The Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital

The Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital was a psychiatric hospital located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which operated from 1841 to 1997.

Founded in 1841 as the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, the Institute was built to replace Pennsylvania Hospital’s crowded insane wards located at 8th and Spruce Streets.

The new hospital, located in a bucolic 101-acre tract of the as yet unincorporated district of West Philadelphia, offered comforts and a “humane treatment” philosophy that set a standard for its day. Unlike other asylums where patients were often kept chained in crowded, unsanitary wards with little if any treatment, patients at Pennsylvania Hospital resided in private rooms, received medical treatment, worked outdoors and enjoyed recreational activities including lectures and a use of the hospital library.

Superintendent Thomas Story Kirkbride developed his treatment philosophy based on research he conducted at other progressive asylums of the day including the asylum at Worcester, Massachusetts. Out of his philosophy emerged the Kirkbride Plan which created a model design for psychiatric hospital buildings that was used across the United States throughout the 19th century.

This plan was used for the hospital’s Department for Males constructed a short distance from the original buildings in 1859. The hospital continued to expand throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, eventually consolidating all treatment at the Department for Males site in 1959.

The Institute continued operations until 1997 when, in the face of shrinking revenues from insurance providers, Pennsylvania Hospital sold the West Philadelphia facility and moved back to the 8th Street location.

Today, the former Institute campus exists as a multi-purpose social-service facility. Deteriorated since its closure, a portion of the grounds were sold for commercial development in 2001.