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In the 19th and 20th centuries, reformers in the United States and Europe built asylums in response to a range of social issues including disability - mental health, and alcoholism. These documents and images from the NLM Digital Collections bring to life the day to day experiences of people at these sites: the conditions of the asylums and the limits on liberty that many people in them experienced.

Illustration of a landscape with buildings and streets from bird’s eye view

Bird’s eye view of the Willard Asylum for the Insane in Ovid, NY, 1888

Courtesy National Library of Medicine

In 1890, the Willard Asylum held over 2,000 people as patients, the largest institution in the country at the time. Patients arrived by steamship at the dock and the campus was comprised of a number of detached buildings. Many asylums like Willard resembled small towns due to their size.