Occupational Therapy, Toy Making in WWI-Era Psychiatric Hospital, courtesy Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine
Dr. Harry Hummer, superintendent of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, was not inclined to an active, hands-on approach to helping his patients overcome mental illness. In addition to his own weakness in this area, he may have found it nearly impossible to apply his book knowledge to real-life situations at the asylum. Continue reading
Exhibition of Fancy Work, 1908, courtesy inmatesofwillard.com
Occupational therapy was an important part of patient care in nearly all asylums. Patients were encouraged to do skilled work that got their minds off their problems/issues and produced a tangible object in which they could take pride. Genteel ladies might do fancy sewing while men engaged in woodwork, even in an elite asylum such as the McLean Asylum for the Insane in Massachusetts.
Indian patients at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians were also encouraged to do crafts like beadwork and basket weaving if they so desired, to help pass time. (Peter Thompson Good Boy spent time “beading” at St. Elizabeths during his stay there beginning in 1913.) Occasionally, patients like Lizzie Vipont earned a little bit of money with their beadwork by selling items to visitors. Necklaces and handbags seemed to be most popular–or at least are mentioned most often. One report mentions that men whittled wooden objects, but went on to say that women were the primarily crafters. The asylum’s second superintendent, Dr. Harry Hummer, also allowed these kinds of occupations, but apparently stopped encouraging it so that the practice fell by the wayside.
This photo appeared in USA Today. Artifacts left over from the Hiawatha Insane Asylum for Indians in Canton, S.D. are displayed at the Canton Public Library on April 23, 2013. Photo: Elisha Page, Sioux Falls, S.D. Argus Leader
Occupational Therapy, Toy Making in WWI-Era Psychiatric Hospital, courtesy Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine
Patients Putting on a Play, Long Island State Hospital
Though Dr. Harry Hummer failed in many important areas when it came to providing care to his patients, he did try to provide occupations for the patients who wanted to be active. Some letters from patients to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs speak of being grateful for chores because being busy helped pass the time. Continue reading
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 had 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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McLean Asylum for the Insane
Work was considered essential for patients’ well-being and cure in insane asylums. For patients to get well, they needed peace, an unvarying routine, and light tasks that would occupy their minds. Though much of patients’ work helped the institution itself by defraying labor expenses, most superintendents also believed in its therapeutic value.
Often, patients could work on projects they actually enjoyed, and sometimes earn money from them. Since a goal of treatment was to enable an individual to rejoin society, working for money was not discouraged. At the McLean Asylum, women did plain sewing, but also fancy work that they sold. At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, female patients did beadwork for money. A man named M. B. Viken wrote to Dr. Hummer in 1927 to ask if he could get a beaded belt that he had bought at the asylum years earlier, repaired. By that time, however, Hummer had no occupational therapy at the asylum other than chores. He sent regrets that he could not accommodate the request.
Psychiatric Patients Making Toys, circa WWI
Shoshone Women Doing Beadwork, courtesy Princeton University Digital Library
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Charity Hospital in New Orleans
Most asylums used work therapy both to save labor costs and as occupational therapy for patients. Patients typically cleaned/straightened their rooms, worked in the gardens, sewed, and performed other ordinary chores involved in running a large, self-sustaining establishment. Some institutions went a little further.
In Louisiana before the Civil War, several dozen insane patients were cared for in the Charity Hospital in New Orleans. When the legislature finally established a separate asylum for them (East Louisiana Hospital for the Insane in Jackson), it appropriated only $10,000 per year to support the entire institution and the 85 patients transferred to it in 1848.
Patients began their chores there, and some of the men worked in the brick yard for six to seven hours a day. By 1879, patients had made 225,000 bricks at a cost of $2/thousand. The bricks were used for additional buildings, which were required as increasing numbers of patients from Louisiana and surrounding states were admitted. Before the turn of the century, patients had made 2,200,000 bricks.
Brickmaking Around the Turn of the Century
East Louisiana Hospital for the Insane
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Athens Insane Asylum Kitchen, circa 1930
Most insane asylums of the period put patients to work in gardens, considering their labor useful as occupational therapy as well as a way to defray operating costs. At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, patients tended gardens, picked berries, and fished if they were able. The bulk of their food (especially meat) would have been issued as government commodity rations–usually a lower quality grade than what appeared at a butcher shop or good grocery store.
By the end of 1909, both patients and staff (who received rations as part of their salary) were going hungry. Ward attendant Jesse Watkins told an investigator: “At breakfast, as a rule, the patients have only syrup and a little butter, with plenty of bread, and coffee. When there is milk, they have oatmeal and sometimes oatmeal without milk.”
Dr. Hummer
Superintendent and chief physician, Dr. Harry R. Hummer, did not know how to use the ration tables supplied by the government. He distributed what he thought were the correct amounts of rations to his staff and patients, while allowing his wife to draw extra rations for himself and his family. An investigator uncovered his mistake and showed him how to use the tables properly.
Gladesville Mental Hospital Menu, 1929
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Dr. Peter Bryce
Dr. Peter Bryce (1834-1892) was a young man of 26 when he was elected superintendent (on the recommendation of Dorothea Dix–see posts for 5/13 and 5/16) of the newly built Alabama Insane Hospital in 1860. The first patient was admitted in 1861, and Bryce insisted from the start that his attendants display courtesy and kindness to anyone admitted.
He also instituted a system of work (farming, sewing) that helped the institution make ends meet and provided a sort of occupational therapy for patients; his program provided amusements as well, including music, that also benefited patients. His practices were very successful, and by 1882 he was able to institute a policy of “absolute non-restraint.”
Bryce died in 1892 and the hospital was renamed Alabama Bryce Insane Hospital in his honor.
Postcard of Bryce Hospital (circa 1900)
Bryce Hospital Laundry