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Gallery: Women in Psychiatry

Thomas Story Kirkbride, ca. 1900

Thomas Story Kirkbride provided the major influences during the 19th century on the building and organization of mental hospitals. In 1854, he published his book, On the Construction, Organization, and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane (Philadelphia), which influenced the architecture and construction particularly of state asylums, known as "Kirkbride Hospitals," some of which were still in use into the mid-20th century.


About the Book

Printed title page with Surgeon General’s Library stamp.

On the construction, organization, and general arrangements of hospitals for the insane, by Thomas Story Kirkbride (Philadelphia, 1854)

Thomas Story Kirkbride provided the major influences during the 19th century on the building and organization of mental hospitals. In 1854, he published this book which influenced the architecture and construction particularly of state asylums, known as "Kirkbride Hospitals," some of which were still in use into the mid-20th century.

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