'As syllable from sound': the sonic dimensions of confinement at the State Hospital for the Insane at Worcester, Massachusetts. Issue 1 (March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bourque Kearin, Madeline
• Is Part Of: History of psychiatry. Volume 31:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 67
• Page End: 82
• Publication Date: 2020-03
• Subjects: Asylums -- Massachusetts -- sound -- Worcester State Hospital -- 19th century; Psychiatry -- History -- Periodicals; Mental illness -- History -- Periodicals; 616.89009
• DOI: 10.1177/0957154X19879649
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0957-154X

Abstract

As the first state hospital in the USA, the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane at Worcester, Massachusetts (est. 1833), set a precedent for asylum design and administration that would be replicated across the country. Because the senses were believed to provide a direct conduit into a person's mental state, the intended therapeutic force of the Worcester State Hospital resided in its particular command over sensory experience. In this paper, I examine how aurality was used as an instrument in the moral architecture of the asylum; how the sonic design of the asylum collided with the day-to-day logistics of institutional management; and the way that patients experienced and engaged with the resultant patterns of sound and silence.