Childs, Rachel Christine

Description

Though the first graves of assumed-former asylum patients were discovered at the University of Mississippi Medical Center over 25 years ago, it wasnt until 2017 that the estimated body countwhich had been rising in reports for several yearsrose above 7,000. Along with national attention, the growing burial site has prompted large-scale efforts by a consortium of scientists and scholars to determine how best to utilize and memorialize the remains, and yet to date, a complete cultural study that explores the sociopolitical context which these people represent has yet to be published. Consisting primarily of archival material and interviews, my research seeks to connect these bodies to the history of the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum, with the hope ofin a practical sense creating a crucial repository of what is known of these peoples stories. In a scholarly sense, this work attempts to use a documentary lens to reveal intersections of race and lunacy in order to understand how southern institutions influenced notions of deviance and reinforced Jim Crow.

Record Contributed By

University of Mississippi Libraries