Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon-- Tara Howe

When was this "asylum" opened, and what did it look like? Did it follow Kirkbride's design?  Because the town had to pay to send patients to the Portland Institute for the Insane for treatment with Dr. J. C. Hawthorne, they decided to work on building a facility right in Salem.  Oregon State Hospital opened in 1883 as the Oregon State Insane Asylum after the legislature passed an act to allow a state-run asylum.  The hospital's name was changed to Oregon State Hospital in 1913.  A representation of the Kirkbride's design, the images to the left and below represent how it was depicted early on:

What was this institution's original intent?  The hospital was intended to treat individuals who were considered "insane".  This included someone who committed a crime, was unable to care for themselves, not able to function in the community, or deemed "a burden to society".  A patient could be committed through filing a complaint with the county judge, and then the individual would then be assessed by a physician to determine "insanity".  Treatment could include medication, group therapy, or physical restraints. 

Who were the patients there?  The first group transferred to this hospital in 1883 were 216 male patients described as "representing almost every known stage or degree of insanity, idiocy, imbecility or helplessness" (S. Bell, 2005-6).  The next group to arrive were 102 female patients, and three of these were young girls between the ages of 6 and 9.  In 1905, there were 48 people who were admitted due to alcoholism, and about 25% were showing signs of syphilis.

Horace Carpenter was the first Superintendent 

Patient Corridor in 1905

Do narratives of their experiences exist?  What was the patients' experience like in that institution, and did that change over the course of the institution's history?  There are several books available that provide the history of the facility and recount the experiences of patients at Oregon State Hospital, including Inside Oregon State Hospital: A history of tragedy and triumph and Oregon Asylum: Images of America. The following website also includes information about individual stories, including a story from 1936 about an individual coming to terms with being inside an "insane asylum":
https://oshmuseum.wordpress.com/category/hospital-stories/

Did the institution, its services, and patients change over time?  According to an account from 1916, patients had activities that they could participate in, including being paid for work; It was a very glowing review.  However, the description of the hospital in 1936 talks about the reputation that the place had for housing individuals who were crazy or being controlled by the devil.
The building underwent several updates.  In 2008, they decided to restore the Historic and outdated buildings of the Kirkbride building and to completely replace the J building. The legislature decided to create a new hospital to replace the old one in 2009.  The intention of the renovation was to provide a more "educational" environment and higher security for patients.  What is left of the original Kirkbride building from 1883 now houses the museum.

How many people lived, worked, and died there?  The buildings were intended to house 412 patients, and it first opened with about 325 residents.  By 1916, there were 1644 patients and about 200 officers, attendants, and other employees.  In 1958, at its greatest capacity, there were 3,545 patients at the hospital; it was then decided that additional facilities needed to be built to accommodate this great number.  
The current Oregon State Hospital website is a resource for families to claim cremains, as there are over 3,000 that were housed there, including patients, workers, and community members.

Were bad conditions ever exposed to the public? How?  There were several articles published over the years about experiences of visiting the hospital and different events that occurred in connection to the hospital, including information about some of the staff.  There were some recounts more positive than others, such as one story of a patient indicating that he probably needed to be there for treatment despite the facility's reputation (https://oshmuseum.org/here-i-am-in-an-insane-asylum-1936/ ).  There are more recent books available through Amazon about the history of the hospital, and one can now go visit the Oregon State Hospital museum on the grounds. 

Ice Baths in the 1950's

The hospital had many underground tunnels

Would you have wanted "treatment" in this institution?

Back in 1995, I did a music therapy internship at Oregon State Hospital for 6 months, and worked primarily with individuals with traumatic brain injury and dementia, and I also provided services to patients on the children/adolescent unit.  I visited the incarcerated patients while there, including those with sexual abuse convictions who were undergoing aversion therapy.  During orientation, they gave us a tour of the entire campus, including the buildings where the lobotomies were rumored to have been performed.  We also visited the basements, which still housed beds and chains that were used in the past; one could still travel through the tunnels pictured above.  There was a really unsettling energy in much of the hospital.  Regardless of whether I had this experience in 1995, I would not want to stay in this space.  Although it is a beautiful facility on the outside, it always felt so isolating being on the units and the patients rarely went outside.  Hope was not a feeling that I would describe when I visited the units and the patients.

Resources:
http://www.salemhistory.net/places/state_hospital.htm (Sue Bell)

http://www.mentalhealthportland.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/The-History-of-the-Oregon-State-Hospital-from-1883-2012.pdf  

https://oshmuseum.wordpress.com/category/hospital-stories/