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Welcome to Asylum Projects, A historic asylum wiki anyone can edit. 2,426 articles and counting

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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.

Asylum News   (news you can edit!) February 7, 2016 Clarinda struggles to fill former hospital The 128-year-old former mental health institute in the small southwest Iowa city of Clarinda isn’t your typical real estate opportunity, and so far no one is rushing to move in. More than seven months after the state closed the Clarinda Mental Health Institute, much of the sprawling building remains empty, including entire floors that haven’t been used in decades. February 1, 2016 Efforts continue to preserve other parts of former Peoria State Hospital grounds Christina Morris happily remembers Sunday morning breakfasts with her grandparents, followed by visits to the peaceful cemeteries on the grounds of the Peoria State Hospital, where some family members are buried. “My interest with the state hospital started when I was about 7 years old,” Morris said in a recent interview. “When I would come onto the grounds (my grandfather) would say that this was a place of special people. (By special) I thought he meant giants, because these buildings were so big and beautiful and immaculate to me. I just was enamored by how beautiful it was.” January 7, 2016 That Time The United States Sterilized 60,000 Of Its Citizens Not too long ago, more than 60,000 people were sterilized in the United States based on eugenic laws. Most of these operations were performed before the 1960s in institutions for the so-called “mentally ill” or “mentally deficient.” In the early 20th century across the country, medical superintendents, legislators, and social reformers affiliated with an emerging eugenics movement joined forces to put sterilization laws on the books. January, 6, 2016 Pa. hires firm to develop plan for Harrisburg State Hospital site Harrisburg, PA-The state has hired a Lancaster planning company to help it figure out what to do with the former Harrisburg State Hospital, which closed 10 years ago. Since closing in 2006, the hospital complex has housed state workers from the state police, Department of General Services and the Department of Human Services. It is now part of the larger DGS Annex property, which encompasses 303 acres across Harrisburg and Susquehanna Township.