PHILADELPHIA, 1810-1820

According to Carswell Berlin's advertisement, this work table was once in the collection of the family of Thomas Story Kirkbride (1809-1883), who descended from a prominent Pennsylvania Quaker family and was a pioneering physician specializing in the care and treatment of mentally ill patients. He served as superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane in Philadelphia from 1841 until his death in 1883 (Johnson, Rossiter, ed. Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans vol. I-X (Boston, 1904).