The harsh reality of an all-female mental hospital in the 70s

Decades-old photographs reveal the harsh realties women were faced with while living in Oregon’s only all-female mental hospital in the 70s – after an award-winning journalist bunked with the patients for weeks to offer the portrayal.

Snapped in 1976 by the late Mary Ellen Mark, the images offer a unique glimpse of female psychiatric life during the decade, by documenting the lives of women locked in the maximum-security ward at Oregon State Hospital at the time.

The all-female wing, called Ward 81, would close a year later to make way for a more modern facility, leaving Mark’s images to serve as a sort of time capsule – rife with emotional images showing the women’s lives during their incarceration.

Adding to the images’ prestige is the fact the asylum is where the seminal 1975 flick One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed – an undertaking that took place just a year before Mark spent 36 days in the hospital to accomplish her artistic vision.

Retiring to an adjacent wing only at night, Mark, then in her early 20s, spent her days living among the women of the all-female facility, many of whom were deemed ‘dangerous’ by hospital staff.

The photos would be featured three years in Mark’s inaugural project Ward 81, and have since been expanded in a new rerelease tabbed Ward 81: Voices, published by Steidl. The book features dozens of photographs and interviews with patients not seen in the original.

Below are some of the striking snaps achieved by Mark, who over the course of her storied career was known to hone the margins of society. She died in 2015 at age 81. Her inspirational work, however, still prevails.

Patient Carol S. lies in an single bed in Salem’s locked Ward 81. When asked about being committed and what she thinks about the concept of insanity, she said: I don’t think crazy is really what a person looks like or how to do with their body at all, really. It’s a form of weakness. It’s a weakness in thinking, you know? It’s an overpowering welcome. It’s failing to talk right, and it’s a shattered feeling for your body, when a body is to believe it, when your body has no chance. Yes, it’s an aloneness. It’s a lost and alone feeling. Sometimes it’s even in your hair’

A patient is carried away by staffers in one striking image taken by the late Mary Ellen Mark, a renowned photojournalist who spent much of her life document people on the fringes of society. At the time, many of women in Ward 81 were deemed ‘dangerous’ and locked against their will – but Mark managed to bond with many of them during a five-week stay at the asylum

A young female patient peers with wide eyes into a mirror in one of the ward’s lavatories. Therapist Karen Folger Jacobs interviewed several of the women about the living conditions in the ward prior to its closure the next year, while Mark set out to take the sensational photographs – many of which had gone unseen until now

Patient Mary Iris gazes forlornly out of a gated window at the facility. When asked what was bothering her, the woman simply said: I don’t know. The world is hard… the world is torn on top.’ Mark, then in her early 20s, wrote of how staffers at the hospital viewed the hospitalized woman: ‘I don’t think they think that Mary Iris has feelings. If you look at her with really gentle eyes, she trusts you. She hasn’t seen enough gentle eyes. You know?’

A one-armed patient named Mona is seen striking a pose whilst smoking a cigarette in another striking snap from Ward 81. Like most of the other women, she was admitted non-voluntarily. To pass the time, Mona – who also spoke about the injustices women like her were faced with at the time – said: ‘We talk to each other all the time and we don’t talk about anything real big, or real important and far away, because it’s kind of early to be makin’ those kind of plans. But we do talk about the present… We think about the important things that we are going to do

When asked what life in the ward was like, patient Laurie (seen here) said: ‘It’s just like being dead, like killing your mind or killin’ your body… physically and mentally and psychologically. There’s just no life here that I’d like to lead, but I have to live it now that I chose my cards in life… or now that someone else chosed [sic] ’em for me’

Laurie, seen here taking a bath, quickly added: ‘But I’d make a good ol’ lady for someone ’cause I can cook good. I cooked eggs this morning. They turned out supreme’

‘They treat you like you’re no good,’ patient Tommie said of the conditions she faced at the since-closed asylum. ‘What they’re saying is, you’re in a mental hospital and therefore, you’re stupid, you’re an idiot, you’re dumb, you’re retarded, you’re ugly, and you’re no good, and you don’t belong in this world so just drop dead and do what I say or you’ll hear about your wrongs’

Tommie is seen here again, peering out of room window in Oregon State Hospital’s Ward 81. She told Mark of her desire for change while locked up in the all-female winge: ‘I wish somebody’d come and take over this hospital. Like a [laughs] motorcycle gang club or somethin’. I wish they’d come take over this hospital, get rid of all the aides, and take over it

Women in the state’s all-female ward were regularly restrained by staffers. Mona recalled: ‘I just heard Tammie crying a little while ago and that makes me feel bad because I know how bad it is to be in restraints. It’s a scary feeling… a frightening feeling. I was in there for so long one time, you know, ’cause I wasn’t doing what they thought I should do’. When asked how long she was restrained, she said: ‘It was probably about a week or so, maybe a little longer’

Mary Iris said of how her hospitalization dashed her dreams: ‘We want so many things in life you just don’t get. You don’t get friends, all I want is friends… Oh, the pain I’m in’

Tabbed Ward 81: Voices, the new book features dozens of never-before-seen photographs and interviews with the patients, and is currently available both in stores and online

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