Mental Health and Care of Black Patients Merge in New Book About Crownsville Hospital

Crownsville Hospital, which was once known as the “Hospital for the Negro Insane of Maryland,” consists of more than abandoned buildings, weathered tombstones etched with numbers and a campus that has been the subject of grim stories that unfolded in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. 

According to Maryland State Archives, “The hospital operated as a segregated institution until 1963, caring for the majority of Black patients within the State.”

The state psychiatric hospital which closed in 2004 is a piece of history worthy of in-depth documenting. Award-winning journalist and author Antonia Hylton accepted the challenge.

“I first focused on Crownsville as my senior thesis at Harvard [University],” Hylton recalls, reflecting on her time as a college student.

During a long process, she researched Crownsville Hospital, a segregated asylum. Local historian Janice Hayes-Williams and various former Crownsville employees are among the  people who know about it up close. The budding author built trust. People opened new doors for her. And now, Hylton bravely takes readers behind the walls of the 93-year-old history of Crownsville on paper,  while telling a true story. “MADNESS: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum” is Hylton’s highly anticipated book. It will be on sale January 23, 2024. 

“I found out about Crownsville more than 10 years ago. Access to psychiatry has always looked different for Black Americans. I knew that just from my own family stories. And so, I really wanted to learn more,” Hylton said. “I came across a footnote that mentioned Crownsville and I started researching.”

As Hylton dug deeper, she trekked to the site of Crownsville Hospital when she was 18 or 19 years old. She also met some former employees who kept records in their own homes that she accessed, in addition to archived records. Hylton graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where she received prizes for her investigative research on race, mass incarceration and the history of psychiatry. Even after she graduated from Harvard, she did not abandon the burning fire to know more about Crownsville.

She added, “It pretty quickly became clear to me that there was more to be done here, whether that was a book or a documentary or something.”

Although some former patients wanted to rebuild their lives and focus on something different, other people were eager to talk and believed history had to be told. 

“The American healthcare system is a reflection of our history and our culture,” according to Hylton.

Hylton felt that Black people wanted to talk about mental health, trauma and their history around 2020. Protests, cries for justice all over the United States, and the world shutting down because of COVID-19 were some of the reasons she felt that way. 

Hylton successfully pitched the story she explored to Hachette, a leading publisher. By late 2020 or 2021, she realized that she had the responsibility to carry a special story to the finish line.  

“This is a story about the way in which racism, and discrimination, and seeing Black people as different helped and was part of the founding of our mental health care system in the United States. And also, part of its dismantling, it’s unraveling. Black people played a critical role in the shaping, and in the beliefs of doctors and psychiatrists and therapists. That hasn’t been covered. That hasn’t been told yet,” Hylton said.

She remarked that white patients in Maryland were able to just step foot into much better resourced hospitals. But according to her research, Crownsville is the only hospital in America that forced its own patients to build it from the ground up.

“The first leader of the hospital brought Black men into a forest. They weren’t just carrying some gear around and fetching water. They were clearing roads, moving railways, constructing a foundation, building, working side by side with contractors and electricians. They were building themselves a hospital, day in and day out,” Hylton also explained, mentioning that unpaid labor permeated medicine.

Hylton’s local, book tour appearances include Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday, January 20, 2024 at 3 p.m. at ALA LibLearnX: The Library Learning Experience for library professionals. She will also appear at Jack and Nancy Center for the Performing Arts at Indian Creek School in conversation with Zinhle Essamuah on Friday, January 26, 2024 from 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., located at Anne Chambers Way in Crownsville, Maryland. Doors open at 6 p.m. Digital tickets are available now. The book is $30 and the seat ticket is free. Books will be signed for event guests. Preordering is recommended. Visit https://parkbooksmd.com/events/31763 for details. Additionally, an author talk will be held at Discoveries: the Library at the Mall, located at 2250 Annapolis Mall Road in Annapolis on Saturday, January 27, 2024 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. See https://www.aacpl.net/event/author-talk-antonia-hylton-144793. Books will be available for purchase.  You may learn more about Hylton via https://www.antoniahylton.com.