The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry: A History of Misery and Medicine (Landmarks) (PA)

by J. P. Webster

  The West Group, 1935. PhillyHistory.org.

  The outbreak of World War I called many of the able-bodied farmers in the Byberry area off to service. It also put a halt on the construction of buildings and slowed the farm’s fiscal output to a crawl. In 1917, DPHC director Wilmer Krusen figured out a way to keep the farm’s production alive by setting up a youth training camp for “soldier-farmers.” This called for a military-style camp, endorsed by the War Department, with three new temporary dormitory buildings and a kitchen/dining room building. These wooden buildings were able to be built and occupied quickly, and a strict daily routine was put in place.

  These cottages were located on a portion of the Aaron Tomlinson Tract, next to the Byberry Creek, at the current site of Hornig Road. The existing barn and several dwelling houses were utilized. The cottages housed forty boys from nearby schools who ranged in age from sixteen to eighteen. The boys were given uniforms, and they drilled and marched daily. They did farm work, harvesting the city’s crop for shipment, and learned new skills in the process. A new tractor was purchased for the camp, and the boys learned how to use it. Captain John McAllister, who was also the director of the Bureau of Hospitals, was placed in charge of the camp, and he reported that nearly half of the boys enlisted to full duty and were sent to France after completing training.

  Though a short-lived idea, Krusen’s camp contributed to the war effort and was well received by the public. Wealthy Byberry landowner Thomas Shallcross was so impressed by the boys’ camp that he contributed a large sum of money to the city for the construction of the Shallcross Farm School. Still standing near the present-day intersection of Woodhaven and Knights Roads, the Shallcross Farm School became another of Philip Johnson’s projects, most likely due to the involvement of his friend Krusen. Although the first, the boys’ camp was not the last of Byberry’s connections to the First World War.

  Female Refectory, West Group. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  With the success of the boys’ camp shedding light on Byberry, Krusen appealed to the United States Army Board to consider it a site for a war hospital. Landing a contract with the army would mean substantial funding for the city and the hospital. With the Great War coming to a close in 1918 and the state looking for places to send its returning servicemen for treatment, Surgeon General W.C. Gorgas agreed to Krusen’s offer. The first five buildings of the East Group—or buildings for “insane males”—were leased to the military. The recipient of the government funds was presumably the city, but some infighting with the DPHC may have meant both parties received portions.

  Four dormitory buildings and a central kitchen building were nearing completion in July 1918 when an inspector from the War Department came to visit the site. He found the buildings to be ideal for the military’s purposes, and Gorgas approved the contract. The four buildings could hold one thousand wounded soldiers, and the buildings themselves encompassed two hundred acres of landscaped lawns and walks. Having had to fight politically with other state factions and hospitals over the contract, the DPHC was a bit weary, and now it would have to push to meet the deadline set by the military of January 1, 1919. Before the deadline came, however, the surgeon general’s office was questioning Byberry’s location, calling it “inaccessible.”

  Delays in the buildings’ construction were not helping the war department’s decision. Hold-ups over McCoach’s contract for plumbing work dragged the process along. Machine Mayor Smith backed McCoach, and as the city battled with itself, the military looked on despairingly. But by March 1919, Gorgas had lost his patience, and the military canceled its contract with the City of Brotherly Love. Byberry’s beginnings would have been far nobler—and perhaps its whole history would be different—if the military contract had been successful. Historically speaking however, the military’s decision was definitely for the best.

  The aftereffects of the war did not spare Byberry, however. Waves of servicemen returned with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or “shell-shock.” The times were changing fast, and Byberry was forced to carry the increasing load. Throughout 1919 and 1920, wounded servicemen found themselves at Byberry, among hundreds of insane patients from Blockley. The city’s underpaid staff was totally inexperienced when it came to war-broken soldiers. Hiring attendants who were willing to live on the grounds, deal with the decrepit conditions and maintain control of the rising number of patients—all for a minuscule wage—was almost impossible. According to the Inquirer, in a desperate attempt to hire attendants, a sign was put up along the Lincoln Highway, retrieving a “group of drunks,” Byberry’s chief physician chirped. The totally unprepared new hires at the farms found themselves in control of hundreds of patients, and many found the temptation to steal from the helpless patients too strong to resist.

  In 1919, two male attendants were arrested for murdering a male patient. Another staff member testified that one attendant held the patient down while the other “choked him till his eyes popped out.” It was learned that both men had just returned from the war themselves and were probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Charges were dropped, and both men were re-hired with raises in salary and position. This story is probably what gave the public its first—and long-lasting—negative impression of Byberry. From this point on, Byberry seemed to remain stigmatized, and one horror story after another was released in the newspapers. Fearing another Blockley situation, the city pressed for construction to continue, and amid more scandal, it slowly did.

  Fortunately, right from the beginning there were also good people who battled Byberry’s curse. In 1920, the likable reformist J. Hampton Moore, riding on the shoulders of a powerful new reform party backed by wealthy, influential figures like John Wanamaker, was elected mayor. With him, other reformers entered positions in city hall, and Byberry was a priority on their list. Director of the Department of Public Welfare Barclay Harding Warburton did not waste any time in presenting before the council accusations of extortion at Byberry. Warburton claimed that wages paid to the workers totaled $12,000 in 1919. But of the $12,000, only $8,000 was found to be properly dispensed. The rest, he claimed, was used to line the pockets of the chief farmer and resident physician, who were probably being forced to kick some up to figures unknown. He could not, however, prove any of these charges. Another of Warburton’s concerns was that the patients were being “taken to the polls in blocks of three hundred” and told how to cast their votes. The idea of getting someone elected through the control of votes by insane patients who may or may not understand their own actions is certainly a new high in lows for the City of Philadelphia.

  J. Hampton Moore had taken an interest in reforming Blockley when he first learned of its situation as a reporter for the Evening Public Ledger in the 1890s. As city treasurer from 1900 to 1904, he was well aware of the Gang’s agenda when contracts for buildings at Byberry began to circulate. As a congressman from 1906 to 1920, he tried several times to expose the Machine’s abuses of the city’s contracts. As mayor from 1920 to 1924, he succeeded in temporarily reforming the sloppy scene at Byberry, continued the construction of Johnson’s plans and lit the way for the hospital’s future.

  Chapter 4

  THE PHILADELPHIA HOSPITAL FOR MENTAL DISEASES

  The City Years

  Not yet officially opened, Byberry was already surpassing Blockley’s numbers. The patient population in 1920 was approximately one thousand male and seven hundred female patients. There were seven buildings completed on the east side and ten on the west side. The changing times in America due to the victory in France and the booming economy brought on a huge building boom in Philadelphia. Perhaps for the first time, the construction of buildings at Byberry seemed a priority to the city. As the buildings in the East Group were nearing completion, Chief Physician Jeffrey A. Jackson was finally offered the position he originally wanted at Danville State Hospital, which offered better wages and board for an experienced doctor such as Jackson. His resignation was given, happi
ly, and Jackson practically fled from Byberry, leaving it once again with no experienced doctor to see to its day-to-day operations. Jackson remained the superintendent of Danville State Hospital until he died in 1938 at fifty-four years of age. He is still regarded as a pioneer in the field of neurology.

  After a few months, the position was filled by Dr. Samuel W. Hamilton, in his first administrative position. During Hamilton’s time in charge, some changes for the better were made. Realizing that his requests for more funding and supplies were falling on deaf ears, Hamilton did what he could by attempting to establish activities and hydrotherapy for his patients. Hamilton saw the completion of the east campus come to fruition, and he expanded farm work for male patients. The Occupational Therapy department began in 1920 under the guidance of Dr. Frank P. Lane. It was in control of all of the patient-produced goods, such as brooms, clothes, mattresses and agricultural products. The patients built most of the goods they used until the mid-1920s, when city council began appropriating more funds for this purpose.

  In 1922, Machine leader Boise Penrose died, giving William Vare his long-awaited turn at the helm. Vare was one of Philadelphia’s most notorious gangster-politicians. His vote-counting abilities were some of the best. His oligarchy usually controlled every ward in South Philadelphia. However, Republican governor Gifford Pinchot, who managed to climb into the governorship amid all the infighting between rival Republican factions, became “Baby” Bill Vare’s archenemy. In 1926, shortly after taking office, Pinchot refused to even consider allowing an election in which Vare was running, due to his vote-buying legacy. But until his death in 1934, Vare ran a powerful Machine. The new administration, by gaining control of city hall, inherited the “Byberry Bank.” The Vare Machine had been taking generously from Byberry’s budget, as previous administrations had done, having had one of its own as city controller for more than three decades.

  As a result of the seemingly increasing greed of the new administration, Byberry’s budget actually increased. The Machine had no difficulty acquiring funds for Byberry, but the hospital saw less and less of it. This is probably what caused Samuel W. Hamilton to resign as chief physician rather abruptly in 1923. Hamilton ended his career as the superintendent of the Essex County Overbrook Hospital in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, and died in 1951. Hamilton’s replacement was Dr. Everett Sperry Barr. Barr entered the position, as did his predecessors, with the attitude of change and progress. His efforts at state intervention were easily blocked, as Hamilton’s had been. But Barr would remain through some considerably better years. He was probably the first superintendent to occupy the Stevens House.

  In 1925, Barr, on a tour of the West Group, explained to a Trenton Sunday Times reporter, “These patients were insane before, now they are merely mentally sick.” The female patients were busy doing activities in the workshops on the second floor of the refectory. There they knitted sweaters and scarves, producing over five hundred items a month. The west campus was almost completed, and the cost was already $6 million and predicted to reach over $10 million. The Trenton Sunday Times exclaimed, “Great work being done for Mental Cripples of Philadelphia at City’s fine hospital on Lincoln Highway.” The Roaring Twenties seemed to lend some grace and style to Byberry’s final design and planning curriculum. Its inner gears turned faster, and its system solidified. The next five years would be the best period the hospital had yet seen.

  Dr. Samuel Hamilton, 1923. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  The South Group, located on approximately two acres of the Aaron Tomlinson tract, began as a separate institution altogether. “Feeble-minded” was an early twentieth century term for children with mental diseases. It has been replaced, for the most part, with the term “developmentally disabled.” The Bullitt Bill required the erection of buildings specifically for housing this class as a separately funded and operated hospital. Under the title of the “Philadelphia Institution for Feeble-Minded” (PIFM), six cottages and a central dining room were completed in March and received their first 123 children from Blockley in April 1925. The cottages were one-story structures with basements. A kitchen and dining hall was also built in the center, following the layout almost exactly from the East Group. The cottages were L-shaped, however, with wards in each wing and a dayroom in the center. Each contained a nurses’ station, one shower, one bathroom and a partitioned room in each dayroom lined by paned glass for isolating children with contagious diseases. They each had an official capacity for 60 children, holding a total of 360, although they would hold almost twice that at their peak. Dr. Barr reported in February 1925 that the total cost of the new group was approximately $450,000. The optimistic superintendent spoke whimsically of the new buildings:

  The whole group will be operated as a unit distinct from Byberry Hospital, but with the cooperation of the main staff. Each cottage is worth $60,000 dollars. This cost would be much higher except for the fact that all our heating, lighting, and sewage is handled by the central plant which takes care of the entire hospital. A great many of these children can be trained to become useful and self-supporting. That is why we are putting them in these congenial surroundings in smaller groups, where they can be given better and more individual care. Our plans go so far as to have each cottage slightly different from the rest, to conform to the needs of certain types of these patients.

  Byberry picnic, probably at official opening celebration, 1926. Seated left to right: Dr. Everett S. Barr, Dr. Wilmer Krusen, Dr. J.C. Doane. Standing at left is Edward A. McNally. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  The hospital’s official report for 1925, its first, was uplifting. It boasted that the new group also provided a school that offered grade instruction to the children and lists two teachers on its payroll: Caroline Gumm and Beatrice Rubin. It showed an institution that was well staffed, well managed and eager to help its patients. With an impressive workforce, including a night supervisor, five nurses, sixteen attendants, six “ward maids,” two waitresses, two cooks, two maintenance men and a dishwasher, the city spared no expense in its attempt to expand the “farms” into a fully-functioning facility. Physician-in-Charge Stephen M. Smith tells of the new hospital:

  There are classes for corrective work in speech defect. The academic work comprises reading, spelling, penmanship, fundamental processes in arithmetic, and hygiene. The older boys receive training in woodworking and the older girls in clay modeling. The occupational classes give instruction in basketry, weaving, and domestic arts. The physical therapy classes are given training in corrective and educational gymnastics and folk dancing. All pupils are given training in music. Classes are held from 9 to 11 A.M. and from 1 to 4 P.M. Every child in the hospital of sufficient chronological age is given a trial in the schoolroom to see if he or she is teachable.

  For the first year of its existence at least, PIFM seemed like a very reasonable institution indeed. Its budget had not yet been tampered with or crippled by the Great Depression. However, it is truly difficult to picture Byberry as the idyllic, fairy-tale retreat the report made it seem.

  The 1920s was one of the most prosperous decades for America. Building booms were underway in every major city, unemployment was low, wages were at a high and an all-around attitude of American pride was looming. The high caused by America’s victory in the war, the manufacturing boom in Philadelphia and new technological advancements all helped to soften the spotlight on Byberry. Although the staff generally referred to the year 1925 as Byberry’s “red letter year,” it was officially opened by the city in 1926. But by that time, Byberry had been the focus of several investigations, and Dr. Barr was busy with the public relations aspect of the hospital. The last building for patients had been completed, and every building was filled to its designated capacity.

  Ironically, the city planned its official opening for 1926, hoping to add it as a feature in the city’s precarious Sesquicentennial Exhibition. It was soon taken off that list due to its continuing delays in construction caused by the Mach
ine’s graft. The opening, despite attempts at publicity, went off rather quietly. Dr. Barr gave tours to newspaper reporters as well as state and city officials in hopes that he could somehow alter Byberry’s negative reputation. The opinions of visitors, however, was not what the city was expecting. Attention was called to a lack of housing for attendants, inadequate transportation to and from the hospital and a lack of properly trained staff to operate the new features of the buildings, such as hydrotherapy tubs and “humane” restraints. The city’s hopeful attitude quickly subsided as it realized it still did not have a modern mental hospital. Johnson’s plans were dusted off, and several new buildings were approved.

  The Stevens House on Burling Avenue acted as the superintendent’s home, 1935. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  Male patients at band practice in the West Refectory, circa 1935. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  During the mayoral term of W. Freeland Kendrick, Philadelphians were not struggling. Businesses were thriving, and the biggest building boom in the city’s history took place. Almost 35 percent of public buildings still existing in the city today were constructed during this period. The “wet” city was drowning in illegal alcohol, and the money was flowing heavily. However, only a dog’s share managed to find its way to Byberry. Taking up the reigns of reform from J. Hampton Moore in 1924, Kendrick began with a good head start on the Byberry situation. He oversaw the completion of all three groups and clearly took the institution seriously. He attended the hospital’s official opening in 1926, and made frequent inquests of its condition. The Sesquicentennial Exhibition was the priority of the administration and the city’s business leaders. Ironically, the city’s overhyped and underfunded celebration of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence ended up a washout, literally: unusually frequent and drenching rains kept visitors away, not to mention the political civil war that took place during the planning of the exhibition. Infighting among the city’s elite, official and private, spilled out onto the headlines long before the event took place, leading to further disinterest by the rest of the nation.