St. Elizabeths Asylum: Civil War Care at the Government Hospital for the Insane

Founded in 1852, St. Elizabeths Hospital was the nation’s first federally-funded psychiatric facility. The “Government Hospital for the Insane” in Washington, D.C., quickly transformed into a trauma center for wounded and convalescing soldiers when the Civil War broke-out a decade later. Join Historian Madeline Feierstein as she analyzes the hospital’s reception of Union, Confederate, and African American troops, as well as their conditions upon admission. As the only Federal mental health complex during the Civil War, St. Elizabeths helped define treatment options for those afflicted with the modern diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Feierstein will explore medical treatments in wartime Washington, D.C. and, through an inclusion of primary sources and personal narratives, the impact on psychiatric care and veterans in the postbellum years.