Tag Archives: Willard Insane Asylum

Physical Environment at Canton Asylum

Male Ward at Athens Lunatic Asylum, courtesy Ohio University Libraries University Archives

There are only two or three pictures available of the Canton Asylum; since they are only of the outside, it’s difficult to get a good idea about the physical layout of the rooms or what it might have been like to live there. In 1910, there were eighteen buildings associated with the asylum. These included barns, sheds, granaries, and similar structures. The main building was two stories high, with jasper granite stone foundations. Underneath, a basement ran underneath the entire building. The basement was divided into several compartments by brick partition walls. The first and second stories had eleven foot ceilings, which should have made the inside look spacious.

The main building held four wards. Two were on the first and second floor of the east wing (males) and two on the first and second floor of the west wing (females). Each ward had an attendant’s room, plus three private rooms where patients could be secluded if necessary. The superintendent (Dr. Harry Hummer) and eighteen employees lived in the main building, though Dr. Hummer eventually got a detached cottage for his family. The asylum had electricity which came from a small electric plant about two miles away. The facility was heated via radiators and used hard well water, along with rainwater collected in two cisterns.

Physician's Bedroom at One of Willard Insane Asylum's Buildings (The Branch)

Cisterns Held Precious Rainwater Runoff

A nicely maintained lawn surrounded the building, and patients often sat outside during nice weather. Inside, the building was often stuffy and smelly. The hard water made it difficult to launder clothing and sheets and keep them really clean, and eventually the entire facility began to look shabby and rundown.

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Recognizing Mental Problems

Nervous Prostration Was a Recognized Condition; Ad circa 1895

Not all asylum patients resisted their incarceration. Some recognized that they were struggling with mental issues they could not control on their own, and did not resent the help that an asylum promised to provide. Like Catharine Beecher (see last post), Anna Agnew felt herself falling into a condition where she could not function. In 1876, Agnew remembers that she woke one morning “bathed in a cold, clammy perspiration (with an inexpressibly horrible sensation, as though falling–falling into some dreadful place of darkness!).” She couldn’t speak or move, and felt that a horrible, cold shadow had fallen upon her. She called her condition nervous prostration, and concluded that she was insane.

In her own words, she says that: “Unfortunately, for all concerned, I was not taken to the asylum for a period of several years.” Though this view seem incredible, Agnew explained that if she had been committed earlier or more quickly, she might not have had to eventually stay in an asylum for seven years. She felt that staying at home in her condition caused her to create misery for herself and those around her. Her family and friends treated her sometimes as a willful child, sometimes as a hypocrite, sometimes as a shirker, and sometimes as a woman “not wholly responsible.”

Once inside an asylum, Agnew saw many abuses which enraged her. Still, she appreciated her recovery and the privileges she enjoyed, such as access to the asylum’s medical libraries and the opportunity to earn a small sum through sewing.

Cottage at Willard Asylum

Patients in Sewing Room at Willard Asylum for the Insane

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