Albert Deutsch

Albert Deutsch was a social historian, reporter and advocate for mental health. In 1934, he began corresponding with Clifford Beers, founder of the mental health movement. In 1937, the first edition of The Mentally Ill in America was published, the first of its kind becoming a classic. In 1941, Deutsch accepted an invitation to become Welfare Editor for the New York newspaper PM, where he remained until 1949. His interest in mental hospitals led him to investigate conditions in mental hospitals. With a photographer, he visited twelve urban mental hospitals and published, The Shame of the States, in 1948, the beginning of the many such exposés that forced state governments to action.

In 1958, the APA awarded him Honorary Fellowship and after his death, his papers were placed in the APA archives. The material offers a vivid and graphic description of the psychiatric and mental health world of the forties and fifties.

View Mr. Deutsch’s Finding Aid here