Glore Psychiatric Museum, Mental health museum in St. Joseph, United States.
The Glore Psychiatric Museum is a space filled with medical devices, patient artwork, and treatment equipment spanning different historical periods. The exhibitions occupy several galleries, each documenting changes in how psychiatric care was provided over time.
The collection began in 1966, when George Glore of the Missouri Department of Mental Health built life-size models of early treatment devices for Mental Health Awareness Week; it opened as a museum in 1967. It first occupied a ward of State Lunatic Asylum No. 2, built in 1874 and renamed St. Joseph State Hospital in 1899. After the asylum became a state prison in the 1990s, the museum moved to a 1968 former patient clinic outside the prison gates.
The museum displays personal belongings and artwork created by patients, offering windows into their daily lives and experiences. These objects tell stories of people who lived through different periods of American psychiatric care.
The museum sits at 3406 Frederick Avenue, in a 1968 building outside the gates of the former state hospital, now a prison. It shares its complex with the Black Archives Museum, the St. Joseph Museum and the American Indian and History Galleries. The exhibits are inside, so allow time to read the patient writings and the model labels.
George Glore hand-built full-size replicas of treatment devices from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries himself. These handcrafted reproductions form a central part of the collection and give visitors a clear sense of how these methods looked.
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