Ghosts of America's Past: Buildings of the Kirkbride Plan

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington D.C., once called the Government Hospital for the Insane, is representative of more than seventy such campuses made up of massive, ornate Victorian buildings designed by some of the most notable architects in the nation, and built across America over a sixty-five year period. Their now largely decaying forms represent ghosts of an era, built on a vision that became, for some, a nightmare. The buildings of the Kirkbride Plan deserve to be remembered.

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This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

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