National Committee for Mental Hygiene Records, 1907 - 1975

Summary

Creator:
National Committee for Mental Hygiene
Abstract:
This collection contains records from the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. The collection has 8 series: Clifford Beers Personal and Addresses; Minutes, Annual Meetings, and Administration; Correspondence with Individuals; Subject Files; State Societies; Survey for Directory of Psychiatric Clinics in the U.S.; Psychiatric Education; and Publications.
Extent:
30 boxes 12.31 linear feet
Language:
English

Background

Scope and content:

The National Committee for Mental Hygiene records have been arranged into eight series. The collection spans the years 1909-1966, and the bulk of the material covers the 1920's and 1930's. Many of the series have been arranged chronologically or alphabetically.

Clifford Beers Personal and Addresses: This series consists of texts of addresses Beers delivered regarding various aspects of the mental hygiene movement, especially its early days, in addition to essays written about him, letters of introduction, and information about Clifford Beers' father.

Minutes, Annual Meetings, and Administration: contains minutes, meeting programs, related material for annual meetings of the National Committee, and administrative documents. However, only meetings from scattered years, primarily 1915 to 1923, are fully represented.

Correspondence with Individuals: contains many letters written by Clifford Beers soliciting donations from the well-to-do and philanthropies for support of the National Committee. Mr. Beers sought funds in his capacity as Secretary. Beers also discusses some of his paintings. Correspondents include officers of the National Committee such as Dr. Clarence M. Hincks (General Director) and Thomas Salmon (Medical Director). Other correspondents in this series include Dr. William James, Dr. Nolan Lewis (Director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital), Dr. Adolf Meyer, Dr. Hopson Owen Murfee (Secretary of the Alabama Citizens' Committee), Dr. Arthur H. Ruggles (Superintendent of Butler Hospital), Dr. Bernard Sachs, and Dr. William A. White (Superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital). Various issues of mental hygiene and the National Committee are discussed. Each folder in the general correspondence contains letters from several psychiatrists, including Dr. Frankwood Williams and Dr. Walter B. James, as well as letters from foundations and financial material. The general correspondence files are concerned mainly with financial matters, principally regarding the Rockefeller Foundation. Reports and related material are also contained within this series.

Subject Files: contain a variety of information about both the National Committee and topics of interest to it. This series includes activity reports, records and reports pertaining to delinquency, mental hygiene exhibits, International Committee for Mental Hygiene, a kindergarten project, laws and legislation, history of the mental hygiene movement, merger to form the National Association for Mental Health, newsletters and press releases, and Thomas W. Salmon Memorial and surveys.

State Societies: refer to the many state mental hygiene organizations that worked with the National Committee to achieve its goals. The files are composed of correspondence, programs, reports, publications, and related material regarding their local activities, along with lantern slides of scenes from state hospitals.

Survey for Directory of Psychiatric Clinics in the U.S.: This series contains records that were used to create a directory of psychiatric clinics in the U.S. in 1939.

Psychiatric Education: consists of minutes and proceedings of the National Committee's Advisory Committee of the Division of Psychiatric Education, proceedings of annual conferences on psychiatric education, reports on training of psychiatrists in mental hospitals, and other reports of a similar nature.

Publications: consist of the serial "The Synergist" described as a medium of integration and interchange for child guidance clinics issued bimonthly by the Division on Community Clinics of the National Committee, 1928-1947. In addition to "The Synergist" this series is comprised of unsorted reprints of the National Committee about wide ranging topics.

Biographical / historical:

The founding and history of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene is inexorably linked to Clifford Beers. In 1900, three years after graduating from Yale University, Beers broke down emotionally, attempted to commit suicide, and was admitted to an institution for the insane in a state of almost complete mental confusion. He suffered from acute delusions of persecution. After three years in various mental institutions, he was released. Beers was determined to secure reform for the patients who suffered violence and cruelty. Towards this goal, he began writing his autobiography, A Mind that Found Itself, in which he describes his experiences in these institutions. This book enabled Beers to meet and win the support of many influential people, including Dr. Adolf Meyer. They gave Beers approval for the creation of a National Committee for Mental Hygiene. It was thought wiser, however, to begin first, as an experiment, on a smaller scale. Thus, in 1908, the Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene was formally organized to help prevent mental illness, to help raise the standards of care for sufferers of mental disease, and to educate people and work with government and private agencies. The following year, in 1909, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene was founded. Beers is thus considered the founder of the mental hygiene movement. Clifford Beers became the Secretary and remained in that position until his retirement in 1939, when he was made Honorary Secretary.

The National Committee for Mental Hygiene was a voluntary association of physicians, psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists, educators, judges, lawyers, clergymen, social and civic workers, businessmen and others interested in the conservation of mental health and the reduction and prevention of mental and nervous disorders. It was incorporated in 1916 and dependent upon voluntary contributions for its support. In the beginning, its programs dealt largely with the improvement of conditions among the insane and through its surveys and studies, at the invitations of governors, state legislatures and other official bodies responsible for the care of the insane, the Committee helped to eliminate abuses, abolish jail and almshouse custody and mechanical restraints, and raise standards of care and treatment in institutions, so that insane asylums became mental hospitals.

Other results were the passage of legislative appropriations for the extension of existing institutional facilities and the establishment of new institutions to provide hospital care for neglected people, the rewriting of state laws requiring humane legal procedures for hospitalization and, in general, the substitution of a medical point of view, which has at heart the welfare of the mentally ill for the legal point of view, concerned mainly with social security and comfort. The National Committee also approached the problem of the feebleminded and by means of surveys and studies promoted the adoption, in whole or in part, of state programs calling for the identification and registration of the feebleminded, the provision of institutional care, special care, special training in the public schools, and community supervision to enable them to lead social and useful lives.

In later years, the National Committee's work took on a more preventive character. Activities were undertaken and studies engaged in dealing with the mental factors involved in various medical, legal, industrial, educational, social and other problems related to the broad field of human behavior, on the theory that mental illness was linked to a great deal of social and individual misery. In line with this view, the National Committee sought to bring greater attention on the part of the medical profession to the problem of mental disease, as well as the mental side of physical diseases. In addition, courts, penal, and correctional institutions were educated regarding the importance of considering the mental condition of offenders against the social order, and employers were taught to regard the mental, emotional, and personality elements entering into the problem of work efficiency. Teachers and parents were made aware of instinctive and emotional as well as intellectual factors in the training of children.

During World War I, the National Committee helped mobilize the neuro¬psychiatrists of the country and increase the machinery for detecting and eliminating active and potential mental and nervous cases among the recruits. This work and the establishment of a neuropsychiatric service organization abroad helped to keep the number of shell shock and other mental and nervous cases to a minimum and contributed effectively to the conservation of manpower and to fighting efficiency and morale.

Work of the National Committee encompassed the establishment and promotion of child guidance and other mental hygiene clinics, hospital advisory work, statistical studies, legislative surveys, the development of trained- personnel, research, and educational and other activities conducted in cooperation with national and local agencies and organizations. The National Committee published pamphlets and booklets dealing with the subject of mental hygiene in all its ramifications. In about 1950 a new organization was formed which incorporated the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, the National Mental Health Foundation (also founded by Beers), and the Psychiatric Foundation. This new organization was called the National Association for Mental Health. In 1980 the name again was changed; it was then known as the National Mental Health Association. The purposes and functions of the organization modified over the years, but the scope of the collection is almost exclusively concerned with the National Committee for Mental Hygiene era.

Acquisition information:
Nearly all the records of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene were donated by the National Association for Mental Health via the office of Mr. Richard C. Hunter in 1976. Some papers were received in 1982. In addition, Miss Emily Martin donated a few items in 1970 as did Dr. Helen P. Langner in 1980. Related collections include the Emily Martin Papers, Thomas Salmon Papers, Frankwood Williams Papers, and Norman Dain Papers. Yale University also has material relating to Clifford Beers.

Access and use

Restrictions:

This collection is open for research.

Terms of access:

Written permission must be obtained from the Oskar Diethelm Library and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Location of this collection:
DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy and the Arts
Weill Cornell Medical College
525 East 68th Street, Box 140
New York, NY 10065, United States
Link to repository site
Contact:
212-746-3728