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

From Asylum Projects
Jump to: navigation, search
(10 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{FAformat
 
{{FAformat
|Title= Bangor State Hospital
+
|Title= St Elizabeths Hospital
|Image= Bangor1.png
+
|Image= St_Elizabeth_SH_Kirkbride.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
|Width= 150px
|Body= The Eastern Maine Insane Hospital was opened on July 1, 1901. It was built on a pastoral hill named 'Hepatica Hill' for its flowers overlooking the city of Bangor and the Penobscot River. Pine trees were planted around all of the driveways on the campus and have since grown to enormous sizes.
+
|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...]]
 
 
Within five days of opening in 1901, 145 patients were transferred from the Maine Insane Hospital in Augusta to the Bangor location. Patients were generally committed to the hospital by their community peers, such as town selectmen, family, etc.
 
 
 
Patients worked the fields, raised livestock, manned the laundry, sewing room and kitchen as part of their "treatment." This made the hospital self-sufficient and any excesses were sold at market to pay additional costs, until 1973 when the case of Sonder vs. Brennan went to court and it was determined that patients in public institutions could not work without being paid.
 
 
 
The name of the hospital changed in 1913 to Bangor State Hospital and then eventually to Bangor Mental Health Institute in the early 70's. The highest patient census was in 1970 with 1,200 patients; however, with a concerted downsizing effort in the 70's, the census fell to 470 in 1974. There were approximately 300 patients through much of the 80's.  [[Bangor State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
 
}}
 
}}

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...