The Reappeared Archive: An Employee’s Letter, Athens State Hospital, 1945
The Reappeared Archive is where we bring lost texts back into the light — voices silenced by time, stigma, or circumstance. In keeping with our mission to explore the intersections of literature, trauma, and healing, this series resurrects writings that wrestle with embodiment, illness, recovery, or the search for meaning in the midst of pain.
These are not always published authors. Sometimes they are anonymous. Sometimes their words were never meant to be seen. And yet — they speak to us, across time.
A Draft Letter by an Anonymous Athens State Hospital Employee, 1945
There has been a lot of bitter discussion over bringing into the city of Athens a number of conscientious objectors to work at the Athens State Hospital… Why, have so many employees left the institution? Can’t the place be run yet with patients’ help, omitting the outside employees?... Many employees have worked there and had this very fact thrown into their faces…
— Draft letter to the editor, March 15, 1945, in Athens Mental Health Center Digital Archive, Ohio University Libraries.
Preserved among administrative records from Ohio’s Athens State Hospital, this partially revised letter was likely never meant for publication in its current form. And yet, it stands as a candid internal account of an institutional workforce in upheaval. In 1945, when over a hundred staff members at ASH formally opposed the employment of conscientious objectors (COs) during WWII, this document was drafted—then handed over to Superintendent C. O. Creed after an edited version appeared in the Athens Messenger’s “Public Forum” column on March 20, 1945.
During the war, men who refused to serve in combat for religious or philosophical reasons were often reassigned to civilian work — including hospitals for the mentally ill. This was controversial. To many, it suggested that psychiatric care was a dumping ground for political undesirables. For others, it highlighted the disregard for the skill and emotional toll required to care for the institutionalized.
This anonymous draft captures that resentment, but it also reveals deeper tensions: between professional identity and moral labor, between authority and alienation.
“…Can’t the place be run yet with patients' help…?”
A chilling line. One that implies reliance not on trained caregivers, but on the unpaid labor of the institutionalized themselves.
The suggestion that patient labor could replace staff labor was not hyperbole—it was common practice in many mid-century state hospitals. According to historical reviews of mental health facilities during this era, especially in underfunded and over-capacity institutions, patients were regularly tasked with cleaning, cooking, farming, and even assisting in the care of other patients.
This document, then, is more than a workplace grievance. It is a reflection of the structural precarity within state institutions—where ethical lines blurred, and where patients’ dignity often depended on whether staff felt valued enough to protect it.
What began as a letter of complaint reveals truths that remain uncomfortable:
Who is allowed to provide care—and who is made to do so, unpaid or unwilling?
How do moral judgments and public opinion shape healthcare labor policy?
What happens when the ethics of war intersect with the ethics of care?
In an age of contract nursing, gig healthcare labor, and privatized institutions, these questions have only evolved—not disappeared.
Archival Source:
Document Title: “List of 133 ASH employees opposed to the employment of conscientious objectors”
Date: March 15, 1945
Source Archive: Athens Mental Health Center Collection, Ohio University Libraries
Link to Archive Overview: Athens Mental Health Center Collection
Suggested Access Point: Contact Ohio University Special Collections & Archives for access to the full letter and accompanying materials.
✍️ Let This Be a Prompt:
Write a letter from the perspective of a hospital employee during a time of institutional or ethical crisis.
Reflect on a moment when you questioned who had the right—or the obligation—to care for someone else.
Draft a monologue that captures labor unrest in a setting where caregiving and confinement collide.