Pueblo Mental Hospital Deaccessioning.

     

      The Colorado State Hospital was founded in the 1890s and was the only hospital in Colorado for the mentally ill for much of its existence. After the historic wing closed down a museum was established on the former hospital grounds. Its museum has two distinct parts. A section dedicated to the history of the grounds that contains maps, photographs, and other times to help tell the tale of the hospitals existence. The other section exists as a sort of shrine to the hospitals superintendents that has little to do with the history of the hospital, and much to do with the personal lives of Frank Zimmerman, Dr. A.P. Busey, and DR. H. A. LaMoure and who destroyed the lives of many those in their care. 

     Dr. Zimmerman and those before him were all firm believers in eugenics. They illegally facilitated and participated in the forced sterilization of women who were in their care. Forced sterilization in Colorado was never legalized despite a successful attempt by the state legislature to make it legal, it was vetoed by the Colorado's governor in 1927. Zimmerman petitioned the state Attorney General for permission to carry out the procedure 27 times before he got a response. Attorney General Boatwright wrote back to Zimmerman in 1928, "it is my opinion that there is no authority at the present time for preforming such operations. I suggest that if you are sufficiently interested in the legislation governing the matter you should sponsor a movement similar to that of two years ago." 

    Regardless, Zimmerman and his staff carried out sterilizations against their wards. One such woman was Lucille, a Pueblo native, who had a troubled childhood in a crowded home. Lucille was given an IQ test at the age of 10, and scored poorly, though later in life she earned an average score. When she was 17, Dr. Zimmerman used this as a pretense to preform a hysterectomy on the girl, and permanently ending any hopes she had of building a family. Lucille eventually sued the state in 1964 and lost, inflicting further pain. In her testimony, Lucille stated, "What they did to me was sexual murder... I'm just a like a female spayed animal. They made me half a woman. They took my heart and left a stone..."

     This museum represents all that was wrong with mental health care and in some parts of the world, still is. It is a shrine to evil men who abused their power over the mentally ill and the poor who ended up in their care. The museum focuses on framing the Dr Zimmerman, Busey, and LaMoure, as their great founders.  I propose that the Colorado State Hospital Museum deaccession all of the personal affects of Zimmerman and the other superintendents who imposed their pseudoscience on the Colorado's most vulnerable citizens, though who might purchase these items is another question. 

     The museum does not even need to replace those items with new ones, instead, they could make an informative section that highlights the great strides that mental health care have been made in the United States. Now, there are many examples of good exhibits dedicated to the mental health care that would make for a museum with much more appropriate content. The National Museum of Mental Health provides a list of good examples from across the country that the Colorado State Hospital Museum could model itself after. As it is, the museum is not financially sound, so any change has the chance to improve its position. Bringing the museum in line with modern mental health practices and explaining the historical and current impact of eugenics, instead of a shrine to the days of overcrowded and abusive asylums, could have a positive effect on patronage and its relationship to the community. 

https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/CO/CO.html 

Bruinius, Harry. Better for All the World : The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 2006.

 

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Mental_Health_Institute_at_Pueblo (side note, I wrote the first iteration of this Wikipedia page, though it seems someone added a section on the founder since then).