Evolution of a Missouri Asylum: Fulton State Hospital, 1851-2006

Fulton State Hospital was not only Missouri's first state mental asylum but also the first such institution west of the Mississippi. In tracing its founding and evolution over a century and a half, the authors shed light on both a neglected aspect of the state's history and the development of mental health care in America. Evolution of a Missouri Asylum acknowledges the noble aspirations of Fulton State Hospital throughout much of its existence, as well as many of its failures to transform those aspirations into realities.