The National Library of Medicine (NLM) digital exhibit, Care & Custody: Past Responses to Mental Health helps visitors explore mental health care in America from the nineteenth century to the present day. Originally intended as an auxiliary website to a traveling exhibit by guest-curator Anne E. Parsons, from the department of history at UNC Greensboro, the online exhibit has launched ahead of the in-person exhibit due to the ongoing pandemic. The in-person exhibit will feature six large panels, each exploring a different theme as it traces shifting debates about the role of institutions, communities, medicine, and the state in the history of mental health care.3 The digital exhibit supports this exploration and provides convenient access to digitized primary sources that will help researchers and students examine this past through materials in the NLM’s collection.
The opening text on the exhibit home page mirrors the opening panel of the in-person...
University of California Press