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

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|Title= East Louisiana State Hospital
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|Title= St Elizabeths Hospital
|Image= Jackson_Louisiana_SH_PC.jpg
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|Image= St_Elizabeth_SH_Kirkbride.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= An act of the legislative session of 1847 established "The Insane Asylum of the State of Louisiana" in Jackson and provided, among other things, for the construction of the Asylum's physical plant. The Asylum's Board of Administrators appointed an architect, a Mr. Gibbens. to draw up the plans. He was specifically told not to design something that would look like a prison. Gibbens came up with the design of the Center Building with its wings. The Board of Administrators purchased a 250-acre tract known as "Flowery Hill" a short distance from the business section of Jackson, separated from the town by a small stream.
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|Body= In November of 1852 a tract of land overlooking the Anacostia River was purchased for $25,000 from Thomas Blagden. Construction began almost immediately on the center building, a red brick fortress designed in Gothic revival style by Thomas U. Walter, who also designed the dome of the Capital Building. The hospital was built following the Kirkbride Plan, most of the construction of the center building was done by slaves. It opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane. The Hospital's early mission, as defined by its founder, the leading mental health reformer Dorothea Dix, was to provide the "most humane care and enlightened curative treatment of the insane of the Army, Navy, and District of Columbia." During the Civil War, wounded soldiers treated here were reluctant to admit that they were in an insane asylum, and said they were at St. Elizabeth's, the colonial name of the land where the Hospital is located. Congress officially changed the Hospital's name to St. Elizabeth's in 1916. By the 1940s, the Hospital complex covering an area of over 300 acres. At its peak, 4,000 people worked and 7,000 patients lived there. It was the first and only federal mental facility with a national scope. The first appropriation towards building the Government Hospital for the Insane was of $100,000, and was made by Congress in 1852 for the purchase of land. The organic act creating the institution and outlining the duties of its officers and providing for the admission of various classes of insane patients was not approved until March 3, 1855. The hospital, however, had been opened for the reception of patients on January 15,1855.  [[St Elizabeths Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
On July 5, 1847, Robert Perry signed a contract with the Board for the building of the Asylum, and President David Shattuck of Centenary College signed as security for Perry. The Board requested that the West Wing be completed by December 1, 1847, but there were delays due to bad weather and the building was not ready for occupancy until the fall of 1848. The East Wing was not finished until 1849. Center Building was ready for use in 1854, but it was never completed according to Gibbens' plans. The rear of the building was to have extended another hundred feet and to have contained a central kitchen, storerooms, and other facilities. Although the Asylum's early superintendents frequently asked the Legislature for funds to complete Center Building, they were never provided.
 
 
 
The Asylum began accepting patients in 1848. These first patients came from the Insane Department of New Orleans' Charity Hospital and from local jails across the state. The initial staff at the Insane Asylum consisted of twelve people. From 1848 to 1850 there were 130 admissions. By 1898 there were over a thousand patients in residence at the Asylum. In 1922 its name was changed to East Louisiana State Hospital. Today it has a staff of over a thousand employees, and almost seven hundred patients reside there. The latter figure would be much higher if the hospital's functions had not been divided among several new independent agencies in recent years.  [[East Louisiana State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
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Revision as of 05:37, 28 June 2020

Featured Article Of The Week

St Elizabeths Hospital


St Elizabeth SH Kirkbride.jpg

In November of 1852 a tract of land overlooking the Anacostia River was purchased for $25,000 from Thomas Blagden. Construction began almost immediately on the center building, a red brick fortress designed in Gothic revival style by Thomas U. Walter, who also designed the dome of the Capital Building. The hospital was built following the Kirkbride Plan, most of the construction of the center building was done by slaves. It opened in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane. The Hospital's early mission, as defined by its founder, the leading mental health reformer Dorothea Dix, was to provide the "most humane care and enlightened curative treatment of the insane of the Army, Navy, and District of Columbia." During the Civil War, wounded soldiers treated here were reluctant to admit that they were in an insane asylum, and said they were at St. Elizabeth's, the colonial name of the land where the Hospital is located. Congress officially changed the Hospital's name to St. Elizabeth's in 1916. By the 1940s, the Hospital complex covering an area of over 300 acres. At its peak, 4,000 people worked and 7,000 patients lived there. It was the first and only federal mental facility with a national scope. The first appropriation towards building the Government Hospital for the Insane was of $100,000, and was made by Congress in 1852 for the purchase of land. The organic act creating the institution and outlining the duties of its officers and providing for the admission of various classes of insane patients was not approved until March 3, 1855. The hospital, however, had been opened for the reception of patients on January 15,1855. Click here for more...