Happy Birthday, It's an Asylum Fire: Seacliff Insane Asylum

This week, Melanie is WRONG, a bet is made, the Wendy's alligator goes out to pasture, TAG is an evil puppeteer, miners are poetic, history loves insane asylums, gold rushes, and white men, Brianne has hot takes on lobotomies, Robert Lawson ain't shit, and Melanie is doing Count Dante. Content warnings: fictional addiction, alcoholism, housefire, deaths of children, and suicidal ideation, old-timey ableist language, sexism, domestic violence, murder to escape domestic violence, masturbation, mental illness, eugenics, graphic discussion of lobotomies, forced sterilization, fatal fire. Links:80-year-old woman sentenced to prison for killing ‘abusive’ husband while he sleptA survivor against the odds—noted New Zealand writer Janet Frame diesArchives New ZealandAsylum admission criteria in the 1800s means you might have qualified‘Barbaric’ medical practices still used todayFilming in 'one of creepiest places'Gold rushKirkbride PlanMania, dementia and melancholia in the 1870s: admissions to a Cornwall asylumOtago gold rushRobert Lawson (architect)Scots Baronial Architecture: how to spot itSeacliff Lunatic AsylumThe Anti-Insane Asylum SocietyThe sad saga of Seacliff: Built on shifting sandsThe story of Seacliff, the most haunted place in New ZealandVictorian Oppression of Women Through Psychiatry