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

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{{FAformat
|Title= Topeka State Hospital
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|Title= Pilgrim State Hospital
|Image= Tsh.jpg
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|Image= Pilgrimsh1.jpg
 
|Width= 150px
 
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|Body= Legislature appropriated $25,000 in 1875 "for the purpose of building an asylum for the insane at some convenient and healthy spot within two miles of the state capitol building in the city of Topeka." One condition was that the land would be acquired at no cost to the state. So the city of Topeka and Shawnee County each contributed $6,000 to purchase the original 80 acres.
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|Body= At the time it was opened, it was the largest hospital of any type in the world. Its size has never been exceeded by any other facility, although today Pilgrim is far smaller than it used to be.
  
The first two ward buildings, accommodating 135 patients, opened in 1872. Dr. Barnard Douglass Eastman resigned as superintendent of the asylum at Worcester MA to become the first superintendent at TSH. The institution was called the Topeka Insane Asylum until 1901 when the Legislature officially changed the name to Topeka State Hospital. Eastman told legislators that patients who were being released to make room for more patients were "well enough to be in a measure useful. All were of a quiet and harmless character."
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By 1900, overcrowding in city asylums was becoming a major problem that many tried to resolve. One answer was to put the mentally ill to work farming in a relaxing setting on what was then rural Long Island. The new state hospitals were dubbed "Farm Colonies" because of their live-and-work treatment programs, agricultural focus and patient facilities. However, these farm colonies, the Kings Park State Hospital (later known as the Kings Park Psychiatric Center) and the Central Islip State Hospital (later known as the Central Islip Psychiatric Center), quickly became overcrowded, just like the earlier institutions they were supposed to replace.
  
He described the treatment process this way: "Removal from the worriment, the overwork, the unsanitary conditions and the unsuitable food of many homes ... occupying body and mind in the new employment, cheering the drooping and melancholy and soothing the excited and irritable, are some of the elements of treatment of the greatest value, sometimes working rapid cures with but little medication." [[Topeka State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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NY state responded by making plans for a third so-called farm colony, what was to become the Pilgrim State Hospital, named in honor of the former New York State Commissioner of Mental Health, Dr. Charles W. Pilgrim. The state bought up approx. 1,000 acres (4.0 km²) of land in Brentwood and began construction in 1930. The hospital opened on October 1, 1931 as a close knit community with its own police and fire department, courts, post office, a LIRR station, power plant, potter's field, swinery, cemetery, water tower and houses for doctors, psychiatrists, and asylum administrators. A series of underground tunnels were used for routing steam pipes and other vital utilities.  [[Pilgrim State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:45, 3 March 2024

Featured Article Of The Week

Pilgrim State Hospital


Pilgrimsh1.jpg

At the time it was opened, it was the largest hospital of any type in the world. Its size has never been exceeded by any other facility, although today Pilgrim is far smaller than it used to be.

By 1900, overcrowding in city asylums was becoming a major problem that many tried to resolve. One answer was to put the mentally ill to work farming in a relaxing setting on what was then rural Long Island. The new state hospitals were dubbed "Farm Colonies" because of their live-and-work treatment programs, agricultural focus and patient facilities. However, these farm colonies, the Kings Park State Hospital (later known as the Kings Park Psychiatric Center) and the Central Islip State Hospital (later known as the Central Islip Psychiatric Center), quickly became overcrowded, just like the earlier institutions they were supposed to replace.

NY state responded by making plans for a third so-called farm colony, what was to become the Pilgrim State Hospital, named in honor of the former New York State Commissioner of Mental Health, Dr. Charles W. Pilgrim. The state bought up approx. 1,000 acres (4.0 km²) of land in Brentwood and began construction in 1930. The hospital opened on October 1, 1931 as a close knit community with its own police and fire department, courts, post office, a LIRR station, power plant, potter's field, swinery, cemetery, water tower and houses for doctors, psychiatrists, and asylum administrators. A series of underground tunnels were used for routing steam pipes and other vital utilities. Click here for more...