State Hospital Annual Reports

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register. May 15, 2024, 06:11:23 AM 1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever Login with username, password and session length

Does anyone else here collect or have any State Hospital (or other state institution) annual reports?

In some cases they are specific to a certain institution or (as in WV) they are a book (or books) specific to one year that feature all the state institutions.

I personally have a couple of the large WV books that cover all institutions, one Metropolitan State Hospital Report, about 5 Worcester reports, and if I'm lucky I know a guy that is contemplating selling me the Danvers State Hospital Reports 1-10!

I find these reports fascinating as they provide a intricate window into that the institution was doing during the given year.   Most contain tables detailing who was committed and why, employee salaries, raw materiel's purchased, as well as a overall report from the superintendant.   

There's one we found that has multiple state institutions across MA mentioned.  It's title on the first page is as follows,

"SPECIAL REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT DISEASES RELATIVE TO THE NEED FOR ADDITIONAL HOSPITAL ACCOMODATIONS FOR PATIENTS IN THE CHARGE OF SAID DEPARTMENT WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THOSE ADMITTED FROM THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT." 

This report was in conjuncture with the opening of Met State.  Throughout the report there are multiple statements of why the state should build a mental hospital in the "metropolitan district".  there's plenty of statistices from hospitals across the country.  it's about 45 pages long.  Published on Dec. 8, 1926, here's a pic of the front of it...

Here's one of mine from Met State:



Reading the Superintendent's report shows that conditions were never very good at Met:

I collect them when I come across them. I have copies of all the northamptons, I have some danvers, I own two worcesters (real), and one danvers (real). I posted the danvers ones on my site   danversstate.org if anyone wants to read them.  If anyone want to see the northamptons I can put them somewhere.

I have about 100-150 of them.  I was lucky to be a frequent visitor to a local semi-active state hospital before everyone else figured out how awesome it was and made it a playground.  It had a library of sorts in the basement which provided me with them all...along with hundreds of patient photographs.  I hauled them all out over a long weekend, lol.  That was a long weekend indeed.  You looking for any places in particular?

Do you have any from Danvers? All i have at the moment is:

1876, 1901, 1912, 1918, 1924, 1925, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1940

I would love to have a few, anyone selling?

Those do look enticing. But I just wanted to give a "shout out" to google books.  It wasn't of much use a few years ago...but some of the same searches I ran then, are now yielding REAMS of info...and in many cases i am looking at similar reports to what is shown above.   Seriously, if you tried it a long time ago and found it unuseful, try it again now.  It does have it's quirks though.

But I just wanted to give a "shout out" to google books.

My only complaint about google books is the ridiculous protection on those PDF's. Every Danvers one I found there had it set so you could not save, could not print, could not blah blah blah.  I don't see the need for them to protect PUBLIC RECORDS!!!  Most of the annuals on there came from colleges and such, who also for some reason, feel the need to protect PUBLIC RECORDS.  Who cares is they are taken, printed, and shared....they are public...thats the point   ##:(

anyway, but ya....its great that they are there, and I hope more are put up....just have to have the PDF cracker ready.  *CT*

yo nate, sorry forgot to check back in this thread.  yeah i got a bunch from danvers but think i want to hold onto them.

I've picked up a couple from teh Connecticut State Hospital when I found them and have made copies of a few from Fairfield State from the CT State Library.

The older annual reports are more fun to read, especially the reasons why patients were admitted.  Some are just laughable.

i have one of greystone, im always on the look out for other ones.

I have one from 1908 for Harrisburg State Hospital..amazing reading!

I have more annual reports then you can handle from all over the east coast and midwest.
Including Danvers, NOHO, Met, NSH, CVH, & a shitton moar.

Interested?

im VERY interested in DANVERS annuals!!!!

I have more annual reports then you can handle from all over the east coast and midwest.
Including Danvers, NOHO, Met, NSH, CVH, & a shitton moar.

Interested?

jealous!

For what it's worth the Annual Reports for Northampton State Hospital from 1856-1939 are online at

http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/digital/nsh.htmWSH
 

@The Dude! and @WSH some guy seems to be selling reprints on ebay these days