Was Mary Todd Lincoln Mentally Ill

The one thing everyone seems to know about Abraham Lincolns wife is that she suffered from mental illness. Rumors spread through Civil War era Washington that Mrs. Lincoln was insane, and her reputation for mental instability persists to the present day. But are those rumors even true? The simple answer is that we dont know with any medical certainty. She was never diagnosed by anyone with a modern understanding of psychiatry. However, ample evidence exists of Mary Lincolns eccentric behavior, which, in her own day, was generally attributed to madness or insanity. Her marriage to Abraham Lincoln often appeared difficult or troubled, and there were incidents of Lincoln gently complaining to others about things she had said or done. It is true that Mary Lincolns actions, as reported by newspapers, often invited criticism from the public. She was known to spend money extravagantly, and she was often ridiculed for perceived haughtiness. And, public perception of her was greatly influenced by the fact that she was actually put on trial in Chicago, a decade after Lincolns assassination, and judged to be insane. She was placed in an institution for three months, though she was able to bring legal action and reverse the courts decision. From todays vantage point, its honestly impossible to assess her true mental condition. It has often been pointed out that traits she exhibited may have simply indicated eccentric behavior, poor judgment, or the effects of a stressful life, not actual mental illness. The Personality of Mary Todd Lincoln There are many accounts of Mary Todd Lincoln having been difficult to deal with, exhibiting personality traits that, in todays world, would probably be called a sense of entitlement. She had grown up the daughter of a prosperous Kentucky banker and received a very good education. And after moving to Springfield, Illinois, where she met Abraham Lincoln, she was often perceived as a snob. Her friendship and eventual romance with Lincoln seemed nearly inexplicable, as he came from very humble circumstances. By most accounts, she exerted a civilizing influence on Lincoln, teaching him proper manners, and essentially making him into a more polite and cultured person than might be expected from his frontier roots. But their marriage, according to some accounts, had problems. In one story told by those who had known them in Illinois, the Lincolns were at home one night and Mary asked her husband to add logs to the fire. He was reading and didnt do what she asked fast enough. She reportedly became angry enough to toss a piece of firewood at him, striking him in the face, which led to him appearing in public the next day with a bandage on his nose. There are other stories about her showing flashes of anger, one time even chasing him up the street outside the house after an argument. But the stories about her anger were often told by those who did not care for her, including Lincolns longtime law partner, William Herndon. One very public display of Mary Lincolns temper occurred in March 1865, when the Lincolns had traveled to Virginia for a military review near the end of the Civil War. Mary Lincoln became offended by the youthful wife of a Union general and became enraged. As Union officers looked on, Mary Lincoln berated her husband, who stoically tried to calm her. Stress Endured as Lincolns Wife Marriage to Abraham Lincoln could not have been easy. During much of their marriage, Lincoln was focused on his law practice, which often meant he was riding the circuit, leaving home for stretches of time to practice law in various towns around Illinois. Mary was at home in Springfield, raising their boys. So their marriage probably had some amount of stress. And tragedy struck the Lincoln family early, when their second son, Eddie, died at the age of three in 1850. They had four sons; Robert, Eddie, Willie, and Tad. When Lincoln became more prominent as a politician, especially at the time of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, or following the landmark speech at Cooper Union, the fame that came with success became problematic. Mary Lincolns penchant for extravagant shopping became an issue even before his inauguration. And after the Civil War began, and many Americans were facing grave problems, her shopping jaunts to New York City were viewed as scandalous. When Willie Lincoln, age 11, died in the White House in early 1862, Mary Lincoln went into a profound and exaggerated period of mourning. At one point Lincoln supposedly told her that if she didnt snap out of it she would have to be put in an asylum. Mary Lincolns dabbling with spiritualism became more pronounced after Willies death, and she held seances in the White House, apparently in an attempt to contact her dead sons spirit. Lincoln indulged her interest, but some people viewed it as a sign of insanity. The Insanity Trial The assassination of Lincoln devastated his wife, which was hardly surprising. She had been sitting next to him at Fords Theatre when John Wilkes Booth came up behind them and shot Lincoln in the back of the head. In the period following her husbands murder, she was inconsolable. She closeted herself in the White House for weeks, and created an awkward situation as the new president, Andrew Johnson could not move in. In the following years, she never seemed to recover from the trauma. For years after Lincolns death, she dressed in widows black. But she received little sympathy from the American public, as her free-spending ways continued. She was known to buy dresses and other items she didnt need, and bad publicity followed her. A scheme to sell valuable dresses and furs fell through and created public embarrassment. Abraham Lincoln had indulged his wifes behavior, but their oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, did not share his fathers patience. Offended by what he considered his mothers embarrassing behavior, he arranged to have her put on trial and charged with being insane. Mary Todd Lincoln was convicted in a peculiar trial held in Chicago on May 19, 1875, a little more than ten years after her husbands death. After being surprised at her residence that morning by two detectives she was hurried off to court. She was given no opportunity to prepare any defense. Following testimony about her behavior from various witnesses, the jury concluded: Mary Lincoln is insane, and is a fit person to be in a hospital for the insane. After three months in a sanitarium in Illinois, she was released. And in court actions a year later she successfully had the judgment against her reversed. But she never really recovered from the stigma of her own son instigating a trial at which she was declared insane. Mary Todd Lincoln spent the final years of her life as a virtual recluse. She seldom left the house where she lived in Springfield, Illinois, and died on July 16, 1882.

Stanley Milgram - 1172 Words

Individual Programmatic Assessment: Exploring a Classic Study in Social Psychology Daryl Bonelli Psych/620 January 25th, 2016 Colleen Story Individual Programmatic Assessment: Exploring a Classic Study in Social Psychology Introduction Norman Chomsky once wrote â€Å"I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.† There is a true feeling of what authority can do if placed in situations that require someone to follow instructions. What happens to someone when they follow the orders of another†¦show more content†¦Were there any unexpected findings? What did the authors conclude? What did the results mean, and what are their implications? Results of the study are looked at by the number of participants and students when they stopped or continued to the end of the experiment. Participants in the study gauged on how far they would go in delivering shock the students. The question posed to a group of student from Yale where the study was conducted and participated in the experiment. The result was 3 out of 100 provided answers to giving the maximum voltage allowed by the administrator. 65% of the participants in the study which is shocking to the question proposed before the experiment proceeded with pressing the lever for maximum voltage (Cherry, 2008). The subjects in the study became highly agitated, angry, distraught, and extremely upset with the examiners (teachers); the participant students continued all the way until the end of the study. Unexpectedly the findings produce quite a shock itself because of the high level of participants who would follow orders by continuing the shock someone as they know and und erstand that the severity of voltage would go from 30 volts and in 15-volt increments, and it continues all the way to 450 volts. The levels were labeled, slight, moderate, and danger â€Å"severe shock.† Moreover, the last two labels were simply documented as XXX. As found by the study physical presence of the person inShow MoreRelatedReview Of Stanley Milgram s 1215 Words   |  5 PagesA standout amongst the most renowned investigations of compliance in brain research was done by Stanley Milgram (Myers 499). Stanley Milgram was a therapist at Yale University, directed an analysis concentrating on the contention between acquiescence to power and individual still, small voice. He analyzed avocations for demonstrations of genocide offered by those blamed at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials (Myers 499). Their resistance regularly depended on submission - that theyRead MoreStanley Milgram Assignment1531 Words   |  7 PagesMilgram Assignment I. In 1962, Stanley Milgram, a Social Relations professor at Yale University conducted an experiment on the internal struggle between a person’s innate obedience to authority and their standards of morality. Milgram was intrigued by former Nazi officers justifying their horrific actions with the excuse that they were merely following orders. Milgram’s experiment, heavily reliant on unknowing participants, recruited 40 male individuals aged 20-50 years old--with a preference forRead MoreStanley Milgram ( 1963 ) Essay1945 Words   |  8 PagesStanley Milgram (1963) was interested in how likely people would obey an authority figure who instructed them to harm another person. His study involved 40 male participants, aged 20 to 50, who were recruited through advertisements and mail solicitation. Participants had diverse occupations and educational levels. 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This essay will explain both sides of the debate, arguing for situation and individual factors that influenceRead MoreAnalysis Of Stanley Milgram s The Milgram Obedience 1587 Words   |  7 PagesOne of the most well-known experimentations in submission in psychology the famous Milgram obedience study conducted by Stanley Milgram, social psychologist who worked at Yale University during the 1960s, and the ethical guidelines that should have been integrated with his research. Stanley Milgram’s aim was to study whether the German population were predominantly compliant to imposing figur es which was a collective thought for the Nazi massacres that happened during the course of World War IIRead MoreThe Perils Of Obedience By Stanley Milgram950 Words   |  4 PagesIn The Perils of Obedience, Stanley Milgram introduces us to his experimental studies on the conflict between one’s own conscience and obedience to authority. 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In Milgram’s experiments, he observed the extent of subjects obedience to authority when an experimenter commanded them to deliver possibly harmful electric shocks to another person. According to Milgram, an alarming amount of subjects willingly proceeded to the highest voltage shock in the experiment. In Baumrind s†¯Review of Stanley Milgram s Experiments on Obedience, she attempts to disprove and refute Milgram s experiments byRead MoreThe Sense Of Protection By Stanley Milgram Mentions1592 Words   |  7 Pagesleft out and experience solitary. In addition, individuals are not willing to disobey because of the fear of punishment from an authority. This forceful thought makes one to follow with no self- conscience, soon they will lose confidence. As Stanley Milgram mentions, â€Å"Obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to,† (144). By shown in contempt society, people are prone to obey to a certain authority due to the fear of punishment and being in solitary. This type

Service Marketing and Relationship Marketing-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Service Marketing and Relationship Marketing. Answer: For a services organization, it is very important to establish proper and effective interaction among its employees. It is very necessary for managing the activities and operations in effective and professional way. The organization makes efforts to maintain effective communication between its front stage and back stage divisions. For offering quality services to the customers, management of organization has to categorize these two divisions. In this reflective essay, there is a discussion about the front office and back office flow charts of National Health Services. It will analyze the importance of service counter at health service organization. At the end, it will evaluate the managerial implications of designed flow charts and effectiveness of service encounter to achieve the goals of organization. Flow Charts Currently, I am working in well-established health services organization in Australia, i.e. National Health Services (NHS). I am working here as a care taker from 2016. NHS is the biggest health care organization in Australia that is funded by public. It is providing all types of health care services to the patients. It is also giving them support for maintaining their health and life style. At NHS, the senior management has established two departments, i.e. back stage and front stage for evaluating, creating and offering the services to the patients (Armstrong et al, 2014). Each and every product based or service based organization create flow charts for planning, organizing and supervising the operations according to the set quality and standards. For NHS, designing of the flowcharts is necessary for attaining the preset standards and managing the organizational culture of providing the services. An effective balance between back and front stage flow charts will have huge impact on the process used for attaining the objectives of business (Christopher et al, 2013). Front Stage Flow Charts At NHS, there are some specific operations and services, which are assigned to the front stage staff, like; managing the quality and standards, coordination and collection of admitting and discharging patients (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). Front office staff of organization follows a flow chart that is created by the top level management. As I observed at NHS, front office flow chart of the organization includes different activities like; communication with the patients and other visitors, providing data and information about appointment of health care services and required information about the modifications in the health care provision to ignore the chances of conflicts. Back Stage Flow Chart From the flow chart, I have noticed that the changes in scheduling and decision making process are developed as per the information that is provided by front office department (Fisher, 2015). Additionally, by looking at the front office flow chart, back stage department creates its plan to assign the tasks and responsibilities to the health care employees. This approach of front stage staff is assisting the National Health Service organization to meet the requirements of patients in an effective and planned way. Back Stage Flow Charts At NHS, back office operations have a major impact on the process of planning and implementation of plan to offer the quality services and give effective health care services to patients (Kapoor. 2011). As I observed at NHS, the flow chart of NHS back office incudes the activities like; receiving the call of patients, attending the suppliers and staff of NHS, which is necessary for gathering the information and creating changes in the schedule. In addition, the back office flow chart includes the procedure of filling the documents about the employees, evaluation of financial statements and endorsement of funds by taking the permission of senior management positions (Edwards, 2010). Back Stage Flow Chart Furthermore, back stage flow chart of NHS evaluates other activities, like; cleaning the waiting area, making comfort and entertain the patients. With this, they also ensure the quality and standards of services and effective allocation and usage of resources. I realized that back office chart of NHS is effective and assisting health care organization to fulfill its objectives. Significance of Service Encounter For a service industry organization, service encounter plays an important role in understanding the process designing and delivering the services, which include both management and customers to meet the goals. According to my observation at NHS, the service counter involves the satisfaction of patients and efficiency on the basis of perceived behavior between health care professional and customers. For instance, the patients, who visit the health care organization, like; NHS interact with health care executives for getting the data and information about appointment and scheduling of patients with seniors care provider (Zeithaml, 2013). Along with this, it will get the information about the procedure of using the products and services and offer payments options, which assist them in understanding the value of services. Additionally, I realized that NHS always believes to offer standard services to their patient in the form of treatment. It also maintains the interaction and communication by looking at the needs and demands of patients. In this situation, the company is following the direct form of service encounter because this is comparatively good for health care organizations to requirements and understanding the condition of patients. It is considering direct service encounter for effectively managing the resources to offer better services and treatment and interact with the family of patients. By looking at the services encounter at NHS, I can say that services encounter is very important for a service organization. It assists to fix the quality standards of service and needs of patients that assist in managing the business operations. Furthermore, in a successful service encounter, services and people come together to get predetermined goals by behaving nicely and following the rules for maintaining the security and safety of patients and their information (Kapoor. 2011). As I analyzed, it can be said that an effective and successful service encounter with the patients and clients have optimistic impact on the brad reputation and services quality, which is offered to the patients at National Health Service Organization in Australia. Managerial Implications Managerial implications can be defined by proper evaluation and implementation of changes, which have huge effect on the quality and standards of services at NHS (Zeithaml, 2013). As per my observation, service delivery process at NHS includes the stages like communication and collaboration with the clients, providing data about appointments and scheduling of services. According to me, for managerial viewpoint listening to patients, understanding their disease and requirements and providing some additional support have positive impact on the management of service industry organization, i.e. NHS. Lack of service encounter can affect the brand image of the organization (Mok et al, 2013). So, management needs to make efforts to fill the gaps between estimated and actual performance of organization (Samaha et al, 2014). I experienced that management can do this by understanding the needs and expectations of customers. At NHS, the employees, i.e. care workers need to be very helpful to pa tients. I believe that this type of management approach will help the organization in meeting the needs of customers and its organizational objectives. From the above reflective essay, it can be considered that flow charts of a services organization for front and back office assists in managing the products and services, which it offers to its clients. It is found that data about the operations and activities, which are involved in the flow charts of NHS to manage the standards and effectiveness of services. At the end, the essay has described about the importance of the interaction and communication process, which can support the organization in achieving its objectives. References Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P. (2014).Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia. Christopher, M., Payne, A., Ballantyne, D. (2013).Relationship marketing. Taylor Francis. Edwards, M. (2010). Communication skills for nurses. A practical guide on how to achieve successful consultations. London: Quay Books. Fisher, A. (2015).Health and social care. Oxford: Heinemann. Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B. (2014).Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. Kapoor. (2011). Service Marketing: Concepts Practices. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Mok, C., Sparks, B., Kadampully, J, (2013). Service quality management in hospitality, tourism, and leisure. Routledge. Samaha, S. A., Beck, J. T., Palmatier, R. W. (2014). The role of culture in international relationship marketing.Journal of Marketing,78(5), 78-98. Zeithaml. (2013). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm. Tata McGraw-Hill Education