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

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|Title= Lincoln State Hospital
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|Title= Boston State Hospital
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|Body= This institution is located at Lincoln. As early as 1865, it was found necessary to make provision for the insane in the Territory of Nebraska. Four cases were already being cared for in an Iowa hospital. The legislature authorized the governor to make some arrangement with the State of Iowa, by which they received and cared for the insane at the expense of Nebraska. Under this arrangement fifty patients were sent at various times to the hospital at Mount Pleasant. Soon after Nebraska became a State the governor, secretary of State and auditor of public accounts were appointed a board of commissioners to locate a site for a State lunatic asylum near the city of Lincoln. The first building was completed at a cost of $137,000 in the fall of 1870, and the first patient was admitted November 26th of that year. Early in the following December, seventeen patients were brought over from Mount Pleasant to the new institution, and four were admitted who had been confined in the Pawnee county jail. Dr. N. B. Larsh was the first superintendent.
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|Body= The Boston State Hospital – originally called the Boston Lunatic Asylum – was founded in South Boston in 1839. By the 1880s, new ideas about the care of the mentally ill emphasized the importance of fresh air, hard work, and separation from the adverse influences (both social and environmental) of city life, an approach that was referred to as “moral treatment.” Thus, when the time came to move out of the old and overcrowded facilities in South Boston, the Asylum’s leaders looked to West Roxbury – at that time a semi-rural area that had only recently been incorporated into the city of Boston – as an appropriate setting for a new hospital.
  
In April, 1871, the institution was destroyed by fire. Five patients were reported missing and were never afterwards accounted for. The remaining patients were taken to Lincoln and cared for in rented houses until a temporary building was erected on the asylum grounds. As there was no appropriation available, and the citizens of Lincoln were fearful lest the institution should be removed to some rival city, they advanced the funds necessary to build a temporary frame structure, which did service as a hospital until a new stone building was erected the following year. Since that time the institution has been enlarged by the erection of additional buildings, until today it is one of the most modern institutions of its kind in the country. As the population of the State increased, the number of insane persons likewise increased, thereby making it necessary to increase the capacity of the hospital. The congestion was also relieved by the erection of other institutions at Hastings and Norfolk. The first patients were sent to the Norfolk hospital February 15, 1888, and to the Asylum for the Chronic Insane at Hastings, August 1, 1889.  [[Lincoln State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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Beginning in 1884, some Asylum residents were moved to the former almshouse at Austin Farm, just across Morton Street from the present Boston Nature Center, where the Harvard Commons development stands today. In 1892, looking for more room for both buildings and farmland, the City purchased the 35-acre Pierce Farm, along Walk Hill and Canterbury Streets – part of which land is now the western end of the BNC. A few years later, the City bought another parcel of land, adjoining Pierce Farm and Canterbury Street, which now includes much of the Clark Cooper Community Gardens and other areas in the central part of the BNC.
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It was soon decided that Austin Farm would house women, while Pierce Farm became the “Department for Men” of the recently renamed Boston Insane Hospital. The new buildings at Pierce Farm, designed by city architect Edmund March Wheelwright, opened in 1895, and a few additional farm buildings were added over the following years.  [[Boston State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:21, 25 September 2022

Featured Article Of The Week

Boston State Hospital


BostonSH.png

The Boston State Hospital – originally called the Boston Lunatic Asylum – was founded in South Boston in 1839. By the 1880s, new ideas about the care of the mentally ill emphasized the importance of fresh air, hard work, and separation from the adverse influences (both social and environmental) of city life, an approach that was referred to as “moral treatment.” Thus, when the time came to move out of the old and overcrowded facilities in South Boston, the Asylum’s leaders looked to West Roxbury – at that time a semi-rural area that had only recently been incorporated into the city of Boston – as an appropriate setting for a new hospital.

Beginning in 1884, some Asylum residents were moved to the former almshouse at Austin Farm, just across Morton Street from the present Boston Nature Center, where the Harvard Commons development stands today. In 1892, looking for more room for both buildings and farmland, the City purchased the 35-acre Pierce Farm, along Walk Hill and Canterbury Streets – part of which land is now the western end of the BNC. A few years later, the City bought another parcel of land, adjoining Pierce Farm and Canterbury Street, which now includes much of the Clark Cooper Community Gardens and other areas in the central part of the BNC.

It was soon decided that Austin Farm would house women, while Pierce Farm became the “Department for Men” of the recently renamed Boston Insane Hospital. The new buildings at Pierce Farm, designed by city architect Edmund March Wheelwright, opened in 1895, and a few additional farm buildings were added over the following years. Click here for more...