Picturing the Institution of Social Death: Visual Rhetorics of Postwar Asylum Expos é Photography

AbstractThis paper examines how photography shaped the American public ’s perception of psychiatric hospitals during the immediate post-WWII period. I will analyze photographs that appeared in popular exposé articles of that period and that used photography as a visual aid for disclosing the poor conditions of state hospitals, intending to promote reform efforts foc used on turning antiquated asylums into modern hospitals. Existing scholarship has mentioned how these photographs had a significant influence on shaping the public’s view of asylum conditions. Through a close examination of these photographs, I will argue that they often contained unintentional m essages which stigmatized disabled people.
Source: Journal of Medical Humanities - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research