Women in Britain in the nineteenth century were expected to fulfill the traditional roles of wife and mother as determined by British society. Over the course of the nineteenth century, these ideals evolved, but the core functions of wife and mother remained at the center. Woman's participation outside the household was limited. British women travelers during the nineteenth century found themselves in many different environments. By examining samples of women's travel narratives from various locations in the Empire, this study analyzes the daily lives of British women in the Empire and determines that, while maintaining their roles within the private sphere as wives and mothers, women's activities in the colonies were less restricted than they would have been in Britain. / by Katie Wernecke. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

L’émergence de la psychiatrie comme discipline distincte de la médecine somatique, dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle, s’inscrit dans le cadre de la réforme de la législation sur les aliénés, qui conduit à la création de nouveaux asiles publics dédiés au traitement des malades mentaux en Angleterre, dont celui du Comté du Middlesex, à Hanwell, en 1831. L’Asile de Hanwell, situé près de Londres, est un asile pour aliénés indigents, qui fonctionne de manière complémentaire par rapport à des institutions telles que les workhouses – emblématiques de la nouvelle Loi sur les Pauvres de 1834 – dans la prise en charge d’individus qui sont dans l’incapacité de subvenir à leurs besoins. Sous la direction du docteur John Conolly (1794-1866), qui, dès sa nomination à la direction médicale de l’établissement en 1839, met en place une politique de non-restraint (abandon des moyens de contention mécaniques) à une échelle jusqu’alors inédite, l’Asile de Hanwell est explicitement conçu comme un outil dont la fonction première est thérapeutique, dénué de toute intention punitive. L’influence que cet établissement exercera sur les institutions similaires en Angleterre dès les années 1840 contribue à l’optimisme thérapeutique quant au traitement des aliénés qui prévaut alors, et l’asile victorien, en dépit de ses imperfections, se veut un authentique refuge et un lieu de soins. La conception thérapeutique du Dr Conolly s’inscrit dans la continuité du traitement moral défini par le médecin français Philippe Pinel, mais s’inspire également des expériences menées à La Retraite (York), ou à l’asile de Lincoln. Cette thérapie innovante a la particularité de mettre l’accent sur la qualité de l’environnement et du mode de vie des patients, ainsi que sur les distractions diverses qui leur sont proposées : jeux, fêtes de Noël, kermesses, lecture, musique, sport et danse. La logique de soins qui s’applique alors, le moral management, repose sur une thérapie d’occupation. L’originalité de ce traitement sur le plan médical s’accompagne d’une dimension sociale, voire politique. En effet, loin de limiter ses ambitions au strict domaine médical, le Dr Conolly, connu pour son engagement en faveur de l’éducation populaire au sein de la Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, tout autant que pour son soutien au mouvement chartiste, mène un combat permanent, de 1839 à 1852, pour que les patients, hommes et femmes, aient accès à une instruction au sein de l’école de l’Asile, dont la création et le maintien sont loin de faire l’unanimité. Conolly envisage l’éducation comme un élément central, qui va bien au-delà d’une simple distraction pour les malades et représente un véritable outil d’insertion sociale et d’émancipation des classes populaires. Il rejoint en cela une conception owéniste de l’éducation, et l’école de l’Asile de Hanwell copie quasiment trait pour trait l’école de New Lanark telle qu’elle se présentait au début du XIXe siècle. Robert Owen (1771-1858) rend d’ailleurs visite à John Conolly dès sa nomination, au printemps 1839. Étudier l’expérience menée dans cet établissement emblématique sous l’autorité de John Conolly – non sans lien avec les expériences sociales menées par les owénistes – et l’influence que cette expérience a pu avoir par la suite dans le paysage psychiatrique victorien, permet d’analyser le non-restraint dans sa dimension thérapeutique, sociale et politique. L’Asile de Hanwell sera pendant près de trente ans une référence dans le traitement des aliénés, et servira de modèle à bon nombre d’institutions, particulièrement en Angleterre. L’influence de Hanwell s’estompera dans les années 1870, qui verront l’émergence de théories de l’hérédité peu compatibles avec le traitement moral. / The emergence of psychiatry as a separate discipline from general medicine, in the first half of the nineteenth century, was linked to the Lunacy Reform movement (County Asylums Acts) that led to the creation of new public asylums dedicated to the treatment of the mentally ill in England. The Middlesex County Asylum in Hanwell, built in 1831, was one of them. Hanwell Asylum, situated in the western suburbs of London, was a pauper lunatic asylum that operated as a complementary institution to the numerous workhouses – symbols of the New Poor Law of 1834 – taking care of people who were deemed unable to take care of themselves. As soon as he was appointed medical superintendent of the institution, in 1839, Dr John Conolly (1794-1866) implemented a whole new policy of non-restraint, applied on an unprecedented scale, and Hanwell Asylum under his leadership was explicitly and primarily intended to be a therapeutic tool, devoid of any punitive purpose. The influence of Hanwell on similar institutions, from the1840s onwards, contributed to the prevailing therapeutic optimism of the time, and Victorian asylums, despite their defects, were meant to be genuine places of refuge and care. Dr Conolly’s therapeutic methods were coherent with “moral treatment” as defined by French doctor Philippe Pinel, but were also based on previous experiences conducted at the York Retreat or Lincoln Asylum. One of the main features of this pioneering treatment was the special emphasis it placed on the high quality of the patients’ environment and way of life, as well as on the wide range of entertainment offered to them: games, Christmas parties, summer fêtes, reading sessions, music, sport and dancing. The approach favoured in terms of health care, a “moral management” approach, was grounded on the principles of occupational therapy. The originality of this treatment from a medical point of view was reinforced by its social and, indeed, political dimension. From 1839 to 1852, far from limiting his ambitions to a strictly medical field, Dr Conolly – well-known for his commitment to the cause of popular education, as a member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, as well as for his support of the Chartist movement – actually kept on fighting for the right of male and female patients alike to receive proper instruction within the asylum school, which remained highly controversial and constantly threatened with closure. Conolly viewed education as a central element, going far beyond a mere distraction for the insane and truly constituting a tool for social insertion and a means of emancipation for the lower classes. His views on education were similar to the Owenite conception of education and the asylum school at Hanwell was a faithful replica of the New Lanark School at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Besides, Robert Owen (1771-1858) came to Hanwell Asylum and visited John Conolly soon after he was appointed superintendent there, during the spring of 1839. Studying the case of this emblematic institution and the experience carried out within its premises under John Conolly’s authority – an experience which may not be unrelated to Owenite social experimentation – and analysing the impact this experience may have had within the Victorian psychiatric landscape in the years that followed, is an invaluable way of understanding the non-restraint movement through its various dimensions: therapeutic, social and political. For nearly thirty years, Hanwell Asylum remained a benchmark in the treatment of the insane, and served as a model for many other institutions, particularly in England. Its influence began receding in the 1870s, with the emergence of theories of heredity that were hardly compatible with the tenets of moral management.

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