Alfred Eisenstaedt is best known as the photojournalist behind Life‘s famous V-Day Times Square Kiss cover, but in his work he also covered less celebratory stories than the end of WWII for America. He also visited See Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Haunting Portraits of Psychiatric Patients at Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island in 1938. The original Life article claimed that these photos were evidence of the advanced psychiatric care these patients were getting. Keep in mind, this was right around the time that Walter Jackson Freeman was just getting started on his estimated 3,500 lobotomies.
Mentally balanced people shun and fear the insane. The general public refuses to face the terrific problem of what should be done for them. Today, though their condition has been much improved, they are still the most neglected, unfortunate group in the world. [This photo essay features] pictures showing the dark world of the insane and what scientists are doing to lead them back to the light of reason.
– Life, 1938
Clearly, every generation of medicine has considered itself the most advanced, the most enlightened, and the most humane. And yet, hindsight proves them wrong time and again.
(Photos: Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
