In 1951 the hospital began providing another occupational activity—Hospital Banner, a newsletter published by the facility’s patients. The Historic New Orleans Collection recently acquired 21 issues of the publication, which offer an extraordinary look at the hospital’s facilities, staff, and patients during the 1950s and ’60s. Hospital Banner included editorials by staff, but the illustrations and articles were contributed by patients, who described their daily activities, submitted poetry, wrote jokes, and discussed hospital news including personnel changes and progress on new buildings. In one issue, a writer described the freedom of being placed in an unlocked ward of the hospital, saying, “To be on an open ward is to know that you are trusted.” In another issue, a news item reads, “Mr. Levy, patient of Wd. 23, who was working as assistant librarian has left for home. Best of luck, Mr. Levy, we miss your kind smile and willing hand around here.”

This sort of patient-led periodical was not unique to CLSH; two other regional examples are The Whit, a publication of the Mississippi State Hospital that served as the inspiration for Hospital Banner,and The Pelican from the Louisiana Training Institute, a juvenile home for boys in Monroe. These titles carry on the tradition of the country’s first patient-led newsletter, The Meteor, published at the Alabama Insane Asylum from 1872 to 1881—but they can also be seen as related to prison publications such as The Angolite, which is createdby incarcerated people at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and remains in print today.

These publications are subject to the oversight of administration and may provide only a limited glimpse into the lives of their creators. Still, they serve many purposes: They provide meaningful activity for institutionalized people, demonstrate to administrators and government bodies how their money is being spent, and create a positive connection between the outside world and those who are hospitalized or incarcerated.