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In the 19th and 20th centuries, reformers in the United States and Europe built asylums in response to a range of social issues including disability - mental health, and alcoholism. These documents and images from the NLM Digital Collections bring to life the day to day experiences of people at these sites: the conditions of the asylums and the limits on liberty that many people in them experienced.

Illustration of a seated crown at tables surrounding a stage where one standing figure holds up slips of paper and another sits behind at a table

“Senate Scene in Springfield, Illinois” from Modern Persecution; or, Insane Asylums Unveiled, Elizabeth P.W. Packard, 1873, reprinted 1973

Courtesy National Library of Medicine

Elizabeth Packard, an author who herself had been wrongfully committed, lobbied the Illinois legislature about the rights of patients in asylums. As a result, the state passed a law requiring that people have a public hearing before being committed to a hospital.

Packard campaigned nationwide for that reform and for the legal protection of people in asylums.