Dr. Harry Hummer

Dr. Harry Hummer, the second (and last) superintendent of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, created most of his own problems. He was a well-trained psychiatrist who had worked at the large government insane asylum, St. Elizabeths. Hummer took over a fairly new facility, but chose to concentrate his attention on administrative details and running the asylum’s farm rather than on his patients. He sought to keep expenses down by not filling the assistant superintendent’s position, thus making himself the only medical person on staff until nurses were assigned to the facility many years later.

Hummer had no excuse for the way patients were mismanaged. He was thoroughly capable of devising therapeutic plans for his patients, but never did. He kept many of the amusements Gifford has initiated and even built on them to a point, but discontinued other occupational-therapy types of activity, like beadwork.

Laundry Room, Northern Michagan Asylum for the Insane

Hummer was also responsible for his own overcrowding. Though he undoubtedly felt pressure to take in as many patients as possible, no one at the Indian Office was likely to have overruled him if he had put up a fight to keep his patient numbers down. Even though the Commissioner of Indian Affairs technically had the sole power to commit or release patients, commissioners nearly always bowed to Hummer’s recommendations.  Hummer continually complained about overcrowding, but used it as a reason to expand his facility. Hummer always had fewer than 100 patients, far less than the caseloads of other superintendents at other facilities. Yet, he quickly abandoned even the most rudimentary psychiatric examinations and relied on unschooled attendants’ notes to keep him apprised of patients’ mental conditions.

Patients at Worcester State Hospital, courtesy Life Magazine

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O.S. Gifford

Overcrowding was not a true reason for the problems the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians experienced. (See last post.) Its first superintendent, O. S. Gifford, took over a new facility with few patients. He reported in June of 1903 that he had received 16 patients that year, one of whom died, and two of whom recovered. He was expecting to have a total of 24 patients by the next month. His fiscal year, 1904 report reflected that he had 16 males and 8 females. In fiscal year, 1905, Gifford had 23 males and 16 females.  He used a fairly commonsense approach to therapy, and felt that he knew his patients well. He allowed fishing and picnicking, dancing, and other pastimes suited to his patients’ inclinations, and took some of his patients to town. Gifford certainly fell in with the model of a superintendent who had enough time to spend with patients.

Though Gifford could send patients home as recovered, based on his and/or Dr. Turner’s assessment, he didn’t have the knowledge to institute any kind of mental health therapy for them. His assistant, Dr. Turner appeared to take a great interest in his patients’ medical conditions, but also didn’t have the background to set up a comprehensive treatment plan. Gifford’s real mistake was in not following Turner’s medical advice. When he would not allow Turner to operate on a patient, that patient later died and Turner was understandably bitter over it. The situation brought to a head many of Turner’s other grievances, and the resultant investigation made it clear that the asylum’s superintendent needed to be an acting physician. That didn’t necessarily help Turner, because he knew he wouldn’t get the job, but he at least felt vindicated.

Small, Early Asylum in New York

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Patients Working in Laundry Room at Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1898

How much attendants were paid (see last post) mattered a great deal to superintendents, and generally not for the right reasons. The public began to exert extraordinary pressure on institutions to accept their afflicted family members, which resulted in overcrowding at nearly every insane asylum in the country. Doctors couldn’t cure patients when they had too many to properly care for, and asylums began to lose their roles as sanctuaries and restorative institutions.

With cure rates down, superintendents had to look for other reasons the public should continue to endorse the use of asylums. One argument was that it was much cheaper to keep patients at an asylum than at home or in jails. Many superintendents prided themselves on how cheaply they could run their asylums, and often compared their rates with unfavorably high rates at other asylums. Salaries were nearly always the largest single expense  at asylums, so superintendents had an incentive to hire the cheapest staff they could find. Unfortunately, as Beers pointed out, one could expect very little from an attendant who would work for eighteen dollars a month.

Patients on Floor in Eloise Women's Mental Ward in Michigan

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Clifford Beers

Superintendents considered their authority and standing important, but they also appreciated a well-paid job with a cash salary. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, a superintendent’s salary of (usually) a couple of thousand dollars a year was a tremendous step up from the several hundred that many other doctors made. Outside of cities, doctors often had to accept produce or other goods in lieu of cash, or continually dun patients for payment. As the head of an asylum, superintendents were comparatively well-off and secure.

Good salaries did not apply to attendants. Clifford Beers, who described his own mental illness and stay in an asylum (beginning in 1900) in A Mind That Found Itself, said that his institution employed “the meanest type of attendant–men willing to work for the paltry wage of eighteen dollars a month.”

Beers's Account of His Asylum Experience, courtesy Museum of Disability

Beers spoke of one good attendant who was very kind to him, but of others, said: “[they] did not strike me with their fists, but their unconscious lack of consideration…was torture. Another of the same sort cursed me with a degree of brutality which I prefer not to recall.” Another attendant cursed and spat on Beers when he did not promptly obey an order.

Beers graduated from Yale in 1897; this photo is from 1895 but includes students from 1896 and 1897.

Yale Class Photo, 1895.

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Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, 1870, Male Staff at Entrance, courtesy Brenner Collection, Brynmawr

Though it is easy to blame attendants for being frustrated and unkind to the patients in their care, attendants were often frustrated themselves. Mary J. Smith (see last post) told an investigator about her workday: “Her work in the morning is as follows, 6 patients to dress before breakfast–2 paralytics, 1 spastic deplegia, and three that are so crazy they do not know enough to put their clothes on; that she has to wait on tables then after breakfast gives medicine to from 6 to 12 patients, four she has to take to closets (bathroom)–that she has to make 11 beds herself.”

In addition to this daily morning routine, on Wednesday mornings, Smith had to scrub 5 small rooms, one large room, one large hall, three short halls, and a pair of steps. On Thursdays, she had to put the clothing from the laundry away. There were 28 patients in the female ward in 1908, and Smith had charge of 15 of them.

Though there could never be an excuse for mistreating patients, Smithwas undoubtedly harried and overburdened. It would have been tempting to just lock up patients so she could give her attention to some of her additional duties. One consequences of the inspection was that the asylum was authorized to add two attendant postions, one female and one male. Unfortunately, to do so, it had to abolish two laborer positions.

Buggy Used at the Colorado Insane Asylum, 1879-1899

Agnew State Insane Asylum (Santa Clara) after 1906 Earthquake

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Unruly Patients at Blackwell's Island, from Harper's Magazine, 1860

Employees at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians didn’t always get along, and the institution’s first big inspection proved that. Dr. Turner had a beef with superintendent Gifford (see last post), but some employees had a beef with Turner.

One attendant in particular, Mary J. Smith, found her work difficult in part because of Turner’s instructions. He did not like to use restraints and wouldn’t often authorize them, but Smith said that she couldn’t do all of her work unless she locked certain patients in their rooms. Her 1908 affidavit stated:

“Doctor had forbidden her to lock certain patients up without his permission . . . ‘he told me if I was doing my duty I would have her (Mary LeBeaux) outside instead of locked in her room, at that time I had locked her in for throwing a cuspidor at me’.” The inspector taking the statement said that “she has marks on her body where the patient has bitten her and has thrown cuspidors at her repeatedly.”

This kind of situation was a quandary for attendants at all asylums: how to handle violent patients without resorting to restraints or reciprical violence. One solution was to call in enough attendants so that the patient could be safely restrained by humans until he/she calmed down. Unfortunately, Canton Asylum had too few attendants for this to be a feasible solution.

Woman Forced Into Cold Shower, from Elizabeth Packard's book Modern Persecution, or Asylums Revealed

Child Patient in Restraints, Georgia State Hospital for the Insane (1940s), courtesy Georgia State University

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O.S. Gifford

Like other institutional staff, employees at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians demonstrated a wide range of ability, attitude, and character. Inspectors sometimes complained that employees weren’t always available when needed; sometimes that happened because the employee was shirking his or her duty. More often, however, there just weren’t enough employees to cover all the work that needed doing, plus provide the necessary patient supervision. During the next few posts, I’ll talk about the work situation and some of the employees at the asylum.

One of the first employees to make a stir at the asylum was Dr. John Turner. He was not from Canton, and felt strongly that superintendent O. S. Gifford favored the rest of the employees (from Canton) over him. Turner complained that the attendants often ignored his orders, and that Gifford didn’t back him up. When a patient became pregnant because employees hadn’t followed Turner’s instructions  during his absence, he filed a complaint in December, 1906, with the supervisor of Indian schools, Charles Dickson. Turner’s complaint resulted in Canton Asylum’s first major (and negative) inspection.

Canton, 1907, courtesy Library of Congress

Government Doctor Giving Trachoma Examination on Stillwater Indian Reservation

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Commissioner Charles Rhoads, on left, courtesy Library of Congress

At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, superintendent Dr. Harry R.  Hummer was far enough away from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to avoid direct supervision. Hummer outlasted five commissioners: Francis Leupp, Robert Valentine, Cato Sells, Charles Burke, and Charles Rhoads before commissioner John Collier threw him out of the asylum and the Indian Service.

One advantage Hummer had–as did other superintendents elsewhere–was that locals wanted the asylum to remain open and running. Insane asylums represented huge boosts to  local economies. Most towns or cities where asylums were located were quite happy about having them, and were proud of the work they did. Canton was no different. Locals enjoyed the employment and local contracts that came from the asylum and usually spoke of it quite enthusiastically.

When Hummer began to finally receive less than glowing reports, he managed to have some friends in Sioux Falls appointed as an inspection committee. They came through for him in a report to Commissioner Charles Burke early in 1929. “We went through the plant thoroughly from top to bottom and . . . found everything in first class condition.” The writer then concluded, “I consider Dr. Harry Hummer a wonderful superintendent of this institution and he has many fine employees.”

Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs

Sample Asylum Report, courtesy University of North Carolina

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Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells

Asylum superintendents were very powerful, but they were (theoretically) denied free rein. Most asylums had a board of directors or a board of commissioners to give oversight to the entire asylum, including the superintendent. Boards were often composed of local men who might be assumed to know what was going on, though sometimes board members had to travel from a distance to meet. Not all boards had direct hiring and firing authority, however, and could run into problems controlling or disciplining a superintendent protected by appointment.

At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, superintendents reported directly to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on the other side of the country. No boards met on a regular basis to supervise the asylum, though visiting doctors within the Indian Service occasionally stopped by to inspect and report on the facility. Because they weren’t trained in psychiatry and therefore not competent to discuss patient treatment, most inspectors concentrated on the physical part of the institution, commenting more on its buildings and farming operation than anything else. Sometimes the inspectors were not even doctors, but merely field agents who happened to be in the area. Because of this situation, it was generally easy for superintendents Gifford and Hummer to explain away any problems inspectors might bring up.

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Canton Main Street

Just as in other workplaces, insane asylums had personnel problems that administrators had to deal with. Though some superintendents tried hard to find the best attendants possible, they had to ultimately accept the kinds of employees available in the marketplace. In 1895,the superintendent at  Kentucky’s Eastern Lunatic Asylum mentioned that he had been able to employ “four bright young men from the State College.” Other institutions, and probably Eastern Asylum as well, had to sometimes accept attendants who were just a step above criminals. With its demanding schedule and lack of freedom, a job as an asylum attendant was not likely to appeal to anyone who could find something better.

Both Gifford and Hummer, while superintendents at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, ran into the same personnel problems as other superintendents. The work they offered was demanding and difficult, and didn’t pay well. They faced an additional problem with the size of their labor pool. Canton was not large, and even though the city of Sioux Falls was not far away, it was too far away to expect many people there to find work at the Canton asylum desirable. Attendants were required to live on the premises, which also made the work less attractive to non-Canton residents.

Staff at Ridges

Attendants at Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, circa 1860s, courtesy University of Pennsylvania

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