Scope and Content From the Collection: The John W. Norwood Letter to Francis Stribling, the superintendent of the Virginia Western State Lunatic Asylum, discusses the mental health of Norwood's wife and seeks advice on how to help her. The letter outlines the psychological effects of enslaving human beings upon an enslaver with fragile mental health. The fear of the people she enslaved was apparently driving her mad, and she feared not only the violence of an uprising, but the letter hints at her fear of being poisoned as...