Abandoned Asylum

Hello Everyone, ! UPDATE IS HERE!!

I added a new special presentation also added some books, postcards, and museums.

The Abandoned Asylum website update project is underway!!  Over the next few weeks, the Abandoned Asylum website will be completely updated - along with some new content you do not want to miss. So keep checking in!!

I would like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding over the last few months. Finally, the e-mail link has been fixed and is now ready for your questions and/or comments.

Thank you,

Robert Foster

Newest Additions
The newest additions to the Abandoned Asylum website is the Asylum Museums page. Click here to see information about museums around the United States.

Brattleboro Retreat, Vermont
Located in Southern Vermont this private institution sits almost unchanged from the early 1900s. From its large administration building to the Retreat Tower, built for the 75th Anniversary of the hospital this is a great place.

Danvers State Hospital Annual Reports

This site is a pictorial tour through asylum architecture and history. Please enjoy the pictures, postcards, artifacts, and other interesting sectors of this page. I have changed the look of my site to better organize the contents. Choose from the links to the left to explore.

The newest additions to the Abandoned Asylum archives are Danvers State Hospital, Foxboro State Hospital, Medfield State Hospital, and Rhode Island State Hospital.

Now on display Northampton State Hospital.

Abandoned Asylum would like to welcome back the
Pennhurst State School Page. Includes many current photographs, historic maps, postcards, and aerial photographs.

Thanks for your patience in this update.

Robert Foster

Northern Michigan Asylum:
A History of the Traverse City State Hospital

By William A. Decker

ISBN : 9781933926254

Asylum on the Hill:
History of a Healing Landscape
9780821419731

Feature Asylum

Note : For the latest photographs see Asylum Photographs

Special Presentation

This is a very large file!! It is the complete book.

Feature Book

Asylum: Inside the Closed World
of State Mental Hospitals
by Christopher Payne

Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals is a collection of large-format photographs taken by photographer Chris Payne, who was granted unprecedented access to seventy institutions in thirty states between 2002 and 2008. Through his lens we see palatial exteriors designed by famous architects and crumbling interiors never intended to be seen again. He shows how the hospitals functioned as self-contained communities, where almost everything of necessity was produced on site: food, water, power, and even clothing and furniture. Since many of these places no longer exist, his photographs serve as their final, “official” record.

ISBN 9780262013499

Feature Links

Historic 51 - Hudson River State Hospital