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

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|Title= Dexter State Hospital
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|Title= Spring Grove State Hospital
|Image= Dexter.jpg
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|Image= Spring Grove SH 02.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= Spring Grove Hospital Center was founded in 1797 and is the second oldest psychiatric hospital in the United States (The oldest being Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia, which was founded in 1773).
  
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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The "Old Main" was the original building at the Spring Grove site of the Maryland Hospital for the Insane. Although construction was started in 1853, the Main Building was not substantially completed and ready for full occupancy until 1872. Work on the building stopped in 1862 and was not resumed until 1868. However, enough of the north wing was completed by the start of the Civil War (1861) to allow for that part of the building to serve as a military hospital during the War. The first psychiatric patients were transferred from the Baltimore City location of the Maryland Hospital to the newly completed facility at Spring Grove on October 7, 1872.
  
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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The Main Building's original capacity was 325 patients, and its cost, including landscaping and several associated outbuildings, was approximately $760,000. From the beginning, the Main Building had running water, flush toilets, gas lighting and forced air central heating. Hot water for a heat exchanger was piped to the building's basement from a nearby Boiler House. Electric lights and a telephone system were added in the 1890s. (Combination gas and electric chandeliers may be seen in some pictures from the turn of the 19th Century.) The Main Building was designed in accordance with the Kirkbride Plan, which called for a monumental center section, and two large wings — one for male patients and one for females patients. The north wing was called the "Male Department," and the south wing was called the "Female Department." The individual units on each wing were arranged in a progressive set-back configuration, a system that allowed for the classification of patients by level of functioning, and kept the various levels of care ("Violent Female," "General Female," "Convalescent Female," "Violent Male," "General Male" and "Convalescent Male" ) fairly separate from each other.  [[Spring Grove State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 07:20, 3 December 2017

Featured Article Of The Week

Spring Grove State Hospital


Spring Grove SH 02.jpg

Spring Grove Hospital Center was founded in 1797 and is the second oldest psychiatric hospital in the United States (The oldest being Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia, which was founded in 1773).

The "Old Main" was the original building at the Spring Grove site of the Maryland Hospital for the Insane. Although construction was started in 1853, the Main Building was not substantially completed and ready for full occupancy until 1872. Work on the building stopped in 1862 and was not resumed until 1868. However, enough of the north wing was completed by the start of the Civil War (1861) to allow for that part of the building to serve as a military hospital during the War. The first psychiatric patients were transferred from the Baltimore City location of the Maryland Hospital to the newly completed facility at Spring Grove on October 7, 1872.

The Main Building's original capacity was 325 patients, and its cost, including landscaping and several associated outbuildings, was approximately $760,000. From the beginning, the Main Building had running water, flush toilets, gas lighting and forced air central heating. Hot water for a heat exchanger was piped to the building's basement from a nearby Boiler House. Electric lights and a telephone system were added in the 1890s. (Combination gas and electric chandeliers may be seen in some pictures from the turn of the 19th Century.) The Main Building was designed in accordance with the Kirkbride Plan, which called for a monumental center section, and two large wings — one for male patients and one for females patients. The north wing was called the "Male Department," and the south wing was called the "Female Department." The individual units on each wing were arranged in a progressive set-back configuration, a system that allowed for the classification of patients by level of functioning, and kept the various levels of care ("Violent Female," "General Female," "Convalescent Female," "Violent Male," "General Male" and "Convalescent Male" ) fairly separate from each other. Click here for more...