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

From Asylum Projects
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{FAformat
 
{{FAformat
|Title= Taunton State Hospital
+
|Title= Topeka State Hospital
|Image= Taunton44.jpg
+
|Image= Tsh.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= It took Massachusetts until 1833 to establish its first "lunatic system" located in Worcester. By 1851 it had grown so dangerously overcrowded that the Legislature appropriated $100,000 for the construction of a new hospital. The Legislature appointed a commission to choose the site and oversee its construction. Interestingly, many communities across the state petitioned to have the institutions located in their towns. After a lengthy search the commission chose the City of Taunton who had raised $13,000 to buy a one hundred and fifty-four acre farm situated in the north of town.
+
|Body= Legislature appropriated $25,000 in 1875 "for the purpose of building an asylum for the insane at some convenient and healthy spot within two miles of the state capitol building in the city of Topeka." One condition was that the land would be acquired at no cost to the state. So the city of Topeka and Shawnee County each contributed $6,000 to purchase the original 80 acres.
  
The commission's site search was driven by specific criteria, and their vision, when the building and grounds were completed, was to "render it a spot fitted to interest and tranquilize the minds of those who need as well the soothing influences of external nature as the healing remedies of art." It was believed at the time that a bucolic setting of soothing topology would compliment and aid treatment. To that end, the commission settled on the farm in northern Taunton whose more than sixty acre grove, bounded by the river, extended to within a half a mile of the center of town. One advantage of the site was that the river acted as a natural barrier against the encroachments of an increasing town population, so that the institution would not gradually find itself in the heart of a large city.
+
The first two ward buildings, accommodating 135 patients, opened in 1879. Dr. Barnard Douglass Eastman resigned as superintendent of the asylum at Worcester, Mass., to become the first superintendent at TSH. The institution was called the Topeka Insane Asylum until 1901 when the Legislature officially changed the name to Topeka State Hospital. Eastman told legislators that patients who were being released to make room for more patients were "well enough to be in a measure useful. All were of a quiet and harmless character."
  
The commission selected Elbridge Boyden, the most prominent New England architect of the mid-19th century, whose most famous works were Mechanics Hall and Holy Cross College, both in Worcester. He was also well-known outside of New England and was chosen to design and build Antioch College in Ohio. Boyden's specialty was the design of civic and public buildings. He built jails, courthouses, town halls, churches, hotels, banks, post offices and railroad stations all over the United States. [[Taunton State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
+
He described the treatment process this way: "Removal from the worriment, the overwork, the unsanitary conditions and the unsuitable food of many homes ... occupying body and mind in the new employment, cheering the drooping and melancholy and soothing the excited and irritable, are some of the elements of treatment of the greatest value, sometimes working rapid cures with but little medication."
 +
 
 +
Patients who were able did useful work around the asylum during the day, constructing new buildings, working on the farm or sewing. Patients were admitted to the asylum only by court order. Eastman objected to such demeaning insanity trials, saying "The insane are sick, not criminal." But the policy didn't change until 1919. The Legislature allowed shell-shocked veterans of World War I to be treated at TSH without the indignity of an insanity trial. [[Topeka State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
}}
 
}}

Revision as of 03:52, 6 June 2011

Featured Article Of The Week

Topeka State Hospital


Tsh.jpg

Legislature appropriated $25,000 in 1875 "for the purpose of building an asylum for the insane at some convenient and healthy spot within two miles of the state capitol building in the city of Topeka." One condition was that the land would be acquired at no cost to the state. So the city of Topeka and Shawnee County each contributed $6,000 to purchase the original 80 acres.

The first two ward buildings, accommodating 135 patients, opened in 1879. Dr. Barnard Douglass Eastman resigned as superintendent of the asylum at Worcester, Mass., to become the first superintendent at TSH. The institution was called the Topeka Insane Asylum until 1901 when the Legislature officially changed the name to Topeka State Hospital. Eastman told legislators that patients who were being released to make room for more patients were "well enough to be in a measure useful. All were of a quiet and harmless character."

He described the treatment process this way: "Removal from the worriment, the overwork, the unsanitary conditions and the unsuitable food of many homes ... occupying body and mind in the new employment, cheering the drooping and melancholy and soothing the excited and irritable, are some of the elements of treatment of the greatest value, sometimes working rapid cures with but little medication."

Patients who were able did useful work around the asylum during the day, constructing new buildings, working on the farm or sewing. Patients were admitted to the asylum only by court order. Eastman objected to such demeaning insanity trials, saying "The insane are sick, not criminal." But the policy didn't change until 1919. The Legislature allowed shell-shocked veterans of World War I to be treated at TSH without the indignity of an insanity trial. Click here for more...