Highland Hospital was a residential psychiatric hospital located in Asheville, North Carolina. Dr. Robert S. Carroll established the Hospital in 1904 and gifted it to Duke University in 1939. Initially there were minimal financial or working connections with the Duke Department of Psychiatry and the Duke School of Medicine. For several decades, Highland’s contact was primarily with University officers, and it functioned mostly as a freestanding institution until 1967 when it fully integrated into the Duke University Medical Center as a division of the Department of Psychiatry. In 1980, Duke sold its interest in Highland to Psychiatric Institutes of America due to financial and geographical challenges of maintaining the hospital.

This exhibit explores the history of one regional hospital during the twentieth century including the daily life of its patients and the educational programs available. We hope that this portrait encourages you to contemplate the ways that mental health care has changed and those aspects that have remained unchanged.