Asylums · Bridgeville, United States
Mayview State Hospital The open question
4,200 patients in a town of about 3,939. Where did they all come from?
On the record Mayview State Hospital was opened in 1893 by the City of Pittsburgh under the name Marshalsea, after the famous London debtors' prison where Charles Dickens' father was once held. By 1934, there were 4,200 patients and 450 staff at Mayview.
90 Does it add up? 90 /100from 1 factor Why › More from Asylums Morris Plains, New Jersey Greystone Park Over 670,000 square feet for 350 patients. Who builds that big for so few, and where did 7,700 people come from? Opened 1876. Built for 350 patients, all 673,700 sq ft of it; at its peak it held more than 7,700 people. Athens, Ohio Athens Lunatic Asylum (The Ridges) A small Ohio town gets a palace on a hill. Why so big, so soon after the Civil War? A Kirkbride hospital run from 1874 to 1993. The main building had room for 572 patients, almost double Kirkbride's own recommendation. Virginia Water, Surrey, England Holloway Sanatorium You don't build a Gothic palace to house the ill. Why build it like a cathedral? Paid for by the patent-medicine millionaire Thomas Holloway and built 1873–85 in an elaborate Franco-Gothic style by W. H. Crossland. Pevsner called it and its sister college the 'summit of High Victorian design'. Willard, New York Willard Asylum Four hundred suitcases never collected. Who were these people, and why did no one come for them? Opened 1869 for low-cost long-term care. In 1995 about 400 suitcases brought in by patients were found in an attic.