Clarinda State Hospital

Insane asylums tried to be self-sufficient, but in our modern era it can be hard to understand just how self-sufficient they were.  The Clarinda State Hospital in Iowa was one of many similar institutions that used patient labor for the dual purpose of keeping operating costs down and giving patients something to do. The asylum employed patients (under direction) to sew nearly all the clothing they needed, and to make shoes under the direction of a shoemaker. Patients also engaged in woodworking and made brooms from broom corn raised on the asylum farm. A bit more unusual was the facility’s mattress-making department, where all the new mattresses for the asylum were made.

“Mattress hair is bought and also a good quality of material for the cover, which is made up in the sewing room and afterwards filled by patients. . . . Soiled or worn mattresses in which the hair has become packed are taken apart, thoroughly renovated by steam, dried, thoroughly picked and the hair used over again.”

The writer ended his description of the asylum with the words that: “The general spirit of the institution is to have the asylum idea as much in the background as possible and to supply surroundings and influences as much like those at home as can be made.”

It would be difficult to discover whether this aim had been achieved.

Men Working in Broom Factory at Oak Forest, IL Poorhouse, circa 1915, courtesy Library of Congress

Patients Making Rugs, Hammocks, Baskets, etc. at Hudson River State Hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY, 1909