Daily AncestorInsane asylum
An insane asylum, or lunatic asylum, was an institution where people judged mentally ill were confined and treated, the forerunner of the psychiatric hospital.
Before state asylums, many mentally ill people were kept in county poorhouses. Reformers such as Dorothea Dix pressed states to build asylums; New York authorized its State Lunatic Asylum at Utica in 1836, and it opened in 1843. In 1888 about four of every ten paupers fully supported in Massachusetts were insane.
Late in the 1800s many asylums were renamed state hospitals; in 1890 New York renamed the State Lunatic Asylum the Utica State Hospital. On census pages for an asylum, patients are usually listed as inmates.
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Daily Ancestor. "Insane asylum." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/poor-relief/insane-asylum. Last checked 2026-10-03.