Dr. John P. Gray

Mothers today know they have a difficult job, but in the late 1800s some alienists believed maternity could cause insanity. They based this belief on the surprisingly sympathetic premise that the overwork, anxiety, and loss of sleep associated with caring for children could weaken the body–and consequently the mind–enough that a woman could no longer cope sanely with life. Dr. John P. Gray, superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum in Utica, New York gave an example:

In 1885, a woman with five children came to the asylum with symptoms Gray diagnosed as mania; she had lost her mental balance a few weeks after the youngest was born. The new mother “was incoherent, laughed to herself, expressed no interest or anxiety in her children, [and] wandered from one subject to another.” Her history showed that she had been vigorous and strong, but that she began doing her normal work two weeks after the birth of her last child.

Careworn Mother During the Great Depression, 1936, courtesy Library of Congress Photograph by Dorothea Lange

Unfortunately, four of her children got whooping-cough and then the baby, and this mother was kept awake and was up often at night, “and then for six weeks she was deprived largely of sleep, was anxious, worked constantly, and took little food . . .'” One day she felt strange in her heart and head, then her mind wandered, and “from that time lost self-direction and passed into insanity.”

Money Made a Difference in the Ability to Care for Children

Gray then vigorously took up the cause of mothers. “In all the range of human affairs there is no neglect, no wrong, no cruelty, that compares with the neglect and ignorance associated with motherhood.” He said that this neglect was both a direct cause, and sometimes an indirect cause, of insanity. ” Husbands, he said, must protect their wives and make some sacrifices, themselves, “to shield their wives from undue labor under any circumstances, and especially under such [impending motherhood] and with such a possible outcome.

Strong words for an era in which women could not even vote!