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

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|Title= Gallinger Municipal Hospital Psychopathic Ward
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|Title= Big Spring State Hospital
|Image= DCgallinger_bldg2023.png
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|Image= TXbigspringaerial.png
 
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|Body= The old psychiatric ward at Gallinger Hospital was built in response to national reform trends, but construction was also spurred on by the dire need for mental health care facilities in the District of Columbia. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, St. Elizabeth and the Washington Asylum Hospitals were the only institutions in the city that cared for the mentally ill.
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|Body= The 45th Texas Legislature authorized the construction of Big Spring State Hospital in 1937 to serve the people of the West Texas area. The city donated the 577 acres, which at the time was valued at $51,400 and philanthropist Dora Roberts guaranteed a permanent water supply. Governor James V Allred placed the facility in Big Spring because of the need for a psychiatric hospital in West Texas. Ground was broken in January 1938, and the hospital opened 18 months later in June 1939. Within six months, the hospital treated 402 patients, most of whom were transferred from other state facilities.
  
After the old almshouse, erected in 1847, was vacated in 1907 with the opening of the Blue Plains facility, it was used as a ward for the mentally ill. Conditions there were considered deplorable. The entire facility was often characterized as dilapidated and in 1916 became the subject of a newspaper expose decrying the squalid conditions as a "disgrace to the capital." In spite of this reform fervor, construction was delayed on the hospital by the political squabble over the hospital's site and the onset of World War I.
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The original eight buildings designated as the general hospital were the administration building, including professional and administrative staff living quarters; the employees building, which included housing for direct care and clerical staff; the men's receiving hospital; the women's receiving hospital; the psychiatric hospital; the laundry; the power house; and the supply building. A railroad spur was located west of the supply building in order for the transportation and delivery of hospital supplies.
  
The Galiinger Municipal Hospital Psychopathic Ward was built between 1920 and 1922. The structure is an important example of a period and typical of psychiatric hospital design, and it also reflects the success of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts policy in implementing a uniform classical architectural expression for the District's public buildings after its formation in 1910. Designed in 1919 by Municipal Architect Snowden Ashford (1866- 1927), the hospital ward was constructed by local contractor George H. Wynne at a cost of $766,200. Upon completion in 1923 the facility gamed immediate notice for its efficient Colonial Revival design and was featured in the influential health care journal Modern Hospital in 1924. it was also illustrated and described in a standard text on hospital planning, The American Hospital of the Twentieth Century (1926). The building group epitomized the "home-like" pavilion ward believed to be the best architectural solution for the general hospital's treatment of short-term psychiatric patients during the 1920s.  [[Gallinger Municipal Hospital Psychopathic Ward|Click here for more...]]
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Five additional buildings were constructed on campus within the next 10 years at a cost of $778,000. Improvements to the grounds and the addition of equipment brought the total hospital investment to $1,060,571. Today, the hospital physical plant includes 25 buildings.  [[Big Spring State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:36, 28 May 2023

Featured Article Of The Week

Big Spring State Hospital


TXbigspringaerial.png

The 45th Texas Legislature authorized the construction of Big Spring State Hospital in 1937 to serve the people of the West Texas area. The city donated the 577 acres, which at the time was valued at $51,400 and philanthropist Dora Roberts guaranteed a permanent water supply. Governor James V Allred placed the facility in Big Spring because of the need for a psychiatric hospital in West Texas. Ground was broken in January 1938, and the hospital opened 18 months later in June 1939. Within six months, the hospital treated 402 patients, most of whom were transferred from other state facilities.

The original eight buildings designated as the general hospital were the administration building, including professional and administrative staff living quarters; the employees building, which included housing for direct care and clerical staff; the men's receiving hospital; the women's receiving hospital; the psychiatric hospital; the laundry; the power house; and the supply building. A railroad spur was located west of the supply building in order for the transportation and delivery of hospital supplies.

Five additional buildings were constructed on campus within the next 10 years at a cost of $778,000. Improvements to the grounds and the addition of equipment brought the total hospital investment to $1,060,571. Today, the hospital physical plant includes 25 buildings. Click here for more...