Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

Those familiar with 19th century asylums know all about the sometimes trivial or bizarre reasons people were “adjudged insane”. If you do any kind of research into asylums or the history of psychology, you invariably come across lists of weird explanations for why certain people were committed to asylums.

But I was surprised by a list on Roots Web I came across recently. The list was compiled from late 19th and early 20th century newspaper items describing people committed to the Mount Pleasant asylum in Iowa. (more…)