Records, 1833-1924.

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Records, 1833-1924.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/207172812

This collection contains one octavo volume, 1912-1924, and two folio volumes, 1833-1873, and 1873-1902, recording trustees' visits to the Worcester Lunatic Asylum. The octavo volume consists of brief comments concerning the satisfactory conditions at the hospital. The first folio volume, 1833-1873, contains considerably more detailed trustees' comments concerning their impressions of the patients (with references to specific patients and their maladies), conditions at the hospital, escapes, suicides, other deaths, the separation of "African" patients, discharge of "idiots" not under their jurisdiction, problems with the building, crowded wards, and the need for enlargement of the hospital as well as a post-mortuary examination room. The entries in the second folio volume are less detailed. Each volume contains statistics concerning the number of patients per month, divided by gender, and the numbers of discharges, admissions, and deaths. Among the trustees who wrote in the volumes are Alfred Dwight Foster (1800-1852), Horace Mann, William Barron Calhoun, Levi Lincoln (1782-1868), Stephen Salisbury (1798-1884), and Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876). The latter was, perhaps, most critical (during the 1850s) of the conditions at the asylum and suggested that the "strong rooms" (i.e., cages) be done away with, and that more amusements were needed for the patients.

1 v. (166 leaves, 151 blank) ; octavo.2 v. ; folio.

Gadsden Public Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 7000674

Gadsden Public Library

Related Entities

There are 9 Entities related to this resource.

State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vb3f0j (corporateBody)

In 1830, in order to provide care for the mentally ill in Worcester County, the governor of Massachusetts ordered the erection of a hospital on Summer Street in Worcester. Commissioners appointed to oversee the new building were Horace Mann (1796-1859), Bezaleel Taft, Jr. (1780-1846), and William Barron Calhoun (1795-1865). Dr. Samuel Bayard Woodward (1787-1850) served as the first superintendent/physician of the Worcester Lunatic Asylum. The hospital was enlarged in 1835 and was considered one ...

Lincoln, Levi, 1782-1868

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64f1snz (person)

Lawyer and U.S. representative and governor of Massachusetts. From the description of Papers of Levi Lincoln, 1807-1863. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 71015073 ...

Calhoun, William B. (William Barron), 1795-1865

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j67k67 (person)

U.S. representative from Massachusetts. From the description of Letter of William B. Calhoun, 1848. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79452500 Born on December 29, 1795, in Boston, Massachusetts, William Barron Calhoun graduated from Yale College in 1814. He studied law after graduation and eventually opened his own office in Springfield, Massachusetts. He quickly realized that he was not meant to argue the law, but to create it, and was elected to the state legislature on nume...

Salisbury, Stephen, 1798-1884

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6t45512 (person)

Worcester State Hospital

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hb434g (corporateBody)

State psychiatric hospital established 1833 as State Lunatic Hospital Hospital at Worcester; name changed to Worcester Lunatic Hospital, 1877-1898; in 1899 to Worcester Insane Hospital; and in 1909 became Worcester State Hospital. From the description of Worcester State Hospital photograph collection, 1920-1950. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 70967678 ...

Foster, Alfred Dwight, 1800-1852

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rj5nrs (person)

Howe, S. G. 1801-1876.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6jt0v80 (person)

Woodward, Samuel B. (Samuel Bayard), 1787-1850

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67d463g (person)

Mann, Horace, 1796-1859

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sf2xnw (person)

Horace Mann was an educator and a statesman who greatly advanced the cause of universal, free, non-sectarian public schools. Mann also advocated temperance, abolition, hospitals for the mentally ill, and women's rights. From the description of Horace Mann Letter, 1858. (University of the Pacific). WorldCat record id: 213372958 Horace Mann, "Father of our Public Schools," was born in Franklin, Massachusetts on May 4, 1796. His family was poor and his father di...