This paper discusses the development of the Mississippi School of Occupational Therapy, the first occupational therapy education program supported by a state government, and the first to start in the deep south. This article explores what is known about the school and the department to which the school was to supply therapists. The school existed from 1921-1926 under Eleanor Goodwin Morse a student of Eleanor Clarke Slagle, and followed the curriculum design of the Henry B. Favill School of Occupation and continued under Louise Howorth until 1929. The forty-three graduates whose names can be identified, staffed the Department of Occupational Therapy at the Mississippi State Insane Asylum and occupational therapy departments in eleven other states thus spreading the knowledge and skills of occupational therapy throughout the south and east coast.
Keywords: History of occupational therapy; Mississippi; manpower; mental health; occupational therapy; occupational therapy education.