I've accumulated a few postings on this topic, so it's time for a list!
Look What They're Doing to Old Bryce Hospital
I've accumulated a few postings on this topic, so it's time for a list!
Look What They're Doing to Old Bryce Hospital
I've done several posts on this blog about Old Bryce Hospital, the state's former giant mental hospital in Tuscaloosa that opened in 1861. One described a quick visit made to the site with several family members in 2014 just before it closed. Others take a look at older photos related to the facility, an aerial view in 1943, and 1916 photos of sewing and other activities by residents. This post shares some photos I took on another quick visit with son Amos in January 2023.
Several years ago the University of Alabama purchased the closed hospital, and it is now undergoing extensive renovation for a welcome center, the theater and dance school and a mental health museum. You can read a recent newspaper article about the present status here. More history of Bryce can be found in this article. The renovated building is expected to open in late 2023.
A few more comments are below.
In a recent wandering through the Alabama Mosaic digital collections I came across this aerial photograph of the Bryce Hospital campus and surrounding area. The description reads, "From a report submitted to Governor Chauncey Sparks on November 9, 1943, by the Tuscaloosa Chamber of Commerce's Committee for the Location and Establishment of a Four-Year Medical School for Alabama."
So what does all that mean?
In the early 1940's the state legislature began to look for a place to locate a four-year medical college. A two-year college already existed in Tuscaloosa, which meant that students had to leave the state to finish medical education. Naturally, the leaders in Tuscaloosa would want the school to remain there, and would promote Bryce as a large source of potential patients. However, the school ended up in Birmingham, where the huge Jefferson Hospital had opened in December 1939. The Medical College of Alabama's first four-year class began in September 1945.
The Alabama Insane Hospital opened in 1861, and Peter Bryce was chosen as first superintendent. He died in 1892 and in 1900 the facility was officially named after him. Bryce closed several years ago, and the campus was purchased by the University of Alabama in 2010. The site is undergoing major redevelopment and restoration.
Numerous photos related to Bryce have survived, and I explored a few of them in a 2016 blog post. I also wrote a "quick visit" blog post about Bryce in 2014.
Prominent in the background of this photo is the Black Warrior River.
Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History
During the most recent Women's History Month in March I ran across an article by Liana Kathleen Glew, "Stitching Time: Women and Fiber Art in Psychiatric History." Low and behold, two illustrations she used have an Alabama connection. These two photos are from a Bryce Hospital album and were taken around 1916.
In the 1840s American mental health crusader Dorothea Dix visited state legislatures--including Alabama's--attempting to improve the care of the mentally ill. The state responded with a law in 1852 establishing the Alabama Insane Hospital. Some 326 acres in Tuscaloosa were purchased as the site of the hospital; the facility opened in 1859 with Peter Bryce as the first superintendent. Eight years after he died in 1892 the institution officially became Bryce Hospital.
For decades the patients at Bryce, as at so many similar places around the country, were involved in work that helped sustain the hospital in the face of chronic underfunding. These programs also seemed to help many of the patients. However, by the end of World War II Bryce was so overcrowded and poorly funded that conditions reached a crisis. In 1972, a ruling in a federal court case changed psychiatric institutions around the country and many including Bryce eventually closed. The University of Alabama now owns the property and preservation and redevelopment efforts are continuing.
The article by Glew cited above addresses the roles fiber arts played both inside asylums and in the wider culture outside. Sewing, knitting, weaving, crochet and needlecraft provided a way to keep female patients busy and contributed to the asylum budgets. She includes several examples of self-expression in these activities as well.
A sewing room at Bryce
Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History
Industrial art room
Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History