About the Exhibit

“Mental Health at Michigan” is part of Michigan in the World (MITW), a paid undergraduate internship program where students develop online public exhibitions about the history of the University of Michigan and its relationships with the wider world. MITW is coordinated by the  U-M History Department  in partnership with the  Bentley Historical Library  and the  College of Literature, Science, and the Arts . 

Sam Franz graduated from the University of Michigan in 2020 and now attends the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a PhD student studying the history and sociology of science. Sam is interested in the history of computing and the history of psychology, the latter of which drew him to the history of mental health at Michigan. His goal for this project was to demonstrate how histories of mental health involve factors much broader than individuals, despite the fact that these broad factors never quite entirely capture singular lives. Sam hopes that this project will complicate the stories that we typically tell about mental health. When he's not doing the history of science, Sam enjoys producing and listening to music and watching movies.

Dustin Gladstone is a rising senior from Cave Creek, Arizona. He is double majoring in History and American Culture. The history of gender and sexuality has been Dustin’s primary interest in his studies at Michigan. The intersection of mental health and LGBTQ identity motivated his participation in Michigan in the World, and researching Michigan’s past relationship with their intersections was his favorite part of the project. When he’s not researching, Dustin enjoys playing video games, tennis, and watching movies.

Brooke Reiter is from Birmingham, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan in May 2020. She majored in History and Women’s Studies with a minor in English. Brooke’s specific research interests include mass incarceration in the United States, woman’s autonomy in sexual health, and sex education in schools. She was drawn to this project because of both the topic and the opportunity to do archival research. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, teaching herself graphic design and spending time with her dog.

Estrella Salgado is a rising senior from Justice, Illinois. She is majoring in History (with a focus on the United States) and minoring in Museum Studies. Being a member of the Global Scholars Program during her sophomore year sparked her interest in international student affairs, and it was an honor to share the story of Cheng Guan Lim. She hopes that visitors will gain compassion for students who are going through mental health challenges. When Estrella is not busy working on a public history project, she is a docent at the U-M Museum of Natural History and welcomes first-year students through University Mentorship. She also serves on the Clements Library’s Development Committee and organizes student events at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Estrella is spending her senior year writing a thesis about the relationship between museums and retail.

Kia Schwert is a recent graduate from the University of Michigan. Born and raised in Traverse City, Michigan, Kia transferred to the university in fall 2017 from Northwestern Michigan Community College. Kia graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Women's Studies. Her senior honors thesis, “‘As violated by the school as by my rapist’: Sexual Violence, Title IX and Purity Culture on Religious College Campuses,” investigated how and why religious colleges seek religious exemptions to Title IX and the implications of those exemptions. Her experience researching university policies and procedures as they intersect with social issues such as mental health and sexual violence—along with her interest in producing public-facing research—led her to join Michigan in the World.

Cinda Nofziger, archivist for academic programs and outreach at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, manages a robust instructional program, collaborating with faculty to engage students. She holds a Master of Science in Information from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa.

Brian Williams is assistant director and archivist for university history at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library. He joined the Bentley Library as an assistant archivist in 1994 after working at the Oberlin College Archives. Williams earned his MILS from the University of Michigan in 1990 and studied history at Muskingum College and Hope College. He is currently leading the Bentley’s project to identify all of the African American students that attended the University of Michigan from its founding to 1970.

Alexander Clayton is a PhD student in History at the University of Michigan, researching the intersection of entertainment and natural science in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World. His research has addressed the construction of the human and animal mind, and he has relished the opportunity to explore the history of the student mind and its treatment in this project. Before coming to Michigan, Alexander spent several years as an assistant curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where he worked on various public humanities projects. When he is not rambling to others about the importance of animal history, Alexander can be found running, antiquing, and watching his beloved Norwich City Football Club lose.

Henry Cowles is a historian of modern science and medicine at the University of Michigan. His research and teaching focus on the sciences of mind and brain, evolutionary theory, and the experimental ideal in the United States and Great Britain. In addition to the History Department, he is affiliated with the Science, Technology, & Society Program and the Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History. His book, The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey, has just been published by Harvard University Press. Current projects include a study of the relationship between tools and theories in psychology and psychiatry since 1800 and a history of habit from the celebration of daily routine in Thoreau's Walden to the rise of “persuasive technologies" in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Gregory Parker manages the University of Michigan History Department’s public engagement efforts—including outreach, communications, and public history projects—and manages the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. He has worked on a variety of public history projects, including statewide reading initiatives, physical exhibit installations, and digital initiatives like this one. In fall 2020, Gregory taught History 294: The Practice of Public History. He is coeditor, with Howard Brick, of A New Insurgency: The Port Huron Statement and Its Times (Maize Books, 2015).

by Estrella Salgado

Many of the sources for this story can be found at the Ann Arbor District Library; Bentley Historical Library; University of Michigan Library; and the Council of Archives and History, Methodist Church in Singapore. Periodicals include the Michigan Daily, Michigan Alumnus, Ann Arbor News, Albion Pleiad, and LIFE. Other sources include:

• Alan Glenn, “Into thin air,” Michigan Today, February 18, 2013
• Fay Allen Kincaid (editor), Reba Robinson (church historian), The History of the First United Methodist Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1827-1990 (Ann Arbor: Archives and History Committee of the First United Methodist Church, 1990)
• Robert B. Klinger, “Moral Values Across Cultures,” Journal of Counseling and Development 41, #2 (October 1962)
• Robert B. Klinger, Jacqueline Klinger, The World at Our Door (Ann Arbor: J. Klinger, 2000)
• Living in Ann Arbor: Facts and Figures for International Neighbors (Ann Arbor: International Neighbors, 1963)
• Emilyn Tan, “Things you never knew about the Methodist Church in Singapore (or your pastors),” Salt and Light, February 25, 2020

by Sam Franz

Many of the sources for this story can be found at the Bentley Historical Library—including the Alumni Files and the Alexander G. Ruthven Papers—and the Ann Arbor District Library. Periodicals include the Michigan Daily and Ann Arbor News. Other sources include:

• Charles Bright, The Powers That Punish: Prison and Politics in the Era of the “Big House,” 1920-1955 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996)
• Sheena M. Eagan Chamberlin, “Emasculated by Trauma: A Social History of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stigma, and Masculinity,” The Journal of American Culture 35 (December 2012)
• Daniel A. Clark, “‘The Two Joes Meet—Joe College, Joe Veteran’: The G.I. Bill, College Education, and Postwar American Culture.” History of Education Quarterly 38, no. 2 (1998)
• Kim Clarke, “The Arsonist Was a Scholar,” Michigan Heritage Project
• Sol Cohen, “The Mental Hygiene Movement, the Development of Personality and the School: The Medicalization of American Education,” History of Education Quarterly 23, no. 2 (1983)
• Erving Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Condition of the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (New York: Anchor, 1961)
• Cara-Ann M. Hamaguchi, “A Precarious Balance: Managing Stigma, Confidentiality, and Command Awareness in the Mental Health Arena,” Military Law Review 222 (2014)
• Heather Munro Prescott, Student Bodies: The Influence of Student Health Services in American Society and Medicine (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007)
• E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood  (New York: Basic Books, 1994)

by Kia Schwert

Many of the sources for this story can be found at the Bentley Historical Library. Periodicals include the Michigan Daily and Michigan Alumnus. Other sources include:

• Doris E. Attaway, Marjorie Rabe Barritt (editors), Women’s Voices: Early Years at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor: Bentley Historical Library, 2000)
• Ruth Bordin, Women at Michigan: The "Dangerous Experiment," 1870s to the Present (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999)
• Lindsay Helfman, “The Dean’s Last Stand: Deborah Bacon and the Student Politics of the Fifties,” Senior Honors Thesis, University of Michigan, 2006
• Wilfred B. Shaw (editor), The University of Michigan, An Encyclopedic Survey (Ann Arbor: Digital Library Production Service, 2000)
• Staff Memoir Project, 
• James E. Tobin, “Dean Bacon’s demise,” Michigan Today, July 15, 2008
• Linda Robinson Walker, “Crossing the Color Line,” Michigan Today, Summer 2002
• Linda Robinson Walker, “The Last Dean of Women,” Michigan Today, Summer 2002

by Dustin Gladstone

Many of the sources for this story can be found at the Bentley Historical Library. Periodicals include the Michigan Daily. Other sources include:

• Jack Drescher, “Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality,” Behavioral Sciences 5, #4 (2015)
• Daniel Katz, “Theodore M. Newcomb: 1903-1984,” American Journal of Psychology 99, no. 2 (1986)
• Margaret Nash, Jennifer Silverman, “An Indelible Mark: Gay Purges in Higher Education in the 1940s,” History of Education Quarterly 55, no. 4 (2015)
• Theodore M. Newcomb, Personality & Social Change; Attitude Formation in a Student Community, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1943)
• Theodore M. Newcomb, Social Psychology (New York: The Dryden Press, 1950)
• Carol Tavris, “‘What does college do for a person?’ ‘Frankly, very little’: A conversation 
• with Theodore Newcomb,” Psychology Today 8, no. 4 (1974)

by Brooke Reiter

Many of the sources for this story can be found at the Bentley Historical Library and the Ann Arbor District Library. Periodicals include the Michigan Daily and Ann Arbor News. Other sources include:

• William H. Boone, “Problems of Adjustment of Negro Students at a White School,” Journal of Negro Education 11, no. 4 (1942)
• College of LSA Dean’s Advisory Council, Campus Climate Working Group, presentation, March 2016
• Dennis Doyle, “‘A Fine New Child’: The Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic and Harlem's African American Communities, 1946–1958,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 64, no. 2 (2009) 
• Anne McDaniel, Thomas A. DiPrete, Claudia Buchmann, Uri Shwed, “The Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment: Historical Trends and Racial Comparisons,” Demography 48, no. 3 (March 2011)
• Gabriel N. Mendes, "A Deeper Science: Richard Wright, Dr. Fredric Wertham, and the Fight for Mental Healthcare in Harlem, NY, 1940–1960," PhD Thesis, Brown University, 2010
• Julie Novkov, “Segregation (Jim Crow),” Encyclopedia of Alabama, November 14, 2019
• James Tobin, “The Negro-Caucasian Club,” University of Michigan Heritage Project
• University of Michigan, “The President's report to the Board of Regents for the academic year 1940/41: Financial statement for the fiscal year,” Ann Arbor
• Brian Williams, “An Unwritten Law,” Collections, Spring 2017
• Andrew Wright, “A New Era: The Rise of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries,” Alma Mater: The History of American Colleges Universities, March 24, 2014