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

by J. P. Webster

  One of Mac Parker’s “stolen” photos showing nude patients in building C, 1936. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  Wilson’s “cleanout” committee continued interviewing staff. They dismissed some and departmentalized others. “The reorganization will include transfers and replacements all the way down the line,” Wilson said. Charging that Dr. Sands had assigned staff members the worst jobs as a form of punishment for lackluster job performance, Wilson stated, “The more arduous and disagreeable tasks will be rotated so they will not become a punishment to anyone.” But in the shuffle, other horrors slipped out.

  On May 15, 1938, Dr. Abraham Bozarjian arrived at his family’s home at 2226 North Eleventh Street. The thirty-three-year-old dentist relaxed for a while with his two brothers and two sisters. Later, while they slept, Bozarjian used a meat cleaver to slash his siblings almost to death. He then set the house on fire, killing his sixty-two-year-old mother. Bozarjian had been admitted to Byberry after slashing the throat of a store clerk in 1935 and subsequently being found “criminally insane.” He easily escaped several times and had been living with his family for two months. When police arrived at the scene, Bozarjian had stabbed himself in the abdomen with a kitchen knife. He was taken to Philadelphia General Hospital, where he was treated and immediately sent back to Byberry.

  The Bozarjian family, of Armenian descent, had changed their name to Sarkis, leading to some confusion with police records. Rickert, backed by Mayor Wilson, put the blame on the family for housing him “illegally” for two months. “The real responsibility rests with the family,” he said, “who failed to notify the hospital or the police. I hope this case will show the need for additional facilities at Byberry. A case like Bozarjian should never have been sent here at all because we can’t keep them confined.” Upon Bozarjian’s return to building B, he learned from another patient that his sisters had survived his attack. Bozarjian was heard by a guard shouting, “Let me out of here so I can finish the job!”

  By 1938, life at the hospital had deteriorated into chaos, the worst it would be for half a century. In July, the Machine’s reform-resistant bubble around Byberry finally shattered under the pressure created by the Shapiro/Stern outcry. A Chester Evening Times article entitled “Phila Stirred Over Byberry Insane Cruelty” painted a horrific picture. It was worse than anyone thought. According to Shapiro, Byberry’s was a “story of inefficiency, cruelty, intrigue, and barbarity, reminiscent of the dark ages.” The Shapiro committee’s report and subsequent grand jury investigation led to a legal battle. With a patient census of 5,400, Byberry was 300 percent overcrowded. Unless accompanied by disturbing images, the word “overcrowded” itself would not do much to shake up the public, and Stern knew it. Thanks to the “stolen” photos and Stern’s insistence on printing them in his newspaper, Shapiro’s committee had stone-cold proof of the barbaric treatment of Philadelphia’s mentally ill, and they swung it at city hall with crippling force.

  Shapiro pushed city council to act fast and give Byberry to the state before Machine lawyers found a way to lasso it back. He said that the hideous overcrowding was the “smallest part of the vice at Byberry” and that “all the money spent by the city on this institution might just as well be dumped in a cesspool for all the good it does. In Byberry, when an attendant beats a patient, apparently he gets a medal. The attendant disappears for three days, and then he comes back again.” Shapiro’s very public committee, combined with his small army of guerrilla photographers, cornered council. The public, many for the first time, saw the stomach-turning conditions at Byberry in their own living rooms. The horrific photos accompanied by details of everyday patient life made the whole mid-Atlantic region cringe.

  Mayor Wilson during the last of his several inspection tours in 1936. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  Politics certainly played a role in the move, as Wilson and Rickert claimed, but this time, it was on the side of the patients. For several political reasons, the Shapiro Committee narrowed in on Rickert as the “bad guy.” The blame should have been distributed among a dozen employees, from the top down. But funneling it all onto Rickert achieved the same result necessarily, of state takeover, and caused more damage to a political enemy in the process. Shapiro pinned Byberry’s problems on Rickert and “bum-rushed” him for the press. They recommended his immediate dismissal, along with three other physicians, who were hardly mentioned in the report. The investigators held him responsible for the following, as published in the Chester Evening Times:

  Two hundred male patients were kept naked in one hospital building.

  Two women patients given “ground parole” became pregnant and were delivered of children.

  Some patients have been kept in straight-jackets three years and the straight-jacket is frequently used on others, although banned at modern institutions.

  Death of two patients—one by drowning during a bath treatment and the other by forced feeding—were reported as due to natural causes.

  Food is conveyed to patients on the same truck used for removing the dead.

  A cook for 350 feeble-minded children suffered from active tuberculosis and syphilis.

  Immoral practices and sex perversions are practiced among the children and between the children and male patients.

  Rickert was also charged with “building an intra-mural political system.” The removal of 1,050 patients to other hospitals in the commonwealth was urged as the fastest way to ease the swollen, bloated municipal institution. Mayor Wilson himself immediately demanded the removal of the entire staff and suggested the appointment of his friend and then-superintendent of Philadelphia General Hospital Dr. William Turnbull to the position of chief of the Bureau of Hospitals. While some of the charges lobbed at Rickert were just, the majority were not fair. The committee’s conglomeration of everything wrong with Byberry singled out the Machine superintendent as the lone culprit, thus exacting political revenge. However, doing away with Byberry’s most crooked director was certainly a good move.

  Superintendent Wilbur P. Rickert (right) observes WPA worker William Connelly repairing a wall, 1936. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  The report showed that there were an alarming six hundred deaths each year. Shapiro charged that half of the deaths were caused by the “negligence and incompetence of the management.” The Philadelphia County Medical Society blamed Rickert, claiming that due to “the gravity of present conditions at the institution,” Rickert’s removal was imperative given his “complete lack of training whatever for such a vitally important administrative position.” Wilson, really feeling the pinch now, remained loyal to his railroad pals and put the blame on Clinical Director Frederick T. Zimmerman. He claimed Zimmerman was at fault for most of the conditions at Byberry. “I have been informed,” said Wilson, “that Dr. Zimmerman has been the cause of most of the trouble at Byberry and that he is incompetent.” Ironically, Wilson had appointed Zimmerman to the position himself in 1936.

  “I come under civil service and will certainly resist an ouster move,” responded Zimmerman. “I was appointed by Mayor Wilson two years ago at the start of his administration upon the recommendation of a special committee. I believe that the move to force me from office is due to the mayor’s difference with the society’s committee which recently reported on conditions at Byberry.” At first, Zimmerman outright refused to resign in order to save his medical career. “I feel my own career is only incidental to the welfare of the 5,600 patients at Byberry who cannot speak for themselves,” Zimmerman said. The opinion of the Medical Society was that Zimmerman was one of the best psychiatrists at Byberry and that “his dismissal would leave the institution without a recognized trained psychiatrist and plunge it into further disorder.”

  Under added pressure from councilman and physician Arthur P. Keegan, who threatened him with impeachment unless he moved to “clean up the mess” at Byberry, Wilson put Turnbull in charge of the resignations of “all employees,” but Turnbull was not exactl
y anxious to take on the position. “It is a dirty job, and I wouldn’t do this for ten times what it is going to pay me,” he said. “I am doing it only because it has been suggested that it is my duty.” Fortunately for Turnbull, he would not get the chance, as Shapiro’s committee and state takeover efforts were well on their way to becoming law. Finally, the old-schoolers were defeated, and Wilson found himself trapped under an aged and collapsing Philadelphia Republican Machine.

  A committee of physicians from the County Medical Society, the Public Charities Association and the College of Physicians demanded Rickert’s resignation. Each of the groups represented in the committee had reasons to stick it to Wilson under the floodlight of the Shapiro report. Wilson had made friends on both sides of the aisle, but his flip-flopping made him more enemies. He contended that Rickert’s removal was an attack by a “group of medical-political-legal individuals who are peeved because I would not appoint a man they selected.” On September 13, the Senate voted 30 to 7 in favor of Byberry’s transfer, but with the continued backing of Wilson, Rickert refused to budge.

  On October 15, 1938, at 10:00 a.m., a caravan carrying a small army of official-looking men proceeded through Byberry’s front gate and up to the administration building. Leading them was State Welfare Secretary Charles I. Engard. Following behind him were twelve state troopers and twenty-five welfare officials, doctors and mental health professionals. They included Dr. Herbert C. Woolley of Pennhurst, Charles A. Zeller of Fairview State Hospital and Dr. Arthur P. Noyes of Norristown. Rickert must have been nervous as he watched them pull up the long, tree-lined driveway. He immediately called Mayor Wilson, who commanded him to stay put. Engard made his way into Rickert’s office and, after talking with him for five minutes, dismissed the controversial superintendent and had him escorted off the property.

  Wilson hit back, calling attention to the injunction suit still in the courts. Engard seemed oblivious to the suit’s threats. He appointed William C. Sandy as acting superintendent and began interviews with the staff, stating, “Dr. Rickert will be the only change in the hospital staff at the present time, and all employees will remain as state employees, at least until their competency has been checked.” It soon became very clear to Wilson that the outdated city charter bylaws he had as a defense against state takeover were too flimsy to take into battle. It was also clear to him that unless a court order was issued, Engard was not about to let go of Byberry. On October 21, Dauphin County Court judge Karl E. Richards lifted the injunction, and the state began moving in and cleaning up.

  Overcrowded dormitory for 150 men in the basement of building F, circa 1938. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  Chapter 5

  THE PHILADELPHIA STATE HOSPITAL

  The State Years

  The efforts of the Shapiro/Stern reform movement had rocked Byberry’s foundation. Changing times and advancements in technology being applied to new laws by new departments like the Federal Bureau of Investigations marked the beginning of the Machine’s slow downward spiral out of existence. Governor Gifford Pinchot’s successfully coordinated crippling of the Machine left Boss Vare broken and bitter but not friendless. He died soon afterward in 1934. The last of Philadelphia’s real “bosses,” William Vare left quite an impact. He also left a legacy of graft not since matched in Philadelphia, though others have tried.

  As the Shapiro Bill was building, so were charges against Mayor Wilson of everything from racketeering to soliciting prostitutes. Probably fired at Wilson from Machine-loyal parties, they were supposed to be revenge for his political party flip-flopping. While never amounting to much other than newspaper splashes, the charges against Wilson were doing visible harm to his reputation. Wilson, however, carefully jumping around some of the charges while confronting others, did have some skeletons in his closet. But between fighting off charges, appealing for a Senate seat and running what was left of the Machine’s decades-old policies he had inherited, Wilson was starting to sink. His grip soon loosened even more when his health began to fail.

  Striking when the iron was hot, Shapiro’s team was finally able to force Wilson to let go of thirteen city-run hospitals, with the showcase being Byberry. Mayor Wilson was a natural politician. He was good at his job, though he did not seem to enjoy it much. Weary from politics, pressures and his rapidly declining health, Wilson threw in the towel in August 1938. The time had come for Wilson to face his own Byberry demons. Having certainly been responsible for some of its situation or, at the least, not working hard enough to fix it, Wilson finally did the morally correct thing. Against the pleas of the Machine, he signed away city ownership of the dying institution.

  State troopers at the gate during Rickert’s removal in 1938. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  Dix Drive, the entrance driveway to the West Group administration building, circa 1956. Pennsylvania State Archives, RG-23.

  Finally, on September 23, 1938, surrounded by a shining Senator Harry Shapiro, Dr. Camilla Anderson of the Public Charities Association, State Representative Paul Lewis and State Secretary of Welfare Charles I. Engard, Governor George Earle signed Shapiro’s bill, officially placing Byberry under State care. By this time, almost 90 percent of the nation’s public mental hospitals were state-managed institutions. After the transfer, the state had no plans for the other twelve Philadelphia hospitals it was now in charge of. Shapiro’s bill had existed solely for the reform of Byberry. It could not, however, have consisted only of Byberry. The other hospitals were thrown into the bill in order for the state to even consider looking at it. The Machine still had loyal members in Harrisburg who tried to the end to prevent its loss of control of the “Byberry Bank.” Thankfully, they failed. But the Machine was still mostly in place in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, and it wasn’t letting go without a fight.

  Wilson’s soul-searched decision ruined many opportunities for aspiring grafters in Philadelphia, and he became loathed in some previous circles. However, Wilson conveniently died a month later and took his “back-and-forth” reputation with him. His public image had been tarnished, but in a deathbed act of redemption, he unlocked Byberry’s chains. Unfortunately, many of Wilson’s humanitarian acts were overlooked as the mounting charges against him finalized his status. The airport he fought hard to construct—the S. Davis Wilson Airport—was eventually torn down, and there is no statue or park in his name. As punishment by the Machine for loosing his grip on their empire of corruption, little remains in Philadelphia as tribute to one of its most interesting mayoral figures.

  Groundbreaking ceremony for S-1 building, 1941. Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  The hospital was about 300 percent overcrowded at the time of the state takeover, which was, fortunately, the worst number it would see. The state was ready and responded with a comprehensive new building plan and a group of qualified staff that it put in place. Gathering together the State’s top officials in the field of mental health, another committee was formed to determine the best course of action. This committee consisted of superintendents of Pennsylvania’s state hospitals from Allentown to Warren, as well as Dr. Cairns and Dr. Sands. Also present was prison inspector and future Byberry hero Furey Ellis.

  At the time, Ellis had just finished a tiring fight against the authorities of Holmesburg Prison over their inhumane treatment of prisoners in their “Klondike cells,” or punishment cells. They were small and windowless, located three feet from a large steam pipe. The guards would increase the steam flow through the pipe, creating an environment so hot that it caused the deaths of at least four inmates. The Board of Corrections still consisted of loyal but powerless Machine men. Ellis saw to it that the administration was replaced and the cells demolished. The dying Machine would never again have a hand in the city’s prison system, which it had ruled since its inception. With this victory, Ellis began earning his reputation as a tough reformer, not for sale and clearly not afraid to take on the old powers.

  Governor Earle was a reformer who had co
me up during the Machine’s reign of Philadelphia. He had been aware of the Byberry problem for some time, but getting to the bottom of the corruption at Byberry was no easy task, even for the State. After a thorough vetting, Earle appointed a new Board of Trustees for Byberry. Its chairman was former state attorney general William A. Schnader. The new board also included psychiatrist Earl D. Bond, Dr. Wilmer Krusen, attorney Thomas Evans, congressman Frank J.G. Dorsey, accountant for the Democratic City Committee William H. Godfrey, State Representative Paul C. Lewis and local businessman Victor Moore.

  The first state-appointed superintendent was Dr. Herbert C. Woolley, of Pennhurst State School. Woolley seemed the clear choice for a new beginning at Byberry, and his appointment was hinted at for months prior to its fruition. Woolley was a noted figure in the field of mental health. He served in the First World War, graduated from Jefferson Medical College and served as the assistant superintendent at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. He became the superintendent at Pennhurst in 1937 and was particularly esteemed for improving the conditions there in just over a year. The underfunded hospital in Spring City had gone through eleven superintendents in the last twenty years. It was believed to have been experiencing problems similar to that of Byberry.

  When first questioned about taking over the administration of Byberry, Woolley replied, “I am not an applicant for the position at Byberry, and I am not a candidate. Of course, if my superiors order me there I will consider it.” Whether by choice or by direct order, Woolley moved into his new home at the Stevens House in October 1938, full of fight and ready to tackle Byberry. “I have had twenty-five years experience and I expect to operate this institution according to the standards of the State Department of Welfare,” he said. “I expect full cooperation from everyone in the hospital, and I believe everything will go along smoothly.” Upon his arrival, Woolley posted his pledge for a new set of standards for all employees and competent patients to see. It read, in part: