Asylum by the Lake

About

Dedication

Asylum by the Lake is dedicated to the 1,511 patients resting at Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery, and former patients of the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital.

Since the vast majority of this project has been inspired by Dr. Geoffrey Reaume’s book, Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870–1940, this web site is also dedicated in honour of the author and his work.

In addition, this project is also dedicated to Ed Janiszewski, John Court, and other persons actively preserving the history and the memory of the former patients and of the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital.

Disclaimer

While every effort has been in order to ensure the accuracy of the information presented on this web site, no responsibility is assumed with regard to its content.

Contact

Please direct all questions, comments, and various other inquiries to agatha.barc@utoronto.ca. While I am happy to answer any question you may have, please note that I express no interest in ghosts or other supernatural phenomena, nor will I answer any inquiries pertaining to them. Consult Haunted or Not? instead. Please allow up to forty-eight hours for a reply due to the volume of messages I occasionally receive and make sure that you look through this web site before sending me a question. Also, I don’t conduct research on demand, whether paid or otherwise, and this web site represents the extent of my knowledge. Refer to Research Guides for detailed sets of instructions on how to find specific information about different aspects of the history and the patients of the asylum. Thank you.

Licence

This entire web site, unless otherwise stated, is licensed under Creative Commons License 2.5 Canada. This means that you are allowed to use the content, but not for commerical purposes, and an appropriate credit must be given. In addition, you are not allowed to modify any of the work presented here.

Please attribute my work in the following manner (either one is acceptable):

Agatha Barc, Asylum by the Lake.

Agatha Barc, Asylum by the Lake, <http://www.asylumbythelake.com/>.

Please keep in mind that this entire project, including the design and the content, has been created by me voluntarily over the last six years and that you respect it accordingly. In the past, I have successfully taken appropriate steps in dealing with numerous cases of copyright infringement and will not hesitate to do so again.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Ed Janiszewski of the Lakeshore Asylum Cemetery Project, who has maintained contact with me and patiently and promptly responded to all of my questions.

I must acknowledge John Court, the Archivist at the Archives for the History of Canadian Psychiatry and Mental Health Services for all the assistance with the research.

Ian Smith, the Principal of Humber College Lakeshore Campus kindly allowed me to see the former hospital buildings and the underground tunnels, while Peter Maybury gave me a tour of the buildings and supplied me with additional information about the present state of the buildings. I must also acknowledge him for his honesty.

I would also like to thank Abe Lam, the Web/Digitization Specialist at Victoria University Library for providing his expertise and guidance in the elements of web design.

Dr. Geoffrey Reaume’s book, Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life in Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870–1940, has provided a lot of valuable insight and inspiration for the project. Prof. Reaume’s work at Critical Disability Studies Graduate Program at York University continues to inspire me in my endeavour.

Thanks also go to all the countless individuals, who sent their suggestions and made kind comments about this web site.

About the Author

I’m about to graduate as an English literature major from the University of Toronto, and I’m currently looking forward to obtaining a graduate degree in library and information science from Faculty of Information, beginning in the fall of 2011. When I am not engaged in improving Asylum by the Lake, I devote my other part of spare time to looking at and for old postcards, cataloging my favourite reads online, and taking pictures. I also write a weekly column for blogTO, Nostalgia Tripping. Here is my place on Twitter if you’re curious what I’m up to. My interest in the old asylum developed when I was a student in the final semester of high school at Lakeshore Collegiate Institute.

Credits

First published online May 28, 2005 under the name “The Former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Project.”

Web design by Agatha Barc, using Adobe Dreamweaver Creative Suite 5. Web page hosting by Atspace. Domain name hosting by Sibername. All images created and/or edited with Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 5. Original Lightbox 2 script courtesy of Lokesh Dhakar.

Fonts used on this web site are Modern No. 20 (main image and dropped capitals), Verdana (left and right column text), and Georgia (main text).

All other content reproduced with a prior permission from their respective owners or used under the provisions of fair dealing.

Inspiration

Reaume, Geoffrey. Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870–1940. Don Mills: Oxford University Press Canada, 2000.