Glore Psychiatric Museum

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Glore Psychiatric Museum
Glore Psychiatric Museum
Established1967
Location3406 Frederick Ave., St. Joseph, Missouri, United States
Coordinates 39°46′34″N94°48′30″W / 39.77611°N 94.80833°W / 39.77611; -94.80833
TypePsychiatric history
FounderGeorge Glore
CuratorScott Clark
Public transit accessAiga bus trans.svg St. Joseph Transit
Website stjosephmuseum.org/museums/glore/ OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
The "Tranquilizer Chair" Glore Psychiatric Museum Tranquility Chair.jpg
The "Tranquilizer Chair"
The "Bath of Surprise" for rapidly immersing patients into ice water Glore Psychiatric Museum -Bath of Surprise.jpg
The "Bath of Surprise" for rapidly immersing patients into ice water
The "Giant Patient Treadmill" allowed patients to walk off excess energy. Glore Psychiatric Museum - Giant Patient Treadmill.jpg
The "Giant Patient Treadmill" allowed patients to walk off excess energy.
Dr. Young's Ideal Rectal Dilators exhibited in the museum Glore Psychiatric Museum - Rectal Dilators.jpg
Dr. Young's Ideal Rectal Dilators exhibited in the museum

The Glore Psychiatric Museum is part of a complex of St. Joseph, Missouri, museums, along with the Black Archives Museum, the St. Joseph Museum, and the American Indian and History Galleries. The Glore exhibits feature the 130-year history of the adjacent state mental hospital, and illustrate the history of mental health treatment through the ages. [1] It has been called one of the fifty most unusual museums in the United States. [2]

Contents

History

The collection began in 1966 when George Glore, an employee of the Missouri Department of Mental Health, built some life-size models of primitive devices formerly used for mental health treatment, for display during a Mental Health Awareness Week. [1] The models, together with a growing collection of other artifacts, became a museum in 1967, designed to illustrate how the treatment of mental illness has progressed through time. Glore explained, "We really can't have a good appreciation of the strides we've made (in mental health treatment) if we don't look at the atrocities of the past." [3] Glore continued to add to the collection throughout his 41-year career with the department. After his retirement in the 1990s he continued to serve as the museum's curator until his death in 2010, after which Scott Clark became curator. [1]

At first the museum was housed in a ward of the original "State Lunatic Asylum No. 2", renamed the "St. Joseph State Hospital" in 1899. [2] The asylum was built in 1874 [4] and resembled a fortress. From an initial population of 25 patients it expanded until it housed nearly 3,000 patients in the 1950s. [2] In the 1990s it was re-purposed as a state prison, and a new 108-bed facility called Northwest Missouri Psychiatric Rehabilitation opened across the street from the original hospital. The Glore Museum moved to a 1968 building outside the prison gates that was originally a clinic for patients at the mental hospital. [2]

Exhibits

The museum displays many artifacts from the mental hospital, including medical equipment, staff uniforms, photographs, and artwork and writing created by the patients. One exhibit tells the story of a man who spent 72 years as a patient in the hospital. [3]

Some of the most notable exhibits are the full-sized models, built by Glore, of treatment devices from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. [1] One such item is a "Tranquilizer Chair", complete with hood, hand and feet restraints and a built-in portable toilet to accommodate extended sessions. [2] [5] The chair was invented by Benjamin Rush, known as "The Father of American Psychiatry", who published the first American textbook about mental illness in 1812. [5]

Other items include the "Bath of Surprise", a platform designed to quickly submerse the patient into a bath of ice water; [6] [7] the "Giant Patient Treadmill," which would encourage agitated patients to remain still, lest they become exhausted by causing movement of the giant wheel; the "Lunatic Box", an upright, coffin-like box in which patients who were deemed uncontrollable were confined until they calmed down; [2] and the "O'Halloran's Swing", a hammock-like device used to calm an agitated patient or induce sleep. [6] [2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Website". Glore Psychiatric Museum. Archived from the original on August 1, 2017. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph". legendsofamerica.com. Retrieved June 28, 2014.[ better source needed ]
  3. 1 2 Stone-Gordon, Tammy (2010). Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life. AltaMira Press. pp. 64–65. ISBN   978-0-7591-1934-5.
  4. "Saint Joseph State Hospital". kirkbridebuildings.com. Retrieved June 27, 2014.
  5. 1 2 "Benjamin Rush, M.D. (17491813): 'The Father of American Psychiatry'". Diseases of the Mind: Highlights of American Psychiatry through 1900. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  6. 1 2 Lisman, Gary L.; Parr, Arlene (2005). Bittersweet Memories: A History of the Peoria State Hospital. Trafford Publishing. pp. 71–73. ISBN   9781412033367.
  7. "Hydrotherapy: Bain de surprise". Cornellpsychiatry.org. Retrieved June 28, 2014.