their letters, public speeches, and testimonies before state legislatures and the US Congress to demonstrate how the stories they told influenced popular, legal, and medical conceptualizations of madness and the asylum at a time when most Americans seemed to be groping toward a more modern understanding of the many different forms of "insanity."