Smith College, Northampton State Hospital grounds and part of South Street
Published in the Atlas of the City of Northampton and Town of Easthampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, D.L. Miller, C.E., Philadelphia, PA: D.L. Miller & Co., 1895.
Recommended Books and Articles:
Bloomberg, Sanford. 2006. The history of Northampton State Hospital, 1858-199 : phases in the treatment and civil rights of the mentally ill. Florence: Collective Coppies.
Bloomberg is a practicing psychologist and amateur historian who lived in Northampton during the closing of the Northampton State Hospital. He was also a Smith faculty member for the School for Social Work. His book records the shifts in patient psychiatric treatment within Massachusetts state hospitals. The bulk of his arguments are derived from first-person experience and primary documents from the Northampton State Hospital.
Bogdan, Robert, Martin Elks, and James A. Knoll. 2012. “Asylums: Postcards, Public Relations, and Muckraking.” In Picturing Disability: Beggar, Freak, Citizen and Other Photographic Rhetoric, 57-74. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press.
This chapter examines how disability and mental illness is constructed in media through the use of photos of psychiatric hospitals. It presents multiple warnings and elements to consider when publishing scholarly material with photographs of hospital patients.
Kirby, Mike. 2005. Back Row, Back Ward: The Redevelopment of Northampton State Hospital. Florence: Collective Copies.
Kirby is a Northampton native and writes from the perspective of a political activist. He was heavily involved with the Northampton “Save Old Main!” movement during the late 90s. His book focuses on the transformation of the hospital following its forced closing in 1993. The latter half of the book looks at the limited services provided for patients who were forcefully evicted from the hospital upon closing.
Moore, J. Michael and Anna Scheuleit Harber. 2014. Images of America: Northampton State Hospital. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing.
Recently published, the book contains a brief history of the hospital’s development and transformation. It contains dozens of photos of both hospital patients and staff preserved within Historic Northampton’s Collections.
Osborn, Lawrence A. 2009. “From Beauty to Despair: The Rise and Fall of the American State Mental Hospital.” Psychiatric Quarterly 80, no. 4: 219-231. Academic Search Premier: 219-231. http://doi.org/ 10.1007/s11126-009-9109-3.
Osborn’s article examines the transformation of the American state hospital system over a period of 200 years. He examines the influences that created the hospital model as well as the gradual changes to psychiatric care over time. A large section of his work is focused on the public perception of state hospitals as snake pits that warehoused the mentally ill. The paper concludes with comments on the mental health system today, in relation to the state hospital’s role in treatment. Within the context of this project, Osborn’s article provides background information on Smith and Northampton’s perception of the Northampton State Hospital during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Additional Photograph Collections and Resources:
Walking Tour of Northampton State Hospital:
This project was created by students in the Smith College FYS 121 course: The Evolution and Transformation of the Northampton State Hospital in the fall of 2014. The proposed project was supported by Historic Northampton and was awarded a $5,000 project grant from Mass. Humanities Foundation. The project is currently waiting for additional funding.
Northampton State Hospital Photographs by Mark Majeski, 2001:
Mark Majeski photographed the Northampton State Hospital buildings in 2002 after they had been abandoned in the early 1990s, and several years before they were finally torn down. The result is a series of exterior and interior views showing the buildings’ architecture and how it was affected by years of neglect. The collection is currently housed within the Forbes Library Digital Gallery.
Northampton State Hospital Photographs by Tom Riddell:
Includes photographs of NSH taken by Tom Riddell before demolition in 2002 and during early stages of demolition. Photos are organized by building.
Northampton State Hospital Memorial Park Facebook Page:
This page follows the restoration of the main fountain and implementation of the NSH Memorial Park. Following its restoration, the original cast-iron fountain that marked the front entrance of Northampton State Hospital’s main building, will be put into a small park to mark the site of the former institution. It will honor the memory of the hospital patients and employees who lived and worked there for decades. Additionally, this page contains multiple photos of the Hospital collected over time by community members.
Northampton State Hospital Annual Reports:
With the Government Documents staff, SCUA has digitized the annual reports of the Northampton State Hospital from the beginning until the last published report in 1939. The reports appeared annually from 1856 until 1924 and irregularly from then until 1939.
Historic Northampton-Maps & Atlases:
This digital collection contains a couple of maps detailing the grounds of the Northampton State Hospital during the late 19th-century and early 20th-century.
Habeus Corpus: A Music Installation for Northampton State Hospital:
The official site of Anna Schuleit Haber’s Habeus Corpus installation. This site includes information about the symposium, links to published newspaper articles covering the event, and a photo collection.