Robertson, Gary, “ Compensating for the Priceless: Efforts to Rid the State of the ‘Mentally Defective” through Sterilization Came at a High Human Cost,” Richmond Magazine, Richmond, Virginia (May 2016), pages 72-, 144-147.Lynchburg Training School and Hospital, Report, 1910-, Division of Purchase and Print, Richmond, 1910.Division of Purchase and Print, Richmond, 1887-1948. Southwestern State Hospital, Report, 1887-1948.Gibboney’s early work includes photos of patients and staff at Southwestern State Hospital. Past and present blurred together in the dark halls of the abandoned house on the hill.

thesis, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1999. Ghosts of the Lost: What Secrets Lie Within DeJarnette Sanitarium. Parker, Kimberly, “ Frances Gibboney, Photographer, 1867-1941.” M.A.Wingerson, Mary, “‘ Lunacy Under the Burden of Freedom:’ Race and Insanity in the American South.” B.A.Drewry, William Francis, Historical Sketch of the Central State Hospital and the Care of the Colored Insane of Virginia, 1870-1905, Richmond, 1905.A few years later, the hospital decided to relocate leaving the building abandoned and left to decay. DeJarnette's reputation entirely and finally, in the 1990s the sanitarium was closed for good and turned into a children's hospital. DeJarnette defended eugenic sterilization and unrelenting racial segregation until his death at his home in Staunton on September 3, 1957. DeJarnette,” UncommonWealth blog, 19 September 2012. It took a few decades to completely tarnish Dr. Francis Stribling and Moral Medicine: Curing the Insane at Virginia’s Western State Hospital, 1836-1874. It stands as a silent reminder of things we might like to forget. Western Lunatic Asylum (Va.) Board of Directors, Report of the Board of Directors of the Western Lunatic Asylum, 1852-1853. DeJarnette Sanatorium opened in 1932 to house the adult mentally ill and in 1972.Quest for a Cure: The Public Hospital in Williamsburg, 1773-1885, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia, ca. McDonald, Travis C., Design for Madness: An Architectural History of the Public Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1986.Jones, Granville Lillard, The History of the Founding of the Eastern State Hospital of Virginia, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1954.The stately Victorian buildings may be falling to pieces, but the contents inside them betray a lot about the sometimes happy, sometimes tragic lives of patients at Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane. Though asylums often carry connotations of dark and torturous existences, Willard and other institutions like it were intended to be a better alternative to systems in place for taking care of the mentally ill. In the early 19th century, those without anyone to care for them and incapable of taking care of themselves were left to almshouses (basically shelters) which were overcrowded and under resourced. In response to these squalid conditions, New York’s Surgeon General Dr. Willard proposed a state-run hospital for the insane. Abraham Lincoln himself signed off on the proposal a mere six days before his death. Willard welcomed its first patient in 1869. She was a woman named Mary Rote, described as “demented and deformed”, who had spent ten years confined to an almshouse. The theme of horrific neglect would follow in patients admitted later. One girl had been shackled in a cell since childhood, another patient arrived at Willard in a chicken crate. The dreadful situations patients were arriving from coupled with the lack of understanding of mental disability meant that Willard essentially became a dumping ground for undesirables. Patients’ afflictions ranged from severe mental and physical handicaps to “nervousness”, “chronic” to “acute” insanity, “feeblemindedness”, and “lunacy.” The asylum was built in the same style as many other Victorian institutional facilities. The campus was divided between a women’s side and a men’s side with a violent end and a non-violent end. First known as DeJarnette Sanitarium, the institution opened in 1932 under the direction of Joseph DeJarnette, who also served as director of nearby Western. Administration buildings sat in the middle.

Dejarnette sanitarium deaths