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Go rest, young man
In the late 1800s, anxious and tired male intellectuals (including Theodore
Roosevelt) were sent West to rough ride, rope steer and bond with other men
By Anne Stiles
January 2012, Vol 43, No. 1
Physician Silas Weir Mitchell is perhaps best remembered for his “Rest Cure” for
nervous women, depicted by his onetime patient Charlotte Perkins Gilman in “The
Yellow Wallpaper” (1892). In the harrowing tale, the narrator slowly goes mad while
enduring Mitchell’s regimen of enforced bed rest, seclusion and overfeeding. This
oppressive “cure” involved electrotherapy and massage, in addition to a meat-rich diet
and weeks or months of bed rest. Historians now view Mitchell’s “Rest Cure” as a
striking example of 19th century medical misogyny.
Less well known is Mitchell’s method of treating nervous men. While Mitchell put
worried women to bed, he sent anxious men out West to engage in prolonged periods
of cattle roping, hunting, roughriding and male bonding. Among the men treated with the
so-called “West Cure” were poet Walt Whitman, painter Thomas Eakins, novelist Owen
Wister and future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
Although the Rest and West cures involved wildly different therapeutic strategies, both
were designed to treat the same medical condition: neurasthenia. First described by
American neurologist George Beard in 1869, neurasthenia’s symptoms included
depression, insomnia, anxiety and migraines, among other complaints. The malady was
not just an illness, he said, but also a mark of American cultural superiority. According to
Beard, excessive nervousness was a byproduct of a highly evolved brain and nervous
system. A “brain-worker” who excelled in business or the professions might experience
nervous breakdowns if he overtaxed his intellect. His highly evolved wife and children
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could easily succumb to the same malady, particularly if they engaged in excessive
study or “brain work.”
While men and women could experience the same neurasthenic symptoms, the
different treatments they received reflected cultural stereotypes of the day. The Rest
Cure ensured that women remained in their “proper” sphere: the home. Mitchell and his
medical peers discouraged female patients from writing, excessive studying or any
attempt to enter the professions. Mitchell told Gilman, who underwent the Rest Cure in
1887 during a bout of postpartum depression, to “live as domestic a life as possible” and
“never to touch pen, brush or pencil again.”
By contrast, nervous men were encouraged to engage in vigorous physical activity out
West, and to write about the experience. These activities would supposedly rehabilitate
them for further success in commerce and intellectual pursuits. As Mitchell wrote in his
1871 book “Wear and Tear: Or Hints for the Overworked,” neurasthenic men could
strengthen their nervous systems by engaging in “a sturdy contest with Nature.” Such a
challenge would allow a man to test his willpower and reinforce his masculinity, which
had been weakened by the feminizing effects of nervous illness. (Mitchell elsewhere
lamented that under great nervous stress, “The strong man becomes like the average
woman.”) The West Cure also promoted physical fitness, allowing patients to attain the
manly, muscular build popular at the time.
While the Rest Cure could be an unpleasant experience, West Cure patients typically
returned refreshed and reinvigorated. This was particularly true of Eakins, who spent
the summer of 1887 at a ranch in the Dakota Badlands at the advice of his friend
Mitchell and his physician Horatio Wood.
Eakins had the time of his life in the Dakotas, where he herded cattle, slept on the
ground, mingled with cowboys and wrote fondly of his experiences to his wife, Susan.
He returned from his ranching expedition looking “built up miraculously,” according to
his friend Walt Whitman.
Mitchell, a self-diagnosed neurasthenic, enjoyed the West Cure himself. He made
camping and fishing expeditions in the Western United States and Canada nearly every
year. He saw these trips as a necessary respite from his intellectual pursuits and as a
means of preventing nervous breakdowns.
The West Cure also influenced American politics via U.S. President and recovered
neurasthenic Theodore Roosevelt. In the 1880s, Roosevelt visited the Dakotas several
times to treat his asthma and neurasthenic symptoms (Roosevelt was friends with
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Owen Wister, Mitchell’s patient and close friend). He also hoped to develop a more
masculine appearance.
Before heading West, Roosevelt’s effeminate looks and high voice provoked
comparisons to Oscar Wilde; afterward, he became known for his strenuous brand of
masculinity. Roosevelt’s motto, “speak softly and carry a big stick,” sums up the ethos of
many Westerns, in which stoic men of action engage in constant battles with nature,
Indians and rogue cowboys. Like many men of his generation, Roosevelt felt that
masculinity was forged by conflict, an attitude that carried over into his imperialist
foreign policy.
The dramatic difference between the Rest and West Cures suggests their prescriptive
nature. Both cures existed to reinforce “proper” sexual behavior, serving to masculinize
effeminate (and possibly homosexual) men and discourage women from entering the
professions. Both were supported by the authority of science in an era that emphasized
the biological differences between men and women.
Neurasthenia fell out of favor as a diagnosis in the United States following World War I.
Postwar American doctors increasingly saw neurasthenia as an umbrella term that
could apply to many mental and physical ills. Mitchell’s cures, meanwhile, were
gradually supplanted by various forms of psychoanalysis, particularly Freudian talk
therapy. Yet aspects of both the Rest and West Cures survive in modern culture and
medical practice. Women with difficult pregnancies are still put on bed rest, for instance,
while over-stressed business executives of both sexes travel to pristine natural
destinations in search of relaxation and self-discovery, sometimes combined with
rigorous physical activities, such as biking or mountaineering. Perhaps we are not so
different from the nervous rough riders of Roosevelt’s generation after all.
Anne Stiles, PhD, is assistant professor of English at St. Louis University.
Food for thought:
Historical context is always important when considering a piece from another time period.
Consider the stereotypes of men and women in the 1800s.
1) What are the implied stereotypes of women that would have led to the “Rest” Cure?
What do you think was the result when women underwent this “cure”?
2) Why would the “West” cure have been more successful? What stereotypical male
attributes did it address?
3) Consider the stereotypes of the 1800s. Which have shifted the most between then and
now, those depicting men, or those depicting women? Why might that be?