[close] The nineteenth-century "cult of curability" engendered the optimistic belief that mental illness could be cured under ideal conditions -- removal from the stresses of everyday life to asylum, a pleasant, well-regulated environment where healthy meals, daily exercise, and social contact were the norm. This utopian view led to the reform and establishment of lunatic asylums throughout the United States. The Texas State Lunatic Asylum (later called the Austin State Hospital) followed national trends, and its history documents national mental health practices in microcosm. Drawing on diverse sources -- patient records from the nineteenth century, papers and reports of the institution's various superintendents, transcripts of interviews of former employees, newspaper accounts, personal memoirs, and interviews -- Sarah C. Sitton has recreated what life in "our little town" was like from the institution's opening in 1861 to its deinstitutionalization in the 1980s and 1990s. [close]