Gracefully Insane (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Alex Beam
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: History, psychology, and science
- Time of Work: 1817-1999
- Setting: Belmont, Massachusetts
- Principal Characters: William Folsom, Sigmund Freud, Horace Frink, William James, Susanna Kaysen, Carl Liebman, Robert Lowell, Stanley McCormick, Frederick Law Olmsted, Walter Paton, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Louis Agassiz Shaw II, James, Kate, Livingston Taylor, Franklin Wood
- Genres: Nonfiction, History, Science and technology, Psychology
- Subjects: Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Twentieth century, Psychology or psychologists, Nineteenth century, Doctors, New England, Mental illness, Upper classes, Medicine, Nursing or nurses, Eccentrics or eccentricities, Medical ethics, Hospitals, Psychoanalysis or psychoanalysts, Mental institutions, hospitals or asylums, Psychiatry or psychiatrists, Psychotherapy or psychotherapists, Massachusetts, Patients
- Locales: Massachusetts
Newspaper columnist Alex Beam spent years gathering material for Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America’s Premier Mental Hospital, initially planning to compile an oral history of McLean Hospital from interviews with past and current doctors, patients, and nurses associated with McLean. Beam saw the Belmont, Massachusetts, hospital’s history as a reflection of Boston’s history and culture. Established in the late nineteenth century a few miles outside Boston, several of McLean’s original buildings were named after wealthy Bostonians, and many prominent figures in...
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