Spring Grove State Hospital (Catonsville, Md.)

The Maryland Hospital for the Insane was renamed as Spring Grove State Hospital in 1912 when funds were approriated for additional hospital buildings (Laws of 1912, ch. 187). While the hospital continued unchanged for several years, World War I affected Spring Grove in diverse ways. First, construction of a major medical building (the Psychopathic Building) wa delayed by the demands of a wartime economy. Then, in 1918, the U.S. Veterans' Bureau, recognizing the impending need for a facility in which to treat mentally ill casualties, urged the Maryland Council of Defence to appropriate enough money to complete the building's construction. The structure was completed, and between 1920 and 1925 several hundred soldiers and sailors were treated in its Foster Clinic. In July 1925, the remaining Veteran's Bureau patients were moved to a new federal hospital at Perry Point, Maryland.

The State Government Reorganization Act of 1922 resulted in Spring Grove being placed under the Department of Welfare and its administrating Board of Welfare (Laws of 1922, ch. 29, art. vii). The same law also created the Board of Mental Hygiene, which was directly responsible for the state mental hospital system. Despite the new levels of administration, however, daily operation of Spring Grove remained the responsibility of its Board of Managers.

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