On this day in Alabama history: Legislature established Alabama Insane Hospital
Bryce Hospital, opened in 1861 in Tuscaloosa, AL, is Alabama’s oldest and largest inpatient psychiatric facility, 2010. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
February 6, 1852
The Alabama Insane Hospital, now known as Bryce Hospital, was established by the Legislature. Built in Tuscaloosa in the Kirkbride design, the hospital is Alabama’s oldest and largest inpatient psychiatric facility. While the hospital spent many years on the forefront of mental health treatment, an increase in patients and decrease in funding eventually led to abysmal conditions that started a 33-year legal battle in the U.S. Supreme Court case Wyatt v. Stickney and the creation of the “Wyatt Standards” of mental health care. The hospital was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
