Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

Fans of the Electric Pencil—AKA James Edward Deeds, Jr.—will be pleased to learn there’s a documentary film about the artist in the works. There’s also a Kickstarter project looking to raise funds for the film. You can learn all about it and back the project here: The Mystery of the Electric Pencil.

The project’s Kickstarter funding run will go until the afternoon of Tuesday, April 3rd. They’re looking to raise $30,000 by then. Backers who pledge $10 or more will be eligible for various gifts related to the film and the artist.

This may be the shortest post in the history of this blog, but I thought it worth noting that there’s a new article containing more biographical information about the Electric Pencil: Mystery Artist from the Ozarks Identified. The article includes a photo of Edward Deeds. In case you missed it, here’s more information about the Electric Pencil (aka Edward Deeds) from the archives.

I thought it worth noting that a reader recently commented on my previous post about the Electric Pencil and provided a link to an article revealing the artist’s identity: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. The piece also mentions that there will be a second edition of the Electric Pencil book.

I’ve seen a fair amount of artwork created by state hospital patients over the years, but nothing quite like the collection of folk art attributed to the anonymous Electric Pencil. In the early years of the 20th century, the Electric Pencil was at the Nevada State Hospital where he (or she) created hundreds of pictures. For his canvas, the artist utilized unused pieces of outdated hospital ledger paper. With pencil and crayon, he would cover both sides of each sheet with people, buildings, automobiles, trains, boats, animals and landscapes. The artwork is “primitive” but remarkable for its detail, unique subtleties (note for example the people’s eyes in the portraits) and sheer volume.

Although the entire collection of 283 drawings was carefully collected and sewn into a leather album at some point, it was almost lost forever. A fourteen year old boy happened to find the album in a trash heap and rescued it from oblivion in 1970. A new book reproducing the entire collection is now available from this website: Electric Pencil Drawings.

The only disappointing thing about the collection is that it doesn’t appear to contain any renderings of the Nevada Kirkbride building. There are however several images which leave little doubt that these drawings were made at the hospital. It’s really too bad that the artist didn’t attempt to reproduce the Kirkbride on paper. I’m sure he would have created a pretty compelling likeness of the structure.

The gentleman who runs the website where I learned about all this has informed me that he may have just recently gotten in touch with one of the Electric Pencil’s relatives. I hope so. It would be good to be able to put a name and history to this body of work. Watch the website for updates on this story.

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…)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been adding pages for Kirkbride buildings that no longer exist. If you go to the main buildings page and scroll down to the demolished Kirkbride list, you’ll see that some locations are now linked to pages for a particular asylum. So far I’ve added content for Columbus State Hospital (OH), Elgin State Hospital (IL), Mount Pleasant State Hospital (IA), Jackson State Hospital (MS), Nevada State Hospital (MO), and Rochester State Hospital (MN). I also put up a page for Saint Joseph State Hospital (MO) since what’s left of the building is now part of an active prison and I’m not likely to get photos of the place. (more…)