Title: Lulu Wendel Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1945-1978

Creator:

• Wendel, Lulu, 1906-

Call Number: Milwaukee Mss 125

Quantity: 1.6 c.f. (4 archives boxes)

Repository:

Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries’ Archives Department / Milwaukee Area Research Center; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Milwaukee Libraries, Archives / Milwaukee Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of an active member of voluntary mental health organizations in Wisconsin and California documenting her efforts to aid institutionalized mental patients. Included are organizational papers such as correspondence, minutes, memoranda, membership lists, reports, publicity materials, financial records, notes, and clippings pertaining to her involvement with the Contra Costa County Mental Health Association, the Milwaukee County Society for Mental Health, the National Academy of Religion and Mental Health, the Women's Court and Civic Conference (Milwaukee), and other organizations. Files of speeches and writings concern her personal experiences as a mental patient. There is also information on her interest in the Human Growth Institute during the 1960s.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mil00125

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Lulu Wendel was born Luise Finck in Frankfurt, Germany in 1906. She immigrated to the United States in 1929 and worked as a lab technician for a chemical manufacturing company in New York. She married Hans Wendel, a chemical engineer and another German immigrant, and they settled in California.

In 1940, following the birth of her first child, Mrs. Wendel experienced extreme manic depression with episodes of violence, and she was committed to a California state mental hospital. She recovered after an institutionalization of over three years. In 1944 she moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to rejoin her husband and young daughter Lulu Jane.

Mrs. Wendel's personal experiences as a patient in a mental institution inspired her lifelong efforts to aid the mentally ill. Through writing and participation in various mental health organizations, she worked to improve conditions in state hospitals and to foster an understanding of mental illness from the patient's point of view.

Her first contribution was an account of her illness and recovery entitled “If I Am Ever Mentally Ill Again, I Hope the Hospitals Will Be Different.” Published in 1945, the article was reprinted many times and incorporated into a number of hospital training programs.

In 1945 she joined the Milwaukee Women's Court and Civic Conference (WCCC) and became chair of its committee on mental hygiene. She instigated tours of mental facilities in Wisconsin and wrote reports and gave presentations on conditions. In particular, her activities were aimed at abolishing restraint and patient isolation, providing recreation, and improving treatment programs. Under her leadership, the WCCC committee also sponsored educational programs about mental illness and lobbied for increased funding for mental institutions. Mrs. Wendel was also responsible for the organization of the WCCC Friendship Service Club to recruit and organize hospital volunteers, channel donations, and conduct personal visits to patients in mental institutions.

As a representative of the WCCC, in 1946 Mrs. Wendel joined the Committee for the Improved Care of the Mentally Ill, which worked to pool the efforts of groups and individuals working to improve the care and treatment of patients in state and county facilities. Under CICMI's sponsorship, Mrs. Wendel established a series of institutional service units at Mendota State Hospital, Southern Wisconsin Colony, and the Milwaukee County Asylum. Modelled after a project by the American Friends, the ISUs trained work-study students to serve as attendants and recreation leaders. Although CICMI folded in 1947, Mrs. Wendel continued to organize ISUs until 1949.

In 1945, Mrs. Wendel also helped to form the Milwaukee County Mental Health Committee, a local affiliate of the National Association for Mental Health. In 1950 the committee incorporated and changed its name to the Milwaukee County Society for Mental Health. The purpose of the group was largely educational; it sponsored lectures, workshops, and an annual mental health week. Mrs. Wendel was active in the group's education committee as secretary and member until 1952, when she became vice president of the MCSMH and chair of its publications committee.

In 1947, Mrs. Wendel served as secretary to the Milwaukee County Preparatory Commission for the International Congress on Mental Health. The congress met in London in 1950 and the Milwaukee commission presented a paper which explored the links between child rearing methods and attitudes towards war.

Mrs. Wendel's activities in Milwaukee ended in 1953 when her husband became technical director for the Pan-American Yeast and Products Company, and the Wendels moved to Brazil. In 1955, they returned to California when Hans became a chemical engineer for the Red Star Yeast Company.

In California, Mrs. Wendel joined the Contra Costa County Mental Health Association (CCCMHA). In 1956 she was elected vice president, and in 1959 she became president. Her participation in the CCCMHA reflected her interests in mental health education, outreach, and direct aid to the institutionalized mentally ill. During the period of her leadership the association sponsored lectures, plays, and workshops on mental health and organized volunteers to visit patients at Napa State Hospital. Mrs. Wendel also represented the CCCMHA at annual meetings of its parent organization, the California Association for Mental Health, and she sat on its Volunteer Service Committee. Mrs. Wendel left the CCCMHA in 1961 in a disagreement over its purpose and future direction. Nevertheless, she continued to perform volunteer work at Napa State Hospital.

Interest in the role of religion in her own recovery from mental illness led her to help form a chapter of the National Academy of Religion and Mental Health in Contra Costa County in l961. This group brought medical professionals, church officials, and lay people together to discuss the relationship between religion, psychiatry, and mental health. In 1963 she joined a second chapter (East Bay) for which she served as secretary and steering committee member. Eventually Mrs. Wendel broke with the leadership of this organization due to a dispute over the leadership role of non-professionals.

In the early 1960s, Mrs. Wendel enrolled in courses at the Human Growth Institute in order to qualify as an instructor of her own Human Growth group. The program combined religion with Maslow-derived psychology and promoted the development of human potential through self-awareness and self-actualization. After completing her training in 1964, she developed her own human potential courses and promotional materials but was unsuccessful in attracting students.

From 1967 to 1968, Mrs. Wendel was secretary of the California Committee for Improved Treatment in Our State Hospitals, a committee formed in response to Governor Ronald Reagan's proposals to cut funding to state-run mental health facilities. The committee organized petitions and letter-writing campaigns to lobby the legislature for increased staffing levels and salaries for state hospital employees.

In 1978, Lulu Wendel was named Contra Costa County Volunteer of the Year in recognition for her more than twenty years of mental health activities.

The papers reflect Mrs. Wendel's activities as a leading member of voluntary mental health organizations in Wisconsin and California (1945 to 1968) such as the Contra Costa County Mental Health Association, the Milwaukee County Society for Mental Health, the National Academy of Religion and Mental Health, and the Women's Court and Civic Conference. Her files provide important supplementary information on collections held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin on the Women's Court and Civic Conference and the Milwaukee County Society for Mental Health. There are few personal papers in the collection, although the file of speeches and writings contains some vivid references to her experiences as a mental patient. The papers refer to her relationship with her mentor and friend Dr. Anton T. Boisen, but there is no evidence of their contact here, and it is believed that Mrs. Wendel may have donated this portion of her correspondence to the Boisen Collection at Chicago Theological Seminary. Her work from 1968 to 1978 for the support group Relatives and Friends Together and Operation Friendship is also undocumented here. The files include general correspondence, organizational records, writings and speeches, and awards, and they are arranged alphabetically by organization name or subject. Original photographs received with the papers have been filed in the Visual Materials Archive name file.

The general correspondence includes chronologically-arranged incoming and outgoing letters. Much of the correspondence is from leaders in national mental health organizations and California state public health officials on such topics as Wendel's volunteer activities, establishment of local groups, and state funding support for the mentally ill.

The organizational files variously contain correspondence, minutes, memoranda, membership lists, reports, publicity materials, financial records, notes, and clippings. Taken together, these provide fairly complete evidence of Wendel's efforts to aid the mentally ill, improve treatment and conditions in state hospitals, and educate the public about mental illness.

Files containing Wendel's writing and speeches are prefaced by lists of her appearances and dates of submission and publication of her articles and reviews. Correspondence regarding her speeches and drafts and reprints of articles and reviews are included here. Several vivid accounts of her hospitalization are especially interesting, since her personal experiences formed the basis for her mental health activism. Accounts of her tours of Wisconsin state hospitals contain detailed descriptions of conditions and treatment used during the 1940's from a former patient's point of view.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Lulu Wendel, Lafayette, California, 1966-1975. Accession Number: M67-201; M68-285; M70-25, M70-279; M71-260; M72-136, M72-290; M74-143, M74-442; M75-602, M75-603, M75-604

Processing Information

Processed by Cindy A. Knight and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1990.

Box   1 Folder   1	LW notes on the collection; Xeroxed copies of photographs
Box   1 Folder   2	Awards, 1978
Box   1 Folder   3-4	California Association for Mental Health, 1959-1961
Box   1 Folder   5	Citizen's Committee for Improved Treatment in Our State Hospitals, 1967-1968
Box   1 Folder   6	Committee for the Improved Care of the Mentally Ill, 1946-1948
Box   1 Folder   7	Community Mental Health Coordinating Committee, 1959-1960
	Contra Costa County Mental Health Association
Box   1 Folder   8	Annual and financial reports, 1957-1963
Box   1 Folder   9	Board of directors, 1957-1959
	Committees
Box   1 Folder   10	Art show, 1959-1960
Box   1 Folder   11	Education, 1957-1959
Box   1 Folder   12	Executive, 1955, 1958-1959
Box   1 Folder   13	Hospital service, 1959-1963
Box   1 Folder   14	Joint action, 1959
Box   2 Folder   1	General correspondence, 1955-1961
Box   2 Folder   2	Publicity, 1957-1963
Box   2 Folder   3-7	Correspondence, 1944-1970
	Human Growth Institute
Box   2 Folder   8	Correspondence, 1964-1965
Box   2 Folder   9	Course material, 1960-1965
Box   3 Folder   1	Institutional Service Units, 1946-1949
	Milwaukee County Society for Mental Health
Box   3 Folder   2-3	General, 1945-1953
Box   3 Folder   4-5	Workshops on mental health education, 1950, 1951
Box   3 Folder   6	Milwaukee Preparatory Commission for the International Congress on Mental Health, 1947-1950
	National Academy of Religion and Mental Health
Box   4 Folder   1-2	Contra Costa County Chapter, 1961-1965
Box   4 Folder   3	East Bay Chapter, 1963-1967
Box   4 Folder   4-5	General correspondence, 1956-1970
	Women's Court and Civic Conference
Box   4 Folder   6	General, 1945-1949
Box   4 Folder   7	Friendship Service Club, 1945-1949
Box   4 Folder   8-9	Writings and speeches, 1944-1954, 1962