institutional memory - prologue - summer 2010

8/9/2019 Institutional Memory - Prologue - Summer 2010

1/8

The Oaks A and B Buildings were two o the many

detached buildings constructed during Superintendent

Goddings administration. Oaks was built to house

patients with epilepsy.

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InstItutIonal

MeMoryTe Records of St. Elizabeths Hospital at the National ArchivesBy Frances M. McMillen and James S. Kane


2/8

The transcript o where Bryan Hall lived is incomplete, but i

provides inormation on the stability and instability o his lie at St

Elizabeths.

Below: The Center Building, seen ca. 1900, was the design o the

hospitals frst superintendent, Dr. Charles Nichols, and Thomas U

Walter, architect o the U.S. Capitols cast iron dome.

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Bear cubs were one o several animals in what Superintendent Godding called a zoological garden. For many years animals were considered part o the therapeutic

environment at the hospital. Some patients kept birds as pets, but a raccoon, monkeys, peacocks, parrots, dogs, horses, and a wildcat all lived at St. Elizabeths.

48 Prologue Summer 2010


4/8

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St. Elizabeths was one o the frst hospitals to treat

Arican Americans suering rom mental

illness. The West Lodge was built to

house men.


5/8

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patients at St. Elizabeths.

Bryan Hall spent nearly his whole adult lie at St.

Elizabeths. He saw the institution grow rom a small

acililty to a large hospital with several thousand pa-

tients. This photo is rom his patient ile .

50 Prologue Summer 2010


6/8

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Below: This ca. 1905 picture illustrates a single room

occupied by a paying patient in the Center Building.

During his nearly 50 years at St. Elizabeths, Bryan Hall

lived on several dierent wards in the Center Building and,

according to his fle, amassed a collection o books and

newspapers.

Prologue 5


7/8

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52 Prologue Summer 2010Summer 2010


8/8

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Throughout its history, St. Elizabeths has been associated with a long list

o well-known and accomplished people. In the hospitals early years, the

Board o Visitors was flled with prominent Washingtonians and nationally

signifcant individuals. William Wilson Corcoran, the millionaire fnancier,

philanthropist, and arts patron served on the hospitals earliest board.

Joseph Henry, the frst secretary o the Smithsonian, and Howard University

ounder Gen. Oliver O. Howard, were on the board together in the 1870s.

The hospitalization o some high-profle patients is well known. Newspapersand several books have covered poet Ezra Pounds nearly 13-year stay ater he

was charged with treason or radio broadcasts he made in Italy during World

War II. During his years at St. Elizabeths he continued to write and was visited

by many well-known writers, including Elizabeth Bishop, whose poem Visits

to St. Elizabeths reected on her trips to the hospital. Simon Winchesters

1998 book, The Professor and the Madman, tells the story o Dr. William Chester

Minor, who contributed thousands o entries to the Oxord English Dictionary.

Minor was frst treated at St. Elizabeths in 1868 and again in 1910. Minor spent

much o the intervening years in a mental hospital in England, where he was

confned ater murdering a man in London in 1872.

Other stories o patients have made the news and then aded rom public

view. Among these is sculptor Ernest Durig, who was hospitalized at St.

Elizabeths beginning in 1958. The Swiss-born artist studied with August

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1920 (p.D. d., g W vy,

1989 ); Y Te Architectre of Madness:

Insane Asylms in the united States (M:

vy M p, 2007); d gdg Mental Instittions in America: Social

Policy in America to 1875 (w Yk: F p,

1973); Te Mad Among us: A History of the Care

of Americas Mentally Ill (w Yk: F p,

1994); d Mental Illness and American Society,

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Rodin as a young man and later become a well-known sculptor. In 1932,

he presented President Herbert Hoover with a seven-oot-high plaster

bust o George Washington. He created busts o President Harry Truman,

Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selasse, Will Rogers, and Benito Mussolini.

Durig had been living in Washington or several years when he became ill. In

1958 he was discovered unconscious and suering rom malnutrition. Shortly

aterwards he was admitted to St. Elizabeths and remained hospitalized there

until his death in 1962. Following his death, hundreds o drawings thought tobe the work o Rodin and other artists were ound in his belongings stored at

the hospital. Major newspapers covered the fnd. Initially thought to be akes,

the Rodins were authenticated by Sothebys, and an auction was planned with

the proceeds to pay or Durigs care at St. Elizabeths. Two months beore the

auction, Sothebys cancelled the sale because the works were o doubtul

authenticity. Durig and the art again made the papers. In June 1965, Life

magazine covered the story and reported that Durig had been orging Rodins

work or years. According to the magazine, Durig became the most prolifc

aker o Rodin drawings anywhere in the world, and his work flled galleries

and collections around the globe.

Durig sought the limelight throughout his career and boasted o his

relationship with Rodin. Sadly, in the end he was better known or his

rendition o Rodins work instead o his own.

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Prologue 5Prologue 5Institutional Memory Prologue 5

institutional memory - prologue - summer 2010

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