Insane Asylums facts

While investigating facts about Insane Asylums Near Me and Insane Asylums In The Us, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Nellie Bly, a 19th century female journalist who went around the world in 72 days, pretended to be insane in order to expose the deplorable conditions in mental asylums, patented two designs for steel cans and ran a million-dollar iron manufacturing business, all before the age of 40.

how insane asylums work?

The woman who first proposed the theory that Shakespeare wasn't the real author, didn't do any research for her book and was eventually sent to an insane asylum

What insane asylums were like?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what are insane asylums. Here are 47 of the best facts about Insane Asylums Today and Insane Asylums In The 1800s I managed to collect.

what happens at insane asylums?

In 1887 a reporter named Nellie Bly talked her way into an insane asylum in New York and published her experience after ten days in the asylum. She claimed many of the patients seemed completely sane and the conditions were horrid. This led to NYC budgeting $1,000,000 to care of the insane.
In the midst of the messy divorce, Charles Dickens referred to his wife as “dearest darling, Pig” and attempted to have her committed to an insane asylum so he could live with his 18 year old mistress.
The first African-American whose name appeared on ballots as a candidate for President of the United States was Clennon King in 1960. He was called the Black Don Quixote for his efforts and was committed to an insane asylum in 1958 for applying to the University of Mississippi.
The word "bedlam", meaning chaos, is derived from the infamous Bedlam insane asylum established in 1247. It was notorious for its brutal treatment of the mentally ill, and for allowing fee paying spectators to watch the "bedlam".
Boston Corbett, the Union army solider who fatally shot John Wilkes Booth, later went insane and was incarcerated in a mental asylum (Topeka Asylum for the Insane) in 1887. He escaped from the facility a year later and was never seen again.
The doctor who figured out that washing hands greatly reduced the death rate of women after childbirth was viewed as a madman and later confined to an insane asylum where he died 2 weeks after.
There was a newspaper written solely by the patients of an Alabama insane asylum during the late 1800s.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, a 19th century MP . He was involved in the reforming of insane asylums, responsible for several important child labour laws, and campaigned against the opium trade. As a result of his philanthropy he was known as 'The poor man's Earl'.

insane asylums facts — What are insane asylums like today?

Why did insane asylums close?

You can easily fact check why were insane asylums shut down by examining the linked well-known sources.

Albert Einstein had 3 children, one of which was committed to an insane asylum until his death in 1965 - source

The man who invented the lobotomy won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, as the treatment allowed patients to escape the comparatively barbaric and inhumane conditions found in insane asylums. - source

Frederick Mors, who wore a white lab coat, referred to himself as "Herr Doktor", and killed at least eight elderly patients in 1914-15. He escaped from an insane asylum at age 26 and was never heard from again.

A 2014 book called "Naming Jack The Ripper" claimed to have uncovered the killer's identity with DNA analysis. Jack the Ripper, according to the book, was Aaron Kosminski, a Polish immigrant who came to London in the early 1880s and was later committed to an insane asylum. - source

When did insane asylums close?

That, in Season 3 of The Simpsons, Michael Jackson played an insane asylum patient who thought he was Michael Jackson. The character's singing voice was provided by a soundalike

How do insane asylums work?

Dozens of suitcases full of preserved personal belongings were left behind at the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane from patients who had died there, but living relatives cannot claim them due to HIPAA laws.

He spoke out against the treatment of patients in psychiatric asylums and the use of prisons instead of hospitals for the insane.

Winnie Ruth Judd who was accused of murdering two former roommates and shipping their bodies to L.A. in 1931. She was convicted, sentenced to be hanged, then found mentally incompetent. She escaped the insane asylum 6 times and was eventually paroled in 1971 with absolute discharge in 1983.

Sadism (the act of receiving pleasure from inflicting pain on another) was named after an 18th century nobleman by the name of Marquis de Sade. He was such a sexual deviant that his own family disowned him and turned him over to authorities. He passed away in an insane asylum.

From the 1910s-1960s, many patients at the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane left suitcases behind when they passed away, with nobody to claim them. These suitcases and there contents are on display at various museums across the country

When were insane asylums closed?

Alice Paul fought for the US Amendment giving women the right to vote. Thrown in jail for months, she began a hunger strike, was force-fed and nearly sent to an insane asylum, but news of her treatment garnered public sympathy and support for suffrage, and soon Pres Wilson announced his support.

Boston Corbett, who killed Lincoln assasin John Wilkes Booth. Corbett apprenticed as a hatmaker and the resulting mercury exposure likely drove him insane, resulting in him spending his later years paranoid, living in a dugout, being committed to an asylum, and rumored to perish in a fire

The word Bedlam came from a distorted British pronunciation of the word 'Bethlehem', the London insane asylum that started out as a priory in 1247 AD as the hospital 'St. Mary of Bethlehem'.

The 1932 Sydney Harbour Bridge opening was interrupted by a uniformed man riding up on a horse, slashing the ribbon, and opening the bridge. The man, a right-wing activist, was briefly held at an insane asylum, but was eventually charged with maliciously damaging a £2 ribbon.

In 1887 Nellie decided to go undercover and pretended to be insane so that she could be committed to an insane asylum. She wrote about the horrible treatment and conditions in the institution. She became famous for her writing about the experience.

How many insane asylums are in the us?

Boston Corbett, the man who killed John Wiles Booth, later was sentenced to an insane asylum, but escaped and was never recaptured

Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physicist who proposed that surgeons should wash their hands before they operate. He was ridiculed by the Medical Board and was locked away in an Insane Asylum where he died. His entire life's work was disregarded for another 50 years.

Arkham is a dark, mysterious, fictional town created by H. P. Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos is set there. The batman writers named Gotham's insane asylum Arkham as an homage, thus linking the Batman and Lovecraft universes.

Female hysteria was a catchall diagnosis for women pre 1920s, the treatment for such a disorder was a "pelvic massage" until the woman experienced "hysterical paroxysm", an orgasm. For extreme cases, the woman was remanded to an insane asylum where she would have regular treatment.

The man who killed John Wilkes Booth, Boston Corbett became an assistant doorkeeper and feeling discriminated chased officers with a revolver, he was sent to an insane Asylum but escaped on horse back and after staying with his friend he left and was never seen again.

One of the earliest and most effective editors of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was William Minor, a criminal lunatic confined to the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane

Despite being labeled as criminally insane, Pedro López, a Colombian serial killer credited with the murder of over 300 girls, was released from an asylum on a $50 bail. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

The Octogon entrance to an insane asylum from the New York City Lunatic Asylum from the 1800s is now part of an apartment complex in the exact same area.

The Oxford English Dictionary's most prolific contributor, W.C. Minor, was an inpatient at an insane asylum

Ignaz Semmelweis reduced mortality rate from 18% > 1% by washing hands for puerperal fever, was rejected by critics, was thrown in an insane asylum, beaten by gaurds and died two weeks later.

An evangelical university recently purchased an abandoned insane asylum in NY and is restoring it into a college

In 1875, Abraham and Mary Lincoln's oldest and only surviving son Robert, had his mother committed to a mental institution; after the first trial the court declared her insane and she stayed at the Bellevue Insane Asylum for 4 months.

Literally All Of Us Would Have Been Sent To An Insane Asylum in the 1800s --> Laziness, Politics, Bad Whiskey, etc.?!? C'mon. Bad Company? Ehh, maybe

In 1897, NC Senator J.L. Hyatt of Yancey County introduces a woman suffrage bill in the North Carolina General Assembly. The bill dies after being sent to the committee on insane asylums.

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