Asylums Were Usually Open to Visitors

Until much later, inspections of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians tended to focus on its physical assets rather than the patients (see last two posts). When Inspector Breid made his detailed comments about the state of the asylum’s floors in 1912, Superintendent Hummer’s reply to his concerns was just as detailed.

Pratt and Lambert #61 Varnish

One-and-a-half pages of a five-and-a-half page response explained what he intended to do about the floors.

Hummer begins: “The matter of properly dressing the hard maple floors has been given much thought and study, the final result of which was the placing of an item of fifty gallons of Pratt and Lambert’s #61 floor varnish on the Annual Estimate of Goods and Supplies, for the fiscal year 1913.”

Asylums Issued Their Own Formal Reports

Hummer went on to describe what his original intentions had been to resolve the problem, what a conference with a local painter had brought out, and so on.

Hummer discussed at great length other discrepancies Breid had pointed out, and turned in a reply to the inspection that he knew would show his interest and attention to detail in a positive light.