The setting of a story is everything. It creates mood and atmosphere. It triggers memories.

It helps our minds fill in the blanks, adding tension and suspense, where there was only

words and images. What would the shining be like without the long hotel hallways of the

overlook, or the legend of Hell House without the dusty bones of the old Belasco house? And how

can anyone ever look at an old cabin in the woods without a chill running down their spine?

Not me, that's for sure. One of the most iconic and most visceral settings from any horror

story without question has always been the insane asylum. These days we refer to the institutions

that treat mental disorders as psychiatric hospitals. The hard places to work. I know this first

hand thanks to a colorful college internship that featured a double amputee who enjoyed

streaking down the hallway on his knees. Mental health professionals do amazing work. But a lot

more than just the name has changed for these hospitals of the mind. In the late 1800s and

through to the 1950s, the silums were a very different place. They were filled with sick people

in need of help. But frequently, they were only offered pain and suffering.

When H. P. Lovecraft wrote the thing on the doorstep in 1933, he imagined a place that he called

Arkham Sanitarium. Arkham is the seed. It's the first of its kind. Through it, Lovecraft brought

the asylum into the horror genre. And others quickly caught on. The famous super prison and mental

hospital of the Batman universe, Arkham Asylum, is a blatant and direct callback to Lovecraft's

invention. Arkham was a real place, though, known as the Danvers State Hospital. In fact,

the remains of its stand just eight miles from my front door. And even before construction began

in 1874, the hospital's story was already one of fear and suffering, a theme that continued

unchecked well into the 20th century. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is lore.

Before the days of institutional care for the mentally ill, the job was left largely to

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