Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

I got an email this morning breaking the sad news that Heidi Johnson passed away this week. In case you’re unaware, Ms. Johnson was a photographer and author of Angels in the Architecture, a fantastic collection of photos and history of Traverse City State Hospital. I never met or spoke with her unfortunately, but her work documenting TCSH was an influence on me and on many other asylum photographers. I’ve always had nothing but respect for her work. In addition to being just plain beautiful, I’m sure it also played a role in the preservation of Building 50.

For some other tributes and thoughts on Ms. Johnson’s passing, please see Heidi Johnson and the Angels in the Architecture and Remembering Heidi Johnson.

I got an email last week informing me that my list of Kirkbrides was incomplete because the asylum in Osawatomie, Kansas wasn’t included. While I’m still not 100% sure there was a Kirkbride there, I trust this person‘s opinion and went looking (again) for whatever evidence I could find.

During my search I did find something promising related to the Osawatomie asylum, but the thing I found really exciting was something else entirely that I stumbled upon by happy accident. I’m sure only the most geeky of asylum architecture enthusiasts will find this interesting, so if you’re not one of those, please disregard this post. If you are an asylum architecture nerd, then read on… (more…)

Source: Google Maps

I’ve been waiting for more Kirkbrides to show up in Google Maps‘ Street View feature since the Worcester Kirkbride appeared a few months ago. While putting together a separate post involving Buffalo State Hospital, I happily discovered that the Buffalo Kirkbride is now featured. If you’ve never been, take a look around.

As explained a while back in this post, it’s my goal to post pages with pictures and history of each demolished Kirkbride building that I never got a chance to visit. I’ve recently posted a few more, including Spring Grove State Hospital (Maryland), Fulton State Hospital (Missouri), Jacksonville State Hospital (Illinois), Kalamazoo State Hospital (Michigan), Winnebago State Hospital (you guessed it: Wisconsin), and Pontiac State Hospital (Michigan).

Some of the less boring facts gleaned during my research involve the asylums in Jacksonville and Fulton. At Jacksonville, in 1860 a lady named Elizabeth Packard was involuntarily committed for three years. Her husband sent her to the asylum after she began disagreeing with his religious beliefs. On her release, she separated from her husband, formed the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, and successfully petitioned the Illinois legislature to grant wives the right to a public hearing if their husbands tried to have them committed. She also wrote a few books about her asylum experience (one of which can be read online here). (more…)

LiveJournal user laurapalmer813 posted some photos of the Kirkbride building in Dayton, Ohio today. (This is the Kirkbride that’s been turned into a retirement home.) If you’re interested, check out the photos. The building looks pretty good, maybe a little boring since it’s lost some ornamentation, but still pretty good. Looks like it’ll be around for a good long while.

I have a confession to make: I still haven’t read all of Thomas Kirkbride’s book On the Construction and General Arrangement of Hospitals for the Insane. I know, it’s shameful but true. I have read a decent portion of it, but the text is just so utterly BORING. Kirkbride’s convoluted and archaic prose full of inverted sentence structures, superfluous commas, and needless repetition is bad enough, but the bulk of the content is pretty tiresome too. The lengthy discussions about fireproofing and number of “water-closets” required per ward really put me to sleep.

I somehow managed to slog through another ten chapters (51 through 60) and transcribe them for the site though. I know I said I wasn’t going to add to the transcription now that the book is available elsewhere, but I’ve changed my mind. There’s no other way I’m ever going to read the entire book, and having it available here as a resource just makes sense. (more…)

Sorry for the blatant self-promotion, but I think some of you regular readers will be interested in this. I’ve started another web site along similar lines to this one, although it doesn’t have anything to do with asylums. It’s a collection of photos and history of buildings in the northeastern United States.

www.nearchitecture.com

In studying Kirkbrides for so long, I’ve also gained appreciation for other buildings too. Even though they don’t have the same allure as the old insane asylums, other buildings can still be beautiful and intriguing. While traveling to visit Kirkbrides, I’ve come across a few other places worth taking pictures of. I wasn’t planning this new site when I took the photos though so the galleries are currently a bit uneven. But at least it’s a better starting off point than the original KirkbrideBuildings.com! (I still can’t believe I put that online. You’ve come a long way, baby…) (more…)

There’s a new pictorial history of Spring Grove State Hospital entitled… Spring Grove State Hospital. It’s was compiled by David Helsel, M.D. and Trevor Blank. (Dr. Helsel is the superintendent of Spring Grove Hospital Center.)

The book was published as part of the Images of America series. Images of America books are pretty consistently good quality resources for historical images and history.

I haven’t seen the book myself yet, but I’m told that several images of the Spring Grove Kirkbride building are included. If the images are anything like those on the hospital web site’s virtual tour of the old Kirkbride, I’m sure they’re worth seeing, especially in print.

Over the weekend I stopped off at Worcester State Hospital to check out the demolition work. There’s still a good portion of the wing standing, but I was surprised at how much is gone. Gage Hall (the non-freestanding rotunda) and the section I believe was named Lincoln are mostly rubble.

Oddly, the building seems much bigger with those pieces gone. I guess it has to do with how those parts blocked the view of the rest of the building from certain angles. Anyway, it won’t be long before the whole thing is gone. See it while you can. (more…)

I’ve added a page for Cherokee State Hospital. The photos date from the same trip in 2004 when I visited Clarinda and Independence. Like the other two Kirkbrides, the building at Cherokee is in great shape and the grounds are well kept, giving a good sense of what Kirkbride hospitals must have looked like back in the early days. Cherokee was a little different though in that much more of the Kirkbride is still fully used, not to mention the fact that one wing is now occupied by a prison. A tall fence topped with razor wire surrounds the prison wing, and really detracts from the building’s otherwise pleasant appearance. (more…)