Download or read book The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry written by John Paul Webster and published by Landmarks. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join author J.P. Webster as he explores the fascinating and complex history of the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry. The Quaker City and its hospitals were pioneers in the field of mental health. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, its institutions were crowded and patients lived in shocking conditions. The mentally ill were quartered with the dangerously criminal. By 1906, the city had purchased a vast acreage of farmland incorporated into the city, and the Philadelphia Hospital dubbed its new venture Byberry City Farms. From the start, its history was riddled with corruption and committees, investigations and inquests, appropriations and abuse. Yet it is also a story of reform and redemption, of heroes and human dignity--many dedicated staff members did their best to help patients whose mental illnesses were little understood and were stigmatized by society.
Download or read book Byberry State Hospital written by Hannah Karena Jones and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looming on the outskirts of Philadelphia County since 1906, the mental hospital most commonly known as "Byberry" stood abandoned for 16 years before being demolished in 2006. At its peak in the 1960s, Byberry was home to more than 6,000 patients and employer to more than 800. With its own self-sustaining farm, bowling alleys, barbershop, ice cream parlor, federal post office, and baseball team, Byberry was a micro-community. Throughout its history, the hospital served as an educational institution for Philadelphia's medical, nursing, and psychology students; was the site of a World War II Civilian Public Service conscientious objector unit; and a volunteering hot spot for local churches, schools, and Girl and Boy Scout troops. This book provides an unprecedented window into the good, the bad, the unusual, and the forgotten history of Byberry.
Download or read book The Shame of the States written by Albert Deutsch and published by . This book was released on 1948 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expose on the deplorable conditions in state mental hospitals, including overcrowding, understaffing, inadequate budgets, lack of adequate treatment facilities, etc. It consists mostly of pieces written for the New York newspaper PM and its successor the Star, as well as some less journalistic content, written from 1940-1948.
Download or read book The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry written by John Paul Webster and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This account of the infamous asylum is “an excellent record of greed and corruption, but it is also a powerful testimonial to compassion and kindness” (Hidden City). The Quaker City and its hospitals were pioneers in the field of mental health. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, its institutions were crowded and patients lived in shocking conditions. The mentally ill were quartered with the dangerously criminal. By 1906, the city had purchased a vast acreage of farmland incorporated into the city, and the Philadelphia Hospital dubbed its new venture Byberry City Farms. From the start, its history was riddled with corruption and committees, investigations and inquests, appropriations and abuse. Yet it is also a story of reform and redemption, of heroes and human dignity—many dedicated staff members did their best to help patients whose mental illnesses were little understood and were stigmatized by society. “The closed hospital’s almost forgotten story intrigued him immediately and then became his passion . . . Webster tells the hospital’s 100-year story in a brisk, easy-to-read style, and the book is illustrated with 75 photographs from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Temple University Urban Archives, the Pennsylvania State Archives, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, PhillyHistory.org and friends.” —Northeast Times “Webster . . . wrote his book because of his fascination with an abandoned building he discovered in 2002. He wanted to tell the story of Byberry, one he believes many people do not fully understand.” —Philadelphia Neighborhoods
Download or read book Bedlam written by Kenneth Paul Rosenberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A psychiatrist and award-winning documentarian sheds light on the mental-health-care crisis in the United States. When Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg trained as a psychiatrist in the late 1980s, the state mental hospitals, which had reached peak occupancy in the 1950s, were being closed at an alarming rate, with many patients having nowhere to go. There has never been a more important time for this conversation, as one in five adults--40 million Americans--experiences mental illness each year. Today, the largest mental institution in the United States is the Los Angeles County Jail, and the last refuge for many of the 20,000 mentally ill people living on the streets of Los Angeles is L.A. County Hospital. There, Dr. Rosenberg begins his chronicle of what it means to be mentally ill in America today, integrating his own moving story of how the system failed his sister, Merle, who had schizophrenia. As he says, "I have come to see that my family's tragedy, my family's shame, is America's great secret." Dr. Rosenberg gives readers an inside look at the historical, political, and economic forces that have resulted in the greatest social crisis of the twenty-first century. The culmination of a seven-year inquiry, Bedlam is not only a rallying cry for change, but also a guidebook for how we move forward with care and compassion, with resources that have never before been compiled, including legal advice, practical solutions for parents and loved ones, help finding community support, and information on therapeutic options.
Download or read book Danvers State written by Angelina Szot and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author provides an account of her experiences working as a nurse at Danvers State hospital for the mentally ill in Massachusetts from the 1940s through the 1960s.
Download or read book Closing the Asylums written by George Paulson, M.D. and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most significant medical and social initiatives of the twentieth century was the demolition of the traditional state hospitals that housed most of the mentally ill, and the placement of the patients out into the community. The causes of this deinstitutionalization included both idealism and legal pressures, newly effective medications, the establishment of nursing and group homes, the woeful inadequacy of the aging giant hospitals, and an attitudinal change that emphasized environmental and social factors, not organic ones, as primarily responsible for mental illness. Though closing the asylums promised more freedom for many, encouraged community acceptance and enhanced outpatient opportunities, there were unintended consequences: increased homelessness, significant prison incarcerations of the mentally ill, inadequate community support or governmental funding. This book is written from the point of view of an academic neurologist who has served 60 years as an employee or consultant in typical state mental institutions in North Carolina and Ohio.
Download or read book Abandoned America written by Matthew Christopher and published by Jonglez Photo Books. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally intended as an examination of the rise and fall of the state hospital system, Matthew Christopher's Abandoned America rapidly grew to encompass derelict factories and industrial sites, schools, churches, power plants, hospitals, prisons, military installations, hotels, resorts, homes, and more.
Download or read book The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry written by J. P. Webster and published by History Press Library Editions. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Quaker City and its hospitals were pioneers in the field of mental health. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, its institutions were crowded and patients lived in shocking conditions. The mentally ill were quartered with the dangerously criminal. By 1906, the city had purchased a vast acreage of farmland incorporated into the city, and the Philadelphia Hospital dubbed its new venture Byberry City Farms. From the start, its history was riddled with corruption and committees, investigations and inquests, appropriations and abuse. Yet it is also a story of reform and redemption, of heroes and human dignity--many dedicated staff members did their best to help patients whose mental illnesses were little understood and were stigmatized by society. Join author J.P. Webster as he explores the fascinating and complex history of the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry.
Download or read book The Lobotomist written by Jack El-Hai and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-02-09 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman’s documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius. The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, M.D., who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Although many patients did not benefit from the thousands of lobotomies Freeman performed, others believed their lobotomies changed them for the better. Drawing on a rich collection of documents Freeman left behind and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look into the life of this complex scientific genius and traces the physician's fascinating life and work.
Download or read book Italy s Margins written by David Forgacs and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five case studies show how different people and places were marginalized and socially excluded as the Italian nation-state was formed.
Download or read book The Amityville Horror written by Jay Anson and published by Gallery Books. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating and frightening book” (Los Angeles Times)—the bestselling true story about a house possessed by evil spirits, haunted by psychic phenomena almost too terrible to describe. In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price had been too good to pass up. Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror. This is the spellbinding, shocking true story that gripped the nation about an American dream that turned into a nightmare beyond imagining—“this book will scare the hell out of you” (Kansas City Star).
Download or read book Danvers State Hospital written by Katherine Anderson and Robert Duffy and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Danvers State Hospital revolutionized mental health care for more than a century, beginning in 1878. Today, it's buildings still have stories to tell. Perched high on the top of Hathorne Hill in what was once the village of Salem, Danvers State Insane Asylum was, for more than a century, a monument to modern psychiatry and the myriad advances in mental health treatment. From the time it opened its doors in 1878 until they were shuttered for good in 1992, the asylum represented decades of reform, the physical embodiment of the heroic visions of Dorothea Dix and Thomas Story Kirkbride. It would stand abandoned until 2005, when demolition began. Along with a dedicated group of private citizens, the Danvers Historical Society fought to preserve the Kirkbride structure, an effort that would result in the reuse of the administration building and two additional wings. Danvers has earned a unique place in history; the shell of the original Kirkbride building still stands overlooking the town. Though it has been changed drastically, the asylum's story continues as do efforts to memorialize it.
Download or read book No One Cares About Crazy People written by Ron Powers and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times-bestselling author Ron Powers offers a searching, richly researched narrative of the social history of mental illness in America paired with the deeply personal story of his two sons' battles with schizophrenia. From the centuries of torture of "lunatiks" at Bedlam Asylum to the infamous eugenics era to the follies of the anti-psychiatry movement to the current landscape in which too many families struggle alone to manage afflicted love ones, Powers limns our fears and myths about mental illness and the fractured public policies that have resulted. Braided with that history is the moving story of Powers's beloved son Kevin -- spirited, endearing, and gifted -- who triumphed even while suffering from schizophrenia until finally he did not, and the story of his courageous surviving son Dean, who is also schizophrenic. A blend of history, biography, memoir, and current affairs ending with a consideration of where we might go from here, this is a thought-provoking look at a dreaded illness that has long been misunderstood. "Extraordinary and courageous . . . No doubt if everyone were to read this book, the world would change." -- New York Times Book Review
Download or read book Gracefully Insane written by Alex Beam and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-07-21 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly) other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age," McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale McLean-despite its affiliation with Harvard University-is struggling to stay afloat. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors: the Ralph Waldo Emerson prot'g' whose brilliance disappeared along with his madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of approaches to treatment, and of the economic pressures that are making McLean-and other institutions like it-relics of a bygone age. This is a compelling and often oddly poignant reading for fans of books like Plath's The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author's stays at McLean) and for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the social history of New England.
Download or read book The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada written by William Francis Drewry and published by Sagwan Press. This book was released on 1916 with total page 990 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book Pennhurst State School and Hospital written by J. Gregory Pirmann and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly 80 years, Pennhurst State School and Hospital was a reminder of how society viewed and treated people with intellectual disabilities. Over its existence, Pennhurst was home to more than 10,600 people. Many spent decades there, working to keep the institution running by performing various jobs. While some enjoyed the lives they had fashioned for themselves at Pennhurst, for many others, life there was crushing. Pennhurst also played a central role in the lives of its employees and in the rural Pennsylvania community where it was located. Controversy plagued the institution for its entire existence, and it is remembered primarily as a place where bad things happened. However, it was much more than that. This book provides a window into that separate world, reminding those who were part of it of what they saw and did there and giving those who know only what they have heard or seen a different picture of what Pennhurst truly was.
