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Mission Statement The Mission The mission of this site is to archive both historical and current information on asylums across the United States and around the world. The Statement This site is dedicated to the history of asylums in all forms. The term of asylum is applied to not only what is commonly thought of: mental hospitals, but can also be applied to sanatoriums, state training schools, reform schools, almshouses, and orphanages. These institutions have and continue to play a major part in today's society. Everyone throughout the United States and in many other countries has in one way or another felt the touch of these institutions. These places have both directly and indirectly affected people and their families. They have shaped lives and created many popular myths about them. With all that in mind, this site was created to help in the historical research of any institutions that can be classified as an asylum. It was created for both serious researchers, those who are doing genealogical research, and people with an interest in asylums.

Featured Article Of The Week Bolivar State Hospital Opened to receive patients on November 22, 1889, the then-denoted "West Tennessee Hospital for the Insane" was designed by architect Harry P. MacDonald of Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee. The MacDonald firm was responsible for many fine, large public buildings in the South, such as the Sevier County Courthouse in Sevierville, Tennessee (1896). The institution was intended not only to meet the mental health needs of the Western Section of the State, but also to complete Tennessee's first efforts at implementing a social policy initiated before the Civil War. Tennessee initiated its public policy regarding the institutionalization of the mentally ill in the 1840s. The "lunatic asylum" in Nashville soon proved inadequate, and architect Adolphus Heiman produced a Gothic Revival design following the advice of Thomas S. Kirkbride. Click here for more... Archive, Future Featured Articles. Featured Image Of The Week The hospital is named for its founder, Bishop Thomas S. Byrne of Nashville. In 1898 he bought a mansion home in a residential West End neighborhood on Church Street between Twentieth and Twenty-first Avenues and converted it into a hospital. Four years later, in 1902, the hospital was constructed for $200,000 to meet their growing needs. The hospital was made of red brick and had arched roof gardens on either end of the building. In 1974 the current building opened on Harding Road, and by 1975 the old St. Thomas Hospital was torn down to make way for a Baptist Hospital parking lot. Archive, Future Featured Images.

Featured Video The following thirty-four-minute video, created by the FingerLakes1.com, Inc. YouTube channel and Finger Lakes History/Seneca County Historian Walter Gable, details the history of Willard State Hospital. Other Articles With Videos, Future Featured Videos.

Recent Message Board Posts For everyone asking genealogical questions, please read this message from the administrators. Hello, In this space you normally would see our forum. This had been a hold over from earlier days before we had a Facebook page. Just prior to our server issues regular users had been barely using the forum with the majority of new posts from anonymous users asking genealogy questions or spammers. The old forum software does not work with our new version while the new forum software does not carry over old comments to the new forum. As a result, the forum will be discontinued in favor of our Facebook page. If you have questions or comments you can ask them there. Asylum Projects Facebook Page If you have genealogical question here is an information page to help you.