Oh, Penny! Pictures, LLC. presents PILLARS OF MADNESS, an eight-part documentary film series about the evolution of psychiatry in America.  In 1843, the American  nation made its first attempt, of many, to answer the question of how to properly care for the mentally ill.  Our story begins in Central New York in the Mohawk Valley, the site of the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica.  The construction of the hospital marks a convergence of medicine, philosophy, politics, science and engineering .  The asylum, dubbed “Old Main” would be known to the medical profession and to historians as the “model institution”.

“Old Main” was widely known as an achievement of public health infrastructure, a centerpiece of the New York economy, an institution at the forefront of cutting edge treatments  for the mentally ill and the birthplace of the western world’s foremost authoritative publication on psychiatric disorders, THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY (formerly THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INSANITY).  (Read More >>)