Much of the story's action revolves around a mental hospital at which Billy's father is a doctor and in which Virginia is institutionalized. This setting is based on Bryce Hospital, a real mental institution in Tuscaloosa. Founded in 1861 as the Alabama State Hospital for the Insane, it was planned according to the then-groundbreaking ideas of "moral architecture" as pioneered by mental-health activists Thomas Story Kirkbride and Dorothea Dix and was (for its time) a model facility for the treatment of mental illness. For many years it was known across the state as one of the only medical resources for mentally ill patients in Alabama; in her classic novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee even demonstrates that just the town's name was for many in the state synonymous with Bryce's presence there: "Miss Stephanie said old Mr. Radley said no Radley was going to any asylum, when it was suggested that a season in Tuscaloosa might be helpful to Boo. Boo wasn't crazy, he was high-strung at times. It was all right to shut him up, Mr. Radley conceded, but insisted that Boo not be charged with anything: he was not a criminal."