Patrick Livingston Murphy: A Glimpse into An Innovative, Yet Largely Forgotten North Carolinian Mental Healthcare Pioneer

Undergraduate: Mary Glenn Krause

Faculty Advisor: Dale Hutchinson
Department: Anthropology

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Mental health was and continues to be a greatly misunderstood area of healthcare, especially here in the North Carolina. Yet, for a brief period around the turn of the twentieth century, psychiatrists and other mental healthcare workers advocated for innovative and surprisingly contemporary treatments that would not reemerge until arguably the mid-1990s. Patrick Livingston Murphy (1848-1907), the superintendent during this period at the Western North Carolina Asylum for the Insane in Morganton, was an especially complimentary advocate and practitioner of this largely unstudied historical trend in our state's history. By studying his publications, speeches, diaries and private letters, I will explore just what kind of changes made Dr. Murphy's rehabilitation programs so successful, and perhaps what knowledge today's clinicians may glean from his hard work.