Harold Barton Collected Papers

This collection helps to document the growth of interest in mental health (or mental hygiene as it was called in the middle of the twentieth century), among men and women involved with Civilian Public Service in World War II. The seeds of the National Mental Health Foundation were planted in 1944-1945 when Harold Barton and three associates, serving at Byberry State Hospital in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), announced plans for a national campaign to improve the conditions in mental hospitals. This, in part, stemmed from their own anger and frustration at the appalling treatment of patients they found at Byberry, where the lack of trained personnel (due to the war effort), severely limited the ability of care for patients according to hospital administrators' standards. Barton's diary notes and other material found in this collection provide important eyewitness accounts of the struggle to treat patients as humanely as possible. The exposure of these conditions through the efforts of men serving in CPS, and their efforts to be a nonviolent presence in mental institutions, began a new movement in mental health care in the U.S. The National Mental Health Foundation still exists today as the National Mental Health Association.