Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Seeking Asylums

I'm still futzing about with the Arkham Sanitarium project, but Alban was kind enough to send over a link to the extensive collection of vintage asylum information to be found in the Internet Archive. There's a little bit of everything there- trustee reports, case evaluations, physical plant details, etc. One thing I've learned over the last few weeks is that asylums in the classic era were a mix of brutal horrors and surprisingly progressive compassion. I think it's fair to say that Lovecraft's perception of his parents' treatment, and his own breakdown, helped shape the generally positive depiction of Arkham Sanitarium.

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