Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

There’s finally a page for Clarinda State Hospital. I visited the place back in 2004…

2004… the days when I absolutely, positively NEEDED a camera that fit in my pocket. The days before I knew what a tripod was for, or had ever heard of things like bracketing. What I’m trying to say that most of the pictures are a bit iffy. Still, there are plenty of other pictures on this site from the same time period, and these Clarinda shots are the best from my Iowa excursion. Looking at some of them though I just can’t help feeling disappointed. Why didn’t I step back a few feet here? Why didn’t I turn two degrees to the right there? How did my @#%*! finger get in front of the lens? (more…)

I added a Greystone Park page to the site. I’ve been sitting on pictures of the place for a few years now. They’ll be a bit of a yawn to those familiar with other asylum web sites (most notably John Gray’s fantastic Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital). But I think it’s important that the building be represented here, if only to stop the semi-regular emails I get telling me that I missed Greystone… (more…)

A little while back, someone from the Arkansas History Commission & State Archives informed me that there was once a Kirkbride at the state hospital in Little Rock. I had suspected that there was one there, but wasn’t sure until I got their email. The stunning building pictured above opened as the Arkansas Lunatic Asylum in 1883. Unfortunately, it was demolished in the 1960s. You can learn the asylum’s history at this web page which also includes a few more images. I’ve added Arkansas, and a few other lost Kirkbrides, to the list of demolished Kirkbrides.

The Lobotomist, an American Experience documentary about the notorious Dr Walter Freeman, will be aired Monday, January 21st on PBS. Dr Freeman was the inventor of the transorbital lobotomy and has a rather chequered reputation—as does the lobotomy which fell out of favor years ago. Stories about controversial or horrific treatment of patients are usually a bit too morbid for my taste, but they’re impossible to avoid when studying the buildings in which these treatments often took place. American Experience always makes intelligent, high-quality documentaries too, so this is worth seeing if you have the time.

The “Kirkbride Family History” blog is a collection of excerpts from a book about…the Kirkbride family history. The book was written by Sherman Kirkbride and published in 1913. The blog hasn’t been updated in several months, but there are already some interesting facts posted. The blog author plans on posting more when she has the time. If anything pertaining to Thomas Story Kirkbride comes up I’ll link to it here, but you can also keep an eye on the blog yourself at kirkbrides.blogspot.com.