Asylums

Buffalo State Hospital 2

Construction on the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane began in 1872 with the hospital opening in 1880. The architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, designed many well known buildings including Trinity Church in Boston and the Thomas Crane Memorial Library on Harvard’s campus. The landscape architect was Frederick Law Olmsted, who…

Northampton State Hospital 9

Northampton State Hospital was built according to the Kirkbride plan.  It received its first patients on August 16, 1858.  The hospital reached capacity within weeks and immediately began expanding.  Overcrowding undermined the hospital's goal of treating patients with appropriate care, eventually treating up to 2500 patients at a time.  It…