Harvard Collection, Medfield State Hospital

Built at the end of the 19th Century as the Medfield Insane Asylum, the former psychiatric institution had an overwhelming charter…to care for the masses of men and women who were mentally ill. It swelled to almost 60 buildings across some 1,000 acres at its largest, and catered to the needs of more than 2,000 patients at its most crowded. Medfield Insane Asylum was the first asylum built using the new Cottage Plan layout, consisting of a multitude of individual buildings housing a specific patient type. The images in this collection, courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums,  show the interior and exterior of the hospital in the 1903 timeframe.