Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Dexter State Hospital
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|Title= Alberta Hospital Edmonton
|Image= Dexter.jpg
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|Body= The Dexter Asylum served as an institution for the care of the poor, aged and mentally ill of Providence from 1828 to 1957. The Asylum began through a bequest in the will of Ebenezer Knight Dexter (1773-1824), a wealthy citizen who had served on a town committee for poor relief. Dexter's gift to the town, though much needed at the time, later was seen as an anachronism--a walled and isolated "poor farm" in the midst of Providence's residential east side. Beginning in the 1920's, city officials, developers and assorted heirs made several attempts to change the conditions of the will, and in 1957, they finally succeeded. The Dexter Asylum property was sold to Brown University.
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|Body= In the spring of 1923, with crowding becoming a deeper problem at the Hospital for the Insane in Ponoka, it was decided to make the facility a mental hospital for adults. It was to become a home for, in the parlance of the time, the chronically insane. Its first patients were 47 First World War veterans, transferred from the Hospital for Returned Soldiers in Red Deer.
  
Ebenezer Dexter's will of 1824 left a property known as Neck Farm to Providence to be used for "the accommodation and support of the poor of said town... and for no other use or purpose whatever." The bulk of his estate was left to the city (then town) for the construction and upkeep of the asylum and the care of the poor. Dexter's will further called for the town to erect a stone wall around the property, forbade the town to sell Neck Farm, and specified that a town meeting of no less than "forty freemen" should be required for any action concerning the property.
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While the original facility contained several buildings, today just Building No. 1 survives. This three-story brick and stucco structure ranks as one of the few remaining buildings of its type in the province. Its cruciform 2,200 square metre layout with crenelated roof line, front bay windows and arched oak vestibule with terrazzo flooring shows influences of the English Jacobethan Revival Style. The style is characterized by its multi-paned windows, shaped parapet, hipped roof and bay windows. Early on, the basement contained a dining room and school room, there was a day room on the main floor, dormitory rooms and the main and second floors and staff bedrooms in the attic. There were 15 staff in those days, overseen by Dr. David Dick, the facility's medical superintendent.
  
Before Dexter's bequest, Providence had no institution for the care of the poor. Those unable to support themselves due to age or illness were cared for at town expense in private homes by caretakers who bid for the job. A committee formed soon after Dexter's death to oversee the donation, and town meetings from 1824 until the original building's completion in 1828 discussed the construction, operation and rules of the asylum.  [[Dexter State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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In her history of the institution, writer Sheila Abercrombie notes that Dick was a military doctor who had served in the First World War and had headed two military hospitals. Dicks organization and operation of the institute was exceedingly military in style, with a strict hierarchy of authority, rigid rules and routines, tight schedules, and a Spartan environment.  [[Alberta Hospital Edmonton|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 03:51, 27 August 2012

Featured Article Of The Week

Alberta Hospital Edmonton


oliver1.png

In the spring of 1923, with crowding becoming a deeper problem at the Hospital for the Insane in Ponoka, it was decided to make the facility a mental hospital for adults. It was to become a home for, in the parlance of the time, the chronically insane. Its first patients were 47 First World War veterans, transferred from the Hospital for Returned Soldiers in Red Deer.

While the original facility contained several buildings, today just Building No. 1 survives. This three-story brick and stucco structure ranks as one of the few remaining buildings of its type in the province. Its cruciform 2,200 square metre layout with crenelated roof line, front bay windows and arched oak vestibule with terrazzo flooring shows influences of the English Jacobethan Revival Style. The style is characterized by its multi-paned windows, shaped parapet, hipped roof and bay windows. Early on, the basement contained a dining room and school room, there was a day room on the main floor, dormitory rooms and the main and second floors and staff bedrooms in the attic. There were 15 staff in those days, overseen by Dr. David Dick, the facility's medical superintendent.

In her history of the institution, writer Sheila Abercrombie notes that Dick was a military doctor who had served in the First World War and had headed two military hospitals. Dicks organization and operation of the institute was exceedingly military in style, with a strict hierarchy of authority, rigid rules and routines, tight schedules, and a Spartan environment. Click here for more...