Category Archives: Canton Asylum for Insane Indians

Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in South Dakota was also known as Hiawatha. It opened in December 1902 and closed in 1934 after charges of neglect and abuse were validated. Dr. Harry Reid Hummer and Oscar Sherman Gifford were its only two superintendents. Its only patients were Native Americans, typically called Indians. It was the only federal insane asylum created solely for an ethnic group and served only Indians.

Overlooked

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A Typical Report from an Asylum's Board of Directors

McLean Asylum for the Insane and St. Elizabeths were two very different, yet for the most part, well-regulated insane asylums (see last two posts). And though they differed from each other in terms of funding and client base, they contrasted even more sharply with the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. The Canton asylum was a government-funded asylum like St. Elizabeths, and both of these institutions focused on either indigent patients or those of moderate income. What really set the Canton asylum apart from McLean and St. Elizabeths, though, was the difference in oversight.

At McLean, trustees watched over the management of the asylum and a Visiting Committee “made it a point to see personally each patient in the asylum once a week, checking his name off a prepared list,” according to the editors of The Institutional Care of the Insane in the U.S.A. and Canada, published in 1916. This extraordinary degree of oversight took place well before 1900, when the facility had one nurse for every four patients. As the asylum grew, trustees could not keep to the same schedule, but they were still intensely involved with the asylum. Even at the turn of the twentieth century, trustees hired eminent architects for additional buildings, and doctors knew their patients and kept detailed histories on them.

The government hospital, St. Elizabeths, first fell under the scrutiny of a five-member board of charities, appointed by the President of the United States for terms of three years. Additionally, the President appointed a nine-member Board of Visitors. This board included representatives of the military and clergy, and many times included an acting or retired surgeon-general. In 1914, Brigadier General George M. Sternberg, a pioneer in battlefield wound treatment during the Civil War, was President of the Board, and the surgeon generals of the Navy and Army were also represented. The latter surgeon-general was William C. Gorgas, who had been responsible for wiping out yellow fever in Havana after Walter Reed’s discovery of the mosquito vector for it. Though St. Elizabeths had its share of detractors and investigations, that asylum and McLean were typically watched over by prominent locals who took their duties seriously and felt responsible for providing area patients with quality care.

In my next post, I will discuss oversight for the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians.

William C. Gorgas at the Time of the Panama Canal Construction, courtesy National Library of Medicine

General George M. Sternberg

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Another Contrast

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Jones Building, St. Elizabeths, circa 1910 to 1925, courtesy Library of Congress

It perhaps isn’t quite fair to compare a federal insane asylum like the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians with a private institution catering to the wealthy. (See last post about McLean Asylum for the Insane.) However, the government did have another insane asylum, and it was also quite different from the one at Canton. St. Elizabeths had a training school for nurses, quarantine rooms, and a full hospital where operations ranging from appendectomies to hysterectomies were performed. It was one of the first asylums in the country to appoint a pathologist to its staff, and one of the first to institute therapeutic hydrotherapy.

At about the time that the Canton asylum opened, Dr. William A. White arrived at St. Elizabeths. He created a clinical director position, and organized a scientific department which eventually included a pathologist, psychologist, histopathologist, and a number of assistants. The department published their research in the form of an annual bulletin. St. Elizabeths also trained surgeons from the Public Health Service and Marine Hospital Service to work on Ellis Island (helping discover insane immigrants). The hospital shared its research with the U.S. Army and Navy to help bring military psychiatry into their respective branches. The Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was much smaller than St. Elizabeths and perhaps couldn’t be expected to do the same things. However, its staff could have done much more research on mental health issues in a unique population than it did, and been much more involved with its peer organizations that it was. Instead, the asylum’s most significant staff member, Dr. Harry Hummer, allowed the facility to stagnate into a backwater institution that helped its patients very little.

Patient Room in Center Building, 1905, courtesy National Archives

Wrapped Patients at St. Elizabeths, courtesy National Archives

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Opposing Systems

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McLean Asylum for the Insane, courtesy National Library of Medicine

Though Dr. Harry R. Hummer’s medical and psychological experience did not guarantee the best care for patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, at least he had the proper background for the position he held. The asylum’s first superintendent, Oscar Gifford, had no medical training at all. The Indian Office bears exceptional fault for appointing someone without the obvious qualifications to head a medical facility; by 1902, it was nearly incomprehensible that an insane asylum superintendent would not also have a psychiatric background.

In contrast, the McLean Asylum for the Insane in Massachusetts was a premier establishment that catered to wealthy families who could afford to give their loved ones the best of care. Its staff administered typical therapies for the time: calomel, Epsom salts, opium products, and various purges, along with rest and recreation designed to calm patients and help them keep their minds off their troubles. Recreation could include sewing and reading, billiards, tennis, strolls through manicured gardens, carriage rides, trips into town, and art appreciation classes. But, despite its country club atmosphere, between 1888 and 1892, McLean established laboratories that combined biological chemistry, physiological psychology, and psychiatry, and were perhaps rivaled  by only Professor Emil Kraepelin’s laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany.

Otto Folin in the McLean Hospital Biochemistry Lab, 1905, courtesy McLean Hospital

Interiors of McLean Asylum's East House, circa 1903, courtesy Harvard Art Museums

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Putting a Name on It

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The Hudson River State Hospital Was a Kirkbride Building

Interest in mental health and how to care for the mentally ill heightened as time went on and professionals became more immersed in studying the intricacies of the mind and human behavior. In the United States, by the turn of the twentieth century large asylums were still the tool of choice for helping the insane become well, or for dealing efficiently with the chronic insane. As mental health specialists made advances in treatment, they continued to look at ways to present themselves and their work to the public in a positive way.

In 1854, the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Asylums for the Insane (AMSAAI) debated on what terms they should use to even describe the buildings where their patients lived. Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, a pioneer in asylum architecture, presented a paper at the AMSAAI’s ninth meeting: “On the Importance of Precision and Accuracy in the Use of Terms for Insanity and Instructions for its Treatment.” In it, he objected to worlds like lunatic, asylum, retreat, keeper, and cell to describe anything within the walls of what were commonly known as insane asylums. In many people’s minds, the word “hospital” was only a place for paupers and outcasts, so it was not suitable, either. “Insanery” seemed suitable to one doctor discussing the paper, since it resembled the British word “infirmary.” This particular alienist (mental health specialist) did not especially object to the terms asylum or lunatic, since the former signified a sacred place or sanctuary, and the latter had been in common usage for a long period.

By 1920, at the seventy-sixth annual meeting of the American Medico-Psychological Association, which had incorporated the old AMSAAI, words like cell and keeper had indeed been discontinued because of their negative connotations. Now the concern at hand was whether or not to change the name of their organization and the way they referred to insanity. In the end, the organization was re-named the American Association of Psychiatrists, and the word psychiatry was substituted for the words “the treatment of insanity.”

Dr. Thomas Kirkbride and His Book on Building Asylums

Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane, circa 1900, courtesy University of Pennsylvania

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Room for the Shell-Shocked

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Main Building, St. Elizabeths, circa 1910-1925, courtesy Library of Congress

In 1917, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (see last post) canvased various hospitals to see where soldiers and sailors could be treated for mental conditions created by the war. They naturally turned to government facilities like veterans’ hospitals and the government’s two existing insane asylums. The larger of these latter facilities, St. Elizabeths, was already charged with the care of insane military members. Its superintendent, Dr. William White, submitted his thoughts on the matter to the Secretary of the Interior, saying that a large influx of insane patients would require a correspondingly large increase in facilities. The plan in place was to ask for statutory authority “to distribute the overflow from the present organization [St. Elizabeths] to the several State hospitals.” Using caution before commitment, White asked how many patients might be expected, and whether or not the Secretary wanted them housed in temporary or semi-permanent structures.

Dr. Harry Hummer, superintendent at the government’s other insane asylum, the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, offered his own thoughts about the ability of St. Elizabeths to care for mentally unstable soldiers. He wrote to the commissioner of Indian Affairs: “It occurs to me that with the already overcrowded condition at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D. C., it will be impossible for the authorities of that institution to care for the rather sudden accession of cases of mental disease which the present war will necessarily entail. . . . . It is barely possible that the federal government will decide that each State shall care for its own insane. In that event it will be necessary for the State of South Dakota to care for its insane, either at the Asylum at Yankton or otherwise.”

Hummer asked the practical question concerning the number of patients  who might need care, and provided his own tentative calculations for the commissioner. Hummer estimated that 20-25 percent of South Dakota’s soldiers and sailors might become incapacitated during the war, and that of that number, ten percent would be mental cases. Therefore, he thought that one-fortieth of the men enlisted from the state would need to be cared for at one of its institutions.

Hummer added: “I am sorry that your Office decided that we should not build the proposed epileptic cottage, as this would have given us additional beds which might have been used for the purpose now in question.”

Insane Asylum at Yankton, South Dakota

Wounded British Soldiers in a Trench, courtesy Library of Congress

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Shell Shock

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A Shell Shocked Soldier is on the Left

Professionals and laypeople alike have probably always observed that war could affect those who went through it, both physically and mentally. After the Civil War, some people who tried to put their finger on what had changed with returning veterans, discussed the “soldier’s heart” phenomenon. This was a (usually) negative change they saw in their loved ones, which they were sure came from being in a war and exposed to combat. Observers primarily believed that physical changes in the heart were responsible for the changes they saw in the person, though they also believed that pining away for their homes during their period of service could bring on nostalgia-related mental symptoms. During WWI, “shell shock” was a descriptive term for the physical effects constant bombardment took on soldiers engaged in long bouts of trench warfare, but physicians also recognized a mental component that they termed “traumatic neurosis.”

WWI era medical professionals had enough information about war-related mental trauma (now called PTSD) that they anticipated its occurrence. In 1917, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene  formed a task group called “the committee on furnishing hospital units for nervous and mental disorders to the United States Government” which began to canvas likely facilities in which to house mentally ill soldiers. Veterans Hospitals were obvious sites, and the committee also contacted the superintendents of the government’s two insane asylums: St. Elizabeths in Washington, DC and the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in South Dakota.

My next post will examine their responses.

Doctor Attempting to Cure Shell Shock Through Hypnosis

Private Read Was Buried By a Shell in 1917, Which Resulted in Constant Swaying and Nose Wiping

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Unbreakable Codes

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Choctaw Code Talkers

Navajo Code Talkers in WWII have received at least a measure of recognition for their great contributions to that war effort, but the Choctaw Code Talkers of WWI have received far less recognition. In 1917, a group of young Choctaw men began to use their supposedly antiquated and useless language to confound German eavesdroppers. Toward the end of the war when Germans routinely tapped into Allied radio and telephone communications, no code seemed unbreakable. However, Choctaw soldiers in France used their native language to negotiate a troop withdrawal that went undetected by the enemy. That success led to more Choctaw men becoming involved with coded transmissions in their language. Eventually nineteen code talkers contributed immensely to the deception of German eavesdroppers.

Germans were adept at breaking codes, but they had no background for breaking codes based on Native American languages. Traditional military codes were based on European linguistic frameworks, which Native American speakers did not necessarily share. Native Americans didn’t even have words for some essential military terms like “artillery” and “machine guns.” Instead, they called the former “big gun” and the latter “little gun shoot fast.” The Choctaw Nation’s service was highly valuable in turning the tide against Germans during the latter part of WWI.

Ironically, Choctaws (and most other Native Americans) were not U.S. citizens.

Choctaw Code Talkers During WWI

Headquarters 142d Infantry, Vaux-Champagne

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WWI Christmas

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Photograph of Truce Participants

Photograph of Truce Participants

WWI (1914-1918) led to the death or wounding of 25 million people. It was the first true intercontinental conflict and introduced other firsts to the world of warfare: large-scale mechanical and chemical weapons and the aerial bombing of both soldiers and civilians, among other tragic innovations. Continue reading →

Native Americans And WWI

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Otis W. Leader, Depicted by a French Artist as the Ideal American Soldier

Many people are familiar with the military contributions of Native American Code Talkers during WWII, but don’t know about Native American contributions to the Great War. Over 17,000 males registered for the draft, but many other men volunteered to enter the military. Data on these volunteers are not as  firm, but perhaps half of all Native Americans who enlisted were volunteers. Proportionally, as many or more Native Americans served in the military as other adult American men. Tribal participation rates varied: Oklahoma tribes entered the military at the highest rates, while Navajo and Pueblo men served at the lowest.*

Students from Indian boarding schools like Carlisle volunteered in great numbers, which may have been due both to their familiarity with the military from their school experience as well as a desire to get away from the boarding school environment. Almost without a voice of dissent, whites in authority  over these students–all the way up to commissioner of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells–approved of this massive exodus into the military. They attributed it to the success of the Indian Office’s assimilation policy and patriotism on the part of students. Both these factors may have entered into student decisions to enlist, but a thirst for adventure and an equally powerful hatred of their substandard schools were probably just as contributory. Unfortunately, some of these enthusiastic students were underage, with teachers (as the only adults even able to stand in as pseudo-parents) usually turning a blind eye or actually encouraging enlistment.

*Statistics about Native American participation in the military during WWI are taken from Russel Lawrence Barsh’s “American Indians in the Great War; Ethnohistory 38:3 (Summer, 1991).

Gus Sharlow, Ojibwa WWI Veteran, courtesy Wisconsin Historical Images

Parade Field at Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle, PA, courtesy U. S. Army

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The Nation at War

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Decoded Zimmermann Telegram, courtesy National Archives

Decoded Zimmermann Telegram

In the early 20th century, Americans tended to be isolationists when it came to foreign policy. For the most part, WWI looked like a European conflict into which America need not enter, and president Woodrow Wilson pledged to keep the country out of the conflict. However, after Germany continued to attack unarmed merchant and passenger ships the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with it. Continue reading →