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

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|Title= Central Islip State Hospital
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|Title= Jamestown State Hospital
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|Image= Jamestown_ND_State_Hospital_1912.jpg
 
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|Body= The Central Islip Psychiatric Center started out as a Farm Colony for New York City in 1889. The patients were transferred from the crowded city asylums on Wards, Hart, and Blackwell Island.
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|Body= The North Dakota State Hospital at Jamestown is one of two state institutions that predate statehood. Its location and mission as a "hospital for the insane" was authorized by the Dakota Territorial Legislature in 1883 and it opened on May 1, 1885, accepting its first two patients from Morton County. Fifty-eight patients whose addresses were in what eventually became North Dakota were moved to Jamestown from the Dakota Hospital in Yankton (now South Dakota). The first superintendent was Dr. O. Wellington Archibald, who had been an assistant surgeon at Fort Abraham Lincoln south of Mandan. By the end of 1886, the average daily census was 106 patients.
  
Eventually the asylum was taken over by the state and was renamed the Manhattan State Hospital. The campus consisted of 1000 acres and was the largest asylum by land area. Over 100 buildings were built, 2 of which were quite unique. One being several ward groups connected by corridors that stretched approximately one mile long. The elegant architecture and length of the building led to its name as the "String of Pearls." The other complex with a unique layout was called the "Sunburst," which resembled a spoked wheel - the spokes were treatment wards connected to a central hub, with a curved, circular corridor connecting them all. A fire department with 10 employees was created in 1907, and a large medical building and a secure unit were constructed in the middle of the century.
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But by 1892, conditions at the hospital were so crowded that attics were used for sleeping rooms and even then, patients had to sleep two to a bed, VanBeek wrote. Archibald warned the Legislature that if it didn't appropriate more money for adequate care, the hospital would be closed and each county would have to care for its own insane. He left the hospital in 1894.
  
Therapy consisted in working in the farms or one of the many shops. The center had two rail spurs to serve the main power plant (north colony) and the string of pearls (south colony) and even had its own steam engine. Visitors would also arrive by train and the hospital had its own passenger station. The hospital, later renamed to Central Islip State Hospital and finally known as Central Islip Psychiatric Center, began to become severely overcrowded through the 1950s. It reached its peak population of about 10,000 patients in 1955. Lobotomies, various types of shock treatments, and finally drug therapy replaced the long-gone treatments from the 19th century. The population dwindled in the 1970s and 1980s as de-institutionalization took hold, until it finally closed in 1996. The beautiful String of Pearls was demolished for the shopping mall that now stands in its place, the large 1953 power plant was imploded for condominiums in 2006, and the large secure treatment building called Corcoran together with the wooden 1907 firehouse were demolished in 2008. A few buildings have survived, as some of the campus was sold to the New York Institute of Technology and the structures have found a new use by the college.  [[Central Islip State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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By 1904, the census had risen to an average of 401 and still there were no additional buildings. Two buildings had been started in 1903 but construction was halted when the funding process was found unconstitutional, wrote VanBeek. When the state began enforcing laws that allowed it to collect fees from patients' families or their home counties, the construction started again and the two new buildings were completed. Staff was increased so that patients would not have to be locked in their rooms at night or restrained during the day.  [[Jamestown State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 07:51, 11 December 2016

Featured Article Of The Week

Jamestown State Hospital


Jamestown ND State Hospital 1912.jpg

The North Dakota State Hospital at Jamestown is one of two state institutions that predate statehood. Its location and mission as a "hospital for the insane" was authorized by the Dakota Territorial Legislature in 1883 and it opened on May 1, 1885, accepting its first two patients from Morton County. Fifty-eight patients whose addresses were in what eventually became North Dakota were moved to Jamestown from the Dakota Hospital in Yankton (now South Dakota). The first superintendent was Dr. O. Wellington Archibald, who had been an assistant surgeon at Fort Abraham Lincoln south of Mandan. By the end of 1886, the average daily census was 106 patients.

But by 1892, conditions at the hospital were so crowded that attics were used for sleeping rooms and even then, patients had to sleep two to a bed, VanBeek wrote. Archibald warned the Legislature that if it didn't appropriate more money for adequate care, the hospital would be closed and each county would have to care for its own insane. He left the hospital in 1894.

By 1904, the census had risen to an average of 401 and still there were no additional buildings. Two buildings had been started in 1903 but construction was halted when the funding process was found unconstitutional, wrote VanBeek. When the state began enforcing laws that allowed it to collect fees from patients' families or their home counties, the construction started again and the two new buildings were completed. Staff was increased so that patients would not have to be locked in their rooms at night or restrained during the day. Click here for more...