Visiting American Insane Asylums & Reset Prisons During The 1800's

Below is the narrative fed to us through our history. Tread lightly through the script, as the pictures tell a different story. The formation of insane asylums in North America during the 1800s was a significant development in the 'treatment' of dissenters and non-believers. It appears that they were possibly also 'Reset Prisons' where dissenters were captured, placed, separated from family and worked to death. History tends to denote them as 'asylums' for the masses of people who allegedly went insane (for some reason) after they immigrated here and had families.

Reset Prisons were more rehabilitative than harshly punitive, so the story goes. Abductees were prohibited from talking at all times, confined in separate cells at night, and then labored together during the day in workshops modeled on the industrial factory!

EARLY ASYLUMS: Some asylums were established long before the 1800s, but they became far more widespread and popular during this time period. Traditionally, people suffering from mental illness were primarily treated at home by their families. However, in many cases, families were incapable of providing adequate care, and oftentimes mentally ill people would become destitute and homeless. Asylums were developed with the intention of offering support and safety to people in these circumstances.

PHILANTHROPIC DREAMS: Asylums started out as philanthropic dreams, rather than psychiatric nightmares. The concept was born in the mid-1800s, when socially minded citizens, dismayed by the often dismal lot of the mentally unstable, paid for dozens of institutions to be constructed for their care. By 1880, 139 had been built in the US.

TREATMENT METHODS: Early asylums are known for their use of harsh treatment methods and terrible living conditions. However, for a time, asylums focused on treating patients with kindness and respect, in the hope that the parts of their minds that remained rational would respond and their conditions would improve. These efforts, while admirable, ultimately fell apart at the close of the century as asylums throughout Europe and America became overwhelmed.

FIRST ASYLUMS: The first asylum influenced by the York Retreat was the Friends Asylum near Frankford, Pennsylvania, established in 1817. The Hartford Retreat in Connecticut appeared the same year, while the McLean Asylum for the Insane was established in Boston the following year.

NEW YORK HOSPITAL: The New York Hospital opened a ward for "curable" insane patients. In 1808, a free-standing medical facility was built nearby for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, and in 1821 a larger facility called the Bloomingdale Asylum was built in what is now the Upper West Side.

This period marked a significant shift in societal attitudes towards mental health, with a move towards institutional care and treatment. However, the conditions and treatment methods in these asylums were often far from ideal, and they have been the subject of much criticism and reform in the years since.

SOURCE
Old Scary World