The Glore Psychiatric Museum: Gaslighting, Close to Home
By: Bob Ford
(Articles and Podcasts are complementary from those who are helping to preserve our history: Eagle Communications, Mastio and Anonymous Buffs.)
Gaslighting: “A form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self doubt and confusion in their victims mind. Seeking to gain control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and self-worth.”
It happened in my family.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s gaslighting was perfected by wealthy white men who wanted to separate from their wives, it was too scandalous to just get a divorce. It was far easier to get them committed to a mental institution, says Kami Jones of the Glore Psychiatric Museum. Just concoct a little mental problem at home like depression, uncleanness, or anti-social behavior and you’re in. Women didn’t stand a chance.
Think of the movie Gaslight, brilliantly acted by Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury brought gaslighting out in the open, but not much changed. It may have unfortunately given many desperate and depraved men ideas.
My Great Aunt Harriette Arnold was living the life. Daughter of famed Native American artifact collector Harry George, she had married Henry Arnold who was a Shell Oil executive in charge of developing the Caspian Sea oil fields. Those fields made Shell Oil. Hitler was after that Caspian Sea production and Romania's Ploiesti oil deposits when his army was stopped in 1943 at Stalingrad, turning the tide of WW II.
I’ve seen the pictures of Harriette, skiing in Innsbruck, lounging on the Riviera and yachting down the Danube in the 1920’s, she had it all! Then she got pregnant and came back to St. Joseph to have the baby. Harry Jr was born in her sister’s, my grandmother's house at 2820 Lovers Lane, the same house where my father was born.
Things quickly went downhill, who knew what was going on in Europe with her husband but Henry would come back periodically. My mother said Harriette was accused of “smothering her baby?” The child was fine but taken away by Henry, Harriette of course fiercely reacted,...into an asylum she went. Again from Kami Jones, “wear whatever clothes you want them buried in when they arrive, because they are not going to get better or go home!”
At the time the law was, if a spouse had been institutionalized for over one year a divorce could be granted without a hearing, how simple. Harriette, now divorced, had gone from frequenting the La Scala Opera House in Milano, Italy to an asylum in St. Joseph, Missouri in only a few years.
Nellie Bly was one of those important early 20th century women who challenged norms. She did many things but as a reporter for the New York World, got herself committed to a woman's insane asylum to report on the deplorable conditions. “If you weren’t crazy going in you would become so in a short amount of time.” Nellie’s book, “Ten Days in a Mad-House;” described torture, filth, tranquilization, rape, and malnutrition as the daily struggle in this inhuman place, much of it brought on because someone would not conform or a husband simply wanted out of a marriage.
If the patient continued to cause problems inside the institution soon there would be a new ultimate solution offered or ordered, a lobotomy. On the men's side of the house, think of the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Because of Nellie Bly and other high profile patients namely Rosemary Kennedy, JFK’s sister, laws began to change. In 1963 Kennedy got the Community Mental Health Act passed that led to the structured release of nearly half of the 600,000 citizens institutionalized in America.
My father, Jake Ford, was a good man. Prior to 1963, he got Aunt Harriette out. I’m sure it took a little money and a lot of influence but all of a sudden, as a kid, we had someone new showing up for family gatherings at holidays! She wasn’t right but after years “in,” who would be? Old, confused and very vulnerable but now she was part of the family. Her son came back once and promised to now always be in her life, he never returned. Harriotte lived out the rest of her days at the Robidoux Hotel, then a nursing home.
Gaslighting has evolved, but it's still about control. Divorce is painful but the social stigma is far less. We all know of couples where a degree of gaslighting is playing out, it continues to be about mental manipulation and dominance. The abuser and the victim are many times complicit but the effect their interactions have on their children keep therapists busy.
There’s more on mental health and the Glore Psychiatric Museum to come but go see Kami, take a tour and listen to our podcast at bobfordshistory.com. You will be shaking your head in disbelief hearing the stories she tells on what society and doctors thought was the best way to treat “sick” people. Come and learn but be prepared, as images you’ve never seen before just might keep you up at night.
This is a salute to the life of Harriette George Arnold and a tip of the hat to my father, Jake Ford.
