pumpkinstrokemarrow

The subject was a very nicely produced picture book called 'Asylum' from the MIT press. I suppose I must have spotted an advertisement for it in the NYRB. The book being a collection of arty photographs of and around the closed and somewhat derelict state hospitals scattered across the US. State hospitals being US speak for mental hospitals.

It seems that in the US they went in for a building binge of very grand mental hospitals set in large grounds in the country in the 19th century in very much the same way as we did. Perhaps on a rather larger and grander scale. And that then, in the latter part of the 20th century they were pretty much all closed down, again in very much the same way as we did. The notes make the point that one of the big drivers for closure was cost. In the olden days, the mental hospitals were enclosed and to a large extent self supporting communities, a bit like the monasteries of old. The patients - or the customers as they would perhaps be known these days - worked the land. The book includes pictures of what were substantial farming operations. Huge tubs, for example at Danville State Hospital in Pennsylvania, for the manufacture of sauerkraut. But then it was decided that having the customers growing their own grub was abuse. It was also taking the bread out of the mouths of decent farm workers. So the hospitals were no longer allowed to allow their patients to be useful and to contribute and, partly in consequence, went bust. The taxpayer was not good for the bigger bill. I think it was pretty much the same here. The same waves of professional fashion washed over the asylum worlds on both sides of the Atlantic.

And their case was not helped by the sort of scandal noticed on 11th October.

But I was touched to see the treasure and care that had once been lavished on those needing asylum. The Victorians really did care, even if they could be rather harsh about it and be rather given to municipal display & competition at the same time. Also by the echoes of a lost world. The grand quarters for the superintendents. The dreary day rooms with their dreary furniture for the patients: it does not seem to be possible to get away from this particular dreariness. The attempts to be normal with their own radio stations and ball rooms. The room full of uncollected rusting tins full of the ashes of the lost departed. Other rooms full of the suitcases with which they had once arrived. One place, the St Lawrence State Hospital in Ogdensburg, was very forward looking with wicker work coffins. Well ahead of their time.

All in all a rather odd memorial. But I wonder if anything comparable has been done for our own mental hospitals? Too late now if it hasn't. Most of them are housing estates. In the case of Epsom and Exminster, in a messy compromise with the heritage people, whereby many of the old buildings and trees have been preserved. For my money, trees yes but buildings no. Knock the lot down and start again.