Going "Mad" in Gold Country: Migrant Populations and the Problem of Containment in Pacific Mining Boom Regions
2011; University of California Press; Volume: 80; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1525/phr.2011.80.1.64
ISSN1533-8584
Autores Tópico(s)Historical and Scientific Studies
ResumoBased on archival research conducted in California, British Columbia, and eastern Australia, this essay examines the role of mobility in shaping the institutional experiences of individuals committed or arrested for insanity in the major Pacific mining boom regions of the nineteenth century. Through the transnational story of James "Scotty" Brown, a sailor who escaped from the California State Insane Asylum in time to join the 1858 American migration to the Fraser River goldfields in British Columbia, I demonstrate that instability and flux characterized not only the backgrounds of "mad" migrants, but also their frequent encounters with gold country asylums and jails. Specifically, I argue that these institutions often facilitated the mobility of the individuals that, in principle, they were constructed to "contain."
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