Northern Michigan Asylum, which opened in 1885, was known during most of its years as Traverse City State Hospital. More than 200 photographs and images are provided, including many of the features and buildings long gone. It was run during its first decades by Dr. James Decker Munson, who left his legacy in the landscaped grounds and the medical center that today bears his name. Traverse City State Hospital served the mental health needs of a large part of Michigan for 104 years until its closure in 1989, housing a population as large as 3,000 in its many buildings.This book traces the history of this great institution, from the local and mental health context in which it was founded, through its growth, development, and decline, and finally to its renovation and preservation as a vital part of the Traverse City community.

Northern Michigan Asylum: A History of the Traverse State Hospital is the most comprehensive history of the collection of building and grounds written to date. From the Preface to the Index, author William Decker, M.D., former Medical Director of the Kalamazoo State Hospital and author of the award winning Asylum for the Insane, explores little known facts about the planning, construction and operation of the array of buildings that comprise the Traverse City State Hospital. Built in 1885, it was the third asylum to be built in Michigan. Dr. James Decker Munson was its first Medical Superintendent, filling its cottages with people from the poorhouses, attics, and hospitals who were labeled, at that time, insane or lunatics. Always at full or exceeding full capacity, which was 500 in 1885, the yellow brick buildings housed 2,200 souls in 1973 with rooms designed for one patient to then hold four beds dormitory style in each room. The population finally declined and leveled off.

An intimate photographic journey into 115 years of history inside a nineteenth-century asylum.

Product Description: To establish the context within which the Kalamazoo Hospital came to be built, Decker begins the story in Europe in the previous centuries with historical antecedents, theories about mental illness and the treatment of mental disorders. These formative, primitive ideas were gradually adopted in this country where very little understanding of mental disorders existed. When the Kalamazoo State Hospital was founded, then named the Michigan Asylum for the Insane, in 1854, there were no private practitioners of psychiatry even in the largest cities. Psychiatry grew out of the exchange of information between the medical staff of these new public institutions. Dr. Decker gives readers a comprehensive view of Michigan s first psychiatric facility including the architectural style and plans, building descriptions and history, Legislative Acts regarding the operation and governance, personnel including Medical Directors, historical perspective on the causes of insanity, their treatment and services, noteworthy events and a complete bibliography and appendixes.

I n the 1950s, in a small town in northern Michigan, a state mental hospital recognized for its humane patient care is increasingly threatened by a mysterious collusion of local antipathy and state politics. What begins as chronic vandalism soon spirals to physical assault. Struggling to make sense of the mysterious events, psychology intern Henry Merchartt wrestles with his evolving ethical beliefs about how society should treat mental patients with dignity and respect. He navigates the complex world of the hospital, patients and staff, and the local community, as tension builds. In the process, he develops a brotherly bond with Jimmy Quinn, a patient whose work at the asylum illuminates for Henry the critical dignity that accompanies humanistic patient care. Henry's moral indignation mounts as Jimmy falls victim to the growing threat to patient participation in work and farm programs. Henry puts his professional and personal life in jeopardy, as he is propelled from being a closet social critic to taking dramatic, covert, and illegal actions for Jimmy's sake. An unforgettable story of fraternal love and human compassion, Jimmy Quinn weaves together two narrative arcs. One is the hospital's unfortunate loss of its celebrated "work is therapy" approach to patient care. The other is the development of Henry's moral courage, as he chronicles it with the voice of a skilled reporter.

Stripped, showered and drugged, Luanne Kilpi's life as wife and mother is turned upside-down as she enters the world of the insane. After her attempted suicide following the death of her three-year-old son, Luanne is admitted to the Traverse State Hospital where she now lives with locked doors, long hallways, gowns, moans and shouts, restraints, pills, little fluted cups and a sparse tiny bedroom. She is an "Admission." On Hall 5, the reader is introduced to the group of young women who become Luanne's friends and support. We see the realities of their conditions and watch them struggle through muddled emotions to make sense of their world. Author Jennifer Sowle's lyrical prose illuminates Luanne's raw emotions of overwhelming grief as she struggles on her journey from despair to hope. Set on the expansive grounds of the State Hospital, vivid imagery brings to life a cast of characters from the duty nurses to the groundskeeper to the chronically ill patients. This is a book that makes you stand up and cheer for the resiliency of the human spirit.

Based on the popular Lost In Michigan website that was featured in the Detroit Free Press, It contains locations throughout Michigan, and tells their interesting story. There are over 50 stories and locations that you will find fascinating.