Researching John Curwen

Curwen was born at his father’s estate in Montgomery County near Philadelphia. He graduated from Yale University in 1841 and received his medical degree in 1844 from The University of Pennsylvania. He spent several months at the Wills Eye Hospital and then moved to the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane where he remained for six years as Assistant Physician to Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. Kirkbride was acknowledged as a leader in AMSAII and with the administration of asylums. He designed plans for the construction of mental hospitals which were adopted throughout the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century. Curwen was influenced by Kirkbride’s mentorship throughout his professional life.

After a memorial to the Pennsylvania Legislature by Dorothea Dix in 1844, money was appropriated to build the State Hospital for the Insane in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1851, Curwen became superintendent and remained in the post until 1881 when he moved to Warren, Pennsylvania to open an asylum. He stayed there until 1900. His tenure of 57 years in asylums remains unparalleled.

As superintendent, Curwen introduced the method of moral treatment for patients. This method fostered pleasant surroundings with minimal use of restraints, occupation and recreation therapies, and medication only as needed. In 1851, he published A Manual for Attendants in Hospitals for the Insane which he set forth the directions for the treatment of patients plus descriptions of various types of hydrotherapy and special diets. The manual is still applicable today.

Curwen actively participated in medical associations including county and state medical societies, and on occasions, he represented the AMSAII at annual meetings of the American Medical Association. He was a member of the American Philosophical Association, the American Philosophical Society, the British Medico-Psychological Association, and a trustee of Lafayette College. He was among the first to employ women physicians when he hired Dr. Margaret Cleaves in 1879 to be in charge of the women’s division of the State Hospital for the Insane. She resigned in 1883 and Curwen hired her assistant, Dr. Jane Garver, who remained until 1900.

As secretary of the AMSAII, Curwen attended the annual meetings, participated in discussions and presented papers. He maintained the Association’s archives and the Proceedings of each annual meeting was summarized and published in the American Journal of Insanity. His book, History of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane from 1844 to 1874 summarizes each annual meeting and appendixes of the venues of annual meetings, the officers of the Association, and state asylums. He was elected vice president of the association in 1892 and president in 1893.