A Place to Die
Nursing Home Abuse and the Political Economy of the 1970s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4155749 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gabriel Winant (0000-0002-7454-1825, Gabriel Winant is a graduate student in history at Yale University., corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 105 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 96-120 |
| Publication date | 2018-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jay009 |
| OpenAlex | W2804225227 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
When Emily Eckel arrived at John J. Kane Hospital for her first day of work in 1975, what struck her immediately was the apparatus of bodily constraint. “When I started, I didn't know what a geri-chair was. The first time I walked in and saw them lining the halls, I was shocked.” Kane was a huge public long-term care facility for the elderly and disabled, owned and operated by Allegheny County, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Geri-chairs were seats with a bar extending across the front, serving to restrain the patient. Eckel smuggled a tiny camera in with her each day in a cigarette case and pretended to take up smoking so she could document what she saw.1 Eckel was looking for trouble. A young woman radicalized by the antiwar movement, she was a member of the New American Movement (NAM), an organization founded in 1971 by New Left veterans seeking strategies for the new decade. After graduating from college, Eckel moved into a Pittsburgh commune with other NAM members. Also living there were two social workers employed at Kane, who returned to the house each day with horror stories. Eckel and fellow NAM member Joseph Nagy decided to put theory into practice. They applied and were hired at Kane and, along with social worker Mary Lewin, began work on an exposé. The resulting report, Kane Hospital: A Place to Die, detailed endemic abuse of patients. Published by the Action Coalition of Elders (ACE), a local elder-rights group, the report triggered an uproar that reached all the way to Washington.2
Front (military · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Work (physics · Engineering · Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes · History · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Medicine · Gerontology
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |