Crownsville Hospital in Anne Arundel County was Maryland's infamous segregated mental health asylum, and the only such facility available to Black people in Maryland between 1911 and desegregation in the 1960s.

A new book by NBC and MSNBC journalist Antonia Hylton traces the history of Crownsville Hospital, the struggles and triumphs of its patients, the lives of its staff and medical personnel and what this singular institution tells us about mental illness, racism and community in America. Along the way, Hylton grapples with her own family’s experiences with mental illness, and the shame that blossomed in secrecy and darkness for generations.

The book is called “Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum.”

Crownsville Hospital in Anne Arundel County was Maryland's infamous segregated mental health asylum, and the only such facility available to Black people in Maryland between 1911 and desegregation in the 1960s.
A new book by NBC and MSNBC journalist Antonia Hylton traces the history of Crownsville Hospital, the struggles and triumphs of its patients, the lives of its staff and medical personnel and what this singular institution tells us about mental illness, racism and community in America. Along the way, Hylton grapples with her own family’s experiences with mental illness, and the shame that blossomed in secrecy and darkness for generations.
The book is called “<a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/antonia-hylton/madness/9781538723692/">Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum</a>.”

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Catch On the Record, hosted by Sheilah Kast, weekdays from 9:30 to 10:00 am, following NPR's Morning Edition. We'll discuss the issues that affect your life and bring you thoughtful and lively conversations with the people who shape those issues -- business people, public officials, scholars, artists, authors, WYPR reporters and other journalists who can take us inside the story. If you want to share a comment, question, or an idea for an interview you'd like to hear, email us at ontherecord@wypr.org

Catch On the Record, hosted by Sheilah Kast, weekdays from 9:30 to 10:00 am, following NPR's Morning Edition. We'll discuss the issues that affect your life and bring you thoughtful and lively conversations with the people who shape those issues -- business people, public officials, scholars, artists, authors, WYPR reporters and other journalists who can take us inside the story. If you want to share a comment, question, or an idea for an interview you'd like to hear, email us at <a href="mailto:ontherecord@wypr.org">ontherecord@wypr.org</a>

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