Feature
The Ladies of Rockhaven Sanitarium
How nurse Agnes Richards revolutionized psychiatric care for women at her Glendale asylum
A century ago, psychiatric nurse Agnes Richards took a stand against the brutal mistreatment of female mental health patients when she founded Rockhaven, a pioneering psychiatric care center — one of the first of its kind in the nation.
Path to Psychiatric Nursing
Agnes Lepinski immigrated to the United States from Germany with her family in 1893. As a teenager, she helped support them by working at the Hastings Asylum for the Chronic Insane. Years later, following the tragic loss of her first husband, she pursued a career in nursing, putting herself through school at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.
She and her second husband, James Richards, relocated to California after WW1, where she worked at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino and L.A. County Hospital. Her dedication quickly earned her a promotion to head nurse.
Treated Like Prisoners
Having worked in asylums and sanitariums gave Richards firsthand knowledge of the poor conditions that mental health patients, especially women, endured in those institutions.
Sanitarium patients were treated like prisoners, subjected to manual labor and solitary confinement, often in cages. Such harsh treatment worsened rather than improving patients’ mental health, sometimes resulting in psychosis or schizophrenia. Worse, there was no guarantee that a patient would ever be discharged and allowed to reintegrate into society.
Women might be institutionalized for stigmatized conditions like postpartum depression, or in the wake of miscarriage or menopause. In some instances, men even had their wives admitted to an asylum for “noncompliance” with the husband’s wishes. Women committed to sanitariums frequently faced sexual harassment and assault by male employees, making those institutions a special kind of hell.
Opening Rockhaven
Seeing the desperate need for better mental healthcare for female patients, Richards decided to establish her own sanitarium exclusively for women. In 1923, she scraped together $1,000 and purchased a cottage on a large property in what is now Glendale, California, then known as Verdugo City. She named this new facility Rockhaven.
Initially, Rockhaven housed just six patients at a time, but Richards quickly expanded the sanitarium’s capacity, constructing new buildings and repositioning existing structures to make better use of the space and light.
Eventually, there were 15 buildings on the 3.4-acre property, with pristine landscaping and a grand entrance with iron gates.
A Healing Environment
The architecture of the Rockhaven grounds was part of the therapy the facility provided. Sanitariums were usually stone monoliths, but Richards took inspiration from a new trend in asylum architecture, known as the “Cottage Plan.”
Instead of one massive building, there was a collection of smaller cottages arranged like a village, with patios and courtyards joined by paths through the grounds. The object was to encourage exercise, socialization, and experience nature, a stark contrast with other mental institutions of the time.
In this picturesque atmosphere, Richards took an entirely new approach to mental healthcare. The women in her care were never called “patients.” They were “residents,” or, more frequently, just “ladies.” Most of the Rockhaven staff were women, with the exception of the doctors that rounded on occasion and the facility’s beloved landscaper.
Each resident had an individual care plan and was treated with dignity. Rockhaven ladies attended classes on nutrition, music therapy, and gardening. Every major and minor holiday and every birthday was celebrated, and visitors were welcome. Most importantly, the ladies would be discharged when they finished treatment.
Eventually, Rockhaven was able to care for up to 80 women at a time, including some Hollywood stars and those connected to them, such as Marilyn Monroe’s mother, Gladys Monroe. Comic actress Billie Burke, best known today for her role as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz, was another longtime Rockhaven resident.
Passing the Torch
Over the years, Richards trained her granddaughter, Patricia Traviss, to eventually take over the care of Rockhaven and its ladies. By the mid-1960s, when Richards was in her 80s, Patricia was fully managing the operations of the sanitarium.
The final years of Richards’ life saw major changes in the practice of mental healthcare: Institutionalization declined, medications became available for the treatment of common mental health disorders, and archaic diagnoses like “hysteria” and “insane by religious excitement” faded into history.
With fewer women needing inpatient care, Rockhaven pivoted to focus on memory care and treatment for the elderly, specializing in Alzheimer’s disease.
Richards passed away in 1967, but Rockhaven remained in operation until 2006. It was run by women, for women, for 80 years.
In 2008, the City of Glendale purchased the property to preserve the land and save the grounds from demolition. Today, Rockhaven is a historical monument and museum. Agnes Richards is rightfully honored as a trailblazer in the treatment of women’s mental health.
SIDEBAR
The Rest Cure Horror:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the “rest cure” gained acceptance as a therapeutic treatment for women suffering from various nervous conditions.
However, the rest cure’s effects proved tragic, as vividly portrayed in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.”
Popularized by physician Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914), the rest cure had its roots in the belief that women’s mental and emotional afflictions were intimately tied to their reproductive systems.
Physicians of the era asserted that women’s anxiety or depression resulted from an excessive strain on their mental faculties, causing hysteria (a term derived from the Greek word “hystera,” which means uterus).
The prescription? Confining patients to a room alone, subjected to strict bed rest and even prohibited from reading and writing.
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a horror story published in 1892 and inspired by Gilman’s own experience as a patient of Weir Mitchell. The protagonist, grappling with postpartum depression, undergoes the rest cure at the hands of her physician husband.
Confined to an isolated room with peculiar yellow wallpaper, she gradually descends into psychosis, with her fixation on the wallpaper symbolizing her declining mental state.
As medical and psychiatric understanding progressed, the rest cure fell out of favor. However, the attitudes it reflected have left a mark on our language: We still use the word “hysterical” — and the term “hysterical neurosis” remained in use as a psychiatric diagnosis until 1980.
PAYTON SY, RN, BSN, has experience working in home health, hospital nursing, and primary care. Her passions include patient education and health literacy.
In this Article: Mental and behavioral health, Stress and Burnout, Women's Health
