Book Description

During its 1874-1875 session, the North Carolina General Assembly founded two new public asylums to address overcrowding in its only mental health care facility in Raleigh (Dorothea Dix Hospital). The first, in Morganton (Broughton Hospital), was intended to serve the white citizens of the state in addition to the Raleigh hospital. The second new facility in Goldsboro (Cherry Hospital) was intended to serve all the African American mentally ill of the state. This thesis explores the creation of this asylum system from the opening of the Raleigh facility in 1856 to the deaths of superintendents Patrick Murphy (Morganton), and J. F. Miller (Goldsboro). It examines the contradictions in the founding and running of the Goldsboro asylum. North Carolina differed from southern states such as South Carolina by creating a separate facility for African Americans, as had been pioneered by Virginia and Tennessee. This thesis argues that while the North Carolina General Assembly passed the act that founded the asylum, the lack of support and funding they provided prevented the asylum's ability to offer the same quality of care its white counterparts could provide to theirs. The General Assembly prioritized the all-white Morganton and Raleigh asylums over its only African American mental health care facility from its beginnings because of the race and the triumph of Jim Crow.