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

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|Title= St Elizabeth's Hospital
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|Title= Norristown State Hospital
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|Image= St Elizabeth SH Kirkbride.jpg
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|Image= Norristown_17.jpg
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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...]]
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|Body= Norristown State Hospital, formally the 'State Lunatic Hospital at Norristown', is an active psychiatric hospital run by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and has been operational since its opening in the spring of 1880. At its height in the 1940s, it maintained a clinical population of about five thousand patients and was nationally renowned for its modern psychiatric practices. In more recent years, Norristown State's population has declined significantly to about 150 civilian beds. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania continues to maintain the site, but at a greatly reduced size and clinical capacity. It is currently the only remaining state psychiatric facility in southeastern Pennsylvania, following the closures of Philadelphia State Hospital in 1990, Haverford State Hospital in 1998, and Allentown State Hospital in 2010. It continues to serve the five surrounding Pennsylvania counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester. [[Norristown State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Latest revision as of 10:32, 4 January 2026

Featured Article Of The Week

Norristown State Hospital


Norristown 17.jpg

Norristown State Hospital, formally the 'State Lunatic Hospital at Norristown', is an active psychiatric hospital run by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and has been operational since its opening in the spring of 1880. At its height in the 1940s, it maintained a clinical population of about five thousand patients and was nationally renowned for its modern psychiatric practices. In more recent years, Norristown State's population has declined significantly to about 150 civilian beds. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania continues to maintain the site, but at a greatly reduced size and clinical capacity. It is currently the only remaining state psychiatric facility in southeastern Pennsylvania, following the closures of Philadelphia State Hospital in 1990, Haverford State Hospital in 1998, and Allentown State Hospital in 2010. It continues to serve the five surrounding Pennsylvania counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester. Click here for more...

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