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

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|Title= Rhode Island State Hospital
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|Title= Richland County Chronic Asylum
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|Body= Eighteen frame buildings were constructed in 1870, and that November 118 mental patients were admitted - 65 charity cases from Butler Asylum, 25 from town poor houses and 28 from asylums in Vermont and Massachusetts where the state had sent them. The patients at the State Asylum were poor and believed beyond help, as is reflected in the evolution of names for the asylum. Initially it was to be called the State Insane Asylum; in 1869 the Asylum for the Pauper Insane; and in 1870 the State Asylum for the Incurable Insane. In 1885, to relieve the cities and towns from the burden of supporting their insane poor, the General Assembly adopted a resolution that the State Asylum for the Insane should serve as a receiving hospital for all types of mental disorder, acute as well as chronic, thereby merging the two. By giving over the Asylum to “undesirable” elements, the poor, the incurable, and the foreign born, the upper and middle classes thus restricted their own ability to use it. Therapy was second to custody.
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|Body= In 1895 the superintendents of the poor purchased a tract of land, which was located in the northwest quarter of section 36 and the northeast quarter of section 35 in the Town of Bloom, containing 200 acres. The price paid was $5,000.00 of which amount $1,000.00 was paid down and the balance was to be made in two equal payments, in one and two years. Mr. Robert N. McKay was appointed the first overseer, thus becoming the first administrator of the institution, as we know it today. He was hired at a salary of $500.00 per year.
  
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In 1888, the General Assembly appropriated funds for a new almshouse to replace the frame building that had been originally built for the insane. Known now as the Center Building, the Almshouse was also designed by Stone, Carpenter and Wilson. Its name acknowledges the prevailing trend in institutional design, as evidenced in the House of Correction and State Prison, as well: the installation of a large central administration building with office and residential facilities for the staff and public eating and worship spaces for the inmates who were segregated in wings flanking the central structure. In this case, the wings housed 150 men and 150 women and includes an additional wing, the children’s “cottage” for sixty children. Opened in 1890, the three-and a half story stone building stands as a series of long buildings running north-south and interrupted regularly by octagonal stair towers. Its handsome stone work and red-brick trim and its site behind copper beach trees on a bluff overlooking Pontiac Avenue make the Center Building one of the most visually striking structures in Rhode Island.  [[Rhode Island State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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By 1879, there were 19 inmates in the county poor house. Of these were five insane, five indigents, and nine orphans. The total cost of running the farm and poorhouse was $1879.60 and products were valued at $1557.27. The average cost per person came to about $0.88 per week. The big house at the Poor Farm served both as “Poor House” and “Insane Asylum.” [[Richland County Chronic Asylum|Click here for more...]]
 
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Latest revision as of 10:53, 15 February 2026

Featured Article Of The Week

Richland County Chronic Asylum


WIrichland1.png

In 1895 the superintendents of the poor purchased a tract of land, which was located in the northwest quarter of section 36 and the northeast quarter of section 35 in the Town of Bloom, containing 200 acres. The price paid was $5,000.00 of which amount $1,000.00 was paid down and the balance was to be made in two equal payments, in one and two years. Mr. Robert N. McKay was appointed the first overseer, thus becoming the first administrator of the institution, as we know it today. He was hired at a salary of $500.00 per year.

By 1879, there were 19 inmates in the county poor house. Of these were five insane, five indigents, and nine orphans. The total cost of running the farm and poorhouse was $1879.60 and products were valued at $1557.27. The average cost per person came to about $0.88 per week. The big house at the Poor Farm served both as “Poor House” and “Insane Asylum.” Click here for more...

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