The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry (1907 - 1990) 

Throughout the histories of these historic facilities, and perhaps especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were surrounded by a mysterious cloud of dreadful rumors and fear-fueled suspicions. The full truth and all of the imminent public revelations of the actual nature of these facilities had yet to come to full light and to reach a point of common knowledge at this point, though the truth of what was actually taking place at them would indeed begin to make itself known on a national level before the 1970s had ended. But as a result of these things, your own personal experiences from back during this time period were very much in sync with what was going on and transpiring throughout the rest of the country at the time, as well. And while we are all now more or less familiar with the true history of the old insane-asylums-turned-mental-hospitals, a large degree of willful ignorance still remains regarding the multitudes of homeless mentally ill and the true plight of all the mentally ill and disabled now being warehoused in our nation's prison system. Sometimes I can't help but find it interesting how, the more things change, the more they tend to stay the same.

Thank you so much for having taken the time to both view this video and to comment up on it. And yes, we are still going strong and continuing to produce videos here 🙂 This channel is actually just the beginning of numerous other efforts currently in the works, though. I've written two books pertaining to mental illness and disability (one pertaining to mental illness and early childhood, the other pertaining to the warehousing of the mentally ill in today's prison system) that we're now working on getting published, and talks are in the works to take all of the research that has been gathered in the videos on this channel and publishing that in a book format, as well. We're also well along in our efforts to found our own nonprofit advocacy platform for the mentally ill and mentally disabled. Announcements are being made and news is being shared over on the A Tourist in the Land of Reason Facebook page as events warrant, and we will continue to share updates as they occur 🙂

I couldn't agree with you more...I'm currently working on self-publishing a volume of poetry pertaining to the ongoing tragedy of the largely unregulated warehousing of today's mentally ill and mentally disabled in our nation's prison syste.

Thank you so much for having taken the time to watch this video and to have commented upon it, and thank you so much again for your kind, supportive words in having done so. There are no books involved in the research that goes into these videos, per se, but rather a lot of online Internet-based research that takes differing directions with the production of each video. I do share the cited online sources at the end of each video, however, and the sources for each video are also shared in the RU-vid video descriptions with working links. And I'm very glad that you appreciated the video here and that it has had a positive impact upon you, too. This touches my heart and makes me happy more than I know how to say, and I hope that you are able to continue to thus support the channel and enjoy and benefit from each video as they are produced and shared. In terms of the care and treatment of the mentally ill and the mentally disabled, a long journey still remains before us, and we walk the tallest when we walk together.

Thank you so much for both having taken the time to respond and for the thoughtful words that you shared. And to be completely honest and open here, the issue that you’re having with the channel really hits home for me, because I’m actually severely visually impaired myself. I’ve developed issues with the vessels that deliver blood to my eyes and it has basically caused them to suffer perpetual oxygen deprivation and robbing me of much of my own sight in the process. And the issue that you’re having actually does speak directly to one of the channel’s few real failings, too. Simply put, narrated videos just don’t work on this channel - and believe me, I’ve tried. Under the format that I’ve come to adopt - silent print underlaid by relevant historical images and put to a tasteful musical backing track - all of the videos are receiving ample views, and some of them into the tens of thousands now. But whenever I attempt to narrate a video, they never get more than a couple of hundred views at most. Of the three narrated videos on the channel, only one of them has received over a hundred views, and that one has only received 250 views. In short, as much as people occasionally say that they would like to have narrated videos, and as much as I would like to comply, whenever I put one out, nobody watches it. This may be partially because, having grown up in rural Kentucky and now living in Arkansas, I’ve got a bit of a hillbilly twang and, if you’ve heard of people who “have a good face for radio,” then you might understand when I say that I “have a good voice for print,” and perhaps therein lies the heart of the problem. I will say that I’ve written two books pertaining to mental illness that I’m now actively working on getting published. The first book pertains to the modern day practice of warehousing the mentally ill and disabled in our nation’s prison system (which largely resembles institutionalism in the old insane-asylums-turned-state-hospitals at their worst), and the other book pertains to the difficulties faced by younger children who find themselves having to deal with mental illness early on and from a very young age. And honestly, when I started producing the series of videos being shared on this channel, my only real objective was to simply create a series of videos that would complement my books once they’ve been published and serve as sort of a companion piece to them. It never occurred to me that the channel might end up doing as well as it has in its own right and on an independent basis. I really have been deeply touched by all of the interest being shown within them, too, and this has even more strongly motivated me toward moving forward in my overall advocacy work for the mentally ill and the mentally disabled.

THank you so much for having watched the video and having left a comment - these things mean more to me than you know. And yes, I can actually feel your pain, too, because I myself am severely visually impaired. One of the ironies of my advocacy work here on this channel is that whenever I do produce a narrated video...nobody ever watches them lol I've always heard the old saying that some people "have a face fit for radio"...I guess that I must have "a voice fit for print" lol Originally I was doing narrated videos with absolutely no results, though. So, as an experiment, I started doing non-narrated videos, and thousands of people started watching them. And I do my best not to take that personally, either...I guess I'm just not the most gifted narrator... :-) If the channel ever truly takes off and really starts going anywhere, then I'll probably end up going back and making narrated versions of these videos, though.

Thank you so much for having taken the time to watch this video, to comment upon it, and to have shared your own personal experiences, memories, and recollections regarding it. To me, perhaps the strongest facet of these videos of all is simply the comments that they attract from such viewers as yourself. Such comments add a sense of depth and understanding to them that nothing else might be able to accomplish and relay, and I always truly appreciate them, too.

Welcome to the channel and so happy that our paths have gotten to cross here :-) Sometimes, RU-vid can be a bit of a fickle friend - a video may randomly appear blurry in one watching and then appear perfectly fine in the next. Hopefully, as you watch further videos, the channel will do a bit of a better job behaving that way for you :-)

Honestly, it's hard for me to even imagine growing up with such a place nearby and in my own backyard. I can easily understand and relate to such places, the histories they contain, and all of the people whose paths led to and threw them due to my own lengthy history regarding both mental illness and mental disability. But to have grown up so close to one of these facilities in the years after it had been closed and after it had so thoroughly deteriorated...that goes so far beyond my own personal experiences. So, thank you so much for having shared your own personal experiences here and in these ways, as such comments add a sense of depth, meaning, and understanding in ways that nothing else might be able to accomplish. To me, one of the strongest, most meaningful facets of all of these videos is simply the comments that people such as you yourself continue to share regarding them. We walk the best whenever we walk together...and perhaps such times and occurrences as this is one of the best examples of that, too.

Thank you so much for your suggestion - I always appreciate it whenever such ideas are shared with me. I've done some quick research and found that sufficient historical information, photographs, and other images exist to produce a video on Litchworth, and I have added it to the list of future projects.

@@atouristinthelandofreason5284 Thank you for all you do

Wow, this is a very unique and somewhat surprising comment. It shares a facet of the aftermath of the facility's history in a way that I'm not sure I've ever quite seen before. Still, it's also consistent with much of what I've researched and learned of much of the history pertaining to these old facilities. They were willing to move in such grand ways and work on such bold scales...yet they lacked the knowledge, understanding, technology, and overall ability to succeed in their efforts. Today, we have the knowledge, understanding, technology, and overall ability...yet, when it comes to the mentally ill and disabled, we're no longer willing to work in such grand ways and on such bold scales. If we could simply take the best of both eras and combine them together, we would finally find ourselves in a proper place and with adequate means to take proper care of the mentally ill and the mentally disabled.

The facility at Byberry was a co-ed institution. Typically, with the Kirkbride Plan facilities, all of the men would be housed in the words on one side of the central administration building, while all of the women would be housed in the wards place on the other side of the administration building.

I agree with you so much, too. If they were going to close down all of the old mental hospitals, then they should have done a much better job of replacing them with a mental health care system that was much more capable of taking the old one's place. Because as inadequate as the old system was at times, today's plight of the mentally ill and the mentally disabled has become ever more tragic.

For me, one of the most interesting facets of all of these videos is all the different ways in which the facilities and the grounds they stood upon have been repurposed toward continued use today. A small portion of them remain open and continue to provide service. Others have been saved, preserved, restored, and repurposed in new ways. Some have been simply demolished so that the land could be used in other ways. And still others have simply been abandoned and left to decay. I think that it would be at least somewhat interesting to live in a housing development built upon a former asylum's grounds...though I imagine that I would end up getting spooked from time to time.

There is so much truth to what you have shared here, and I truly do appreciate your comment. Yesterday they were willing to make such grand, sweeping, and at times heroic measures...and yet in every case, they ultimately failed because they lacked the understanding, the technology, and the resources to make them successful. Today, we have the understanding, the technology, and the resources to make them adequately happen...and yet we're now hardly willing to do anything at all - as is evidenced by today's warehousing of the mentally ill and disabled in our nation's prison system, and by how so many of the mentally ill and disabled are now sentenced to lives of complete destitution and utter homelessness. If we could take yesterday's willingness to make great efforts and combine it with today's understanding, technology, and resources, then the mentally ill and disabled might finally find themselves being properly tended to. The answer doesn't lie in either yesterday or today, but in rather combining the strengths of both eras into a fully working and finally adequate model. And truthfully, that's a large part of my purpose behind producing and sharing these videos, too. We'll never be able to learn from the past and thus combine it with today's efforts unless we find it within ourselves to remember it and to keep it from being forgotten.

Sounds good.@@atouristinthelandofreason5284