Creation of the Michigan Asylum for the Insane

Creation of the Michigan Asylum for the INsane

This enclosed metal case features 5 framed historical photos.  2 women and 3 men.  Under the photos are labels identifiying who is in each photo.  Under the photos are several artifcats from the hospital.  Left to right the items are: a metal corporate seal of the Michigan Asylum for the Insane.  Used on official documents and certificates such as diplomas from the nursing school.  Circa 1860.

Rocking Chair from the Michigan Asylum for the Insane used by patients and staff.  Circa 1900.

Exterior light fixture which adorned the original Administration Building on the grounds of the Michigan Asylum for the Insane.  Circa 1900.

Vase used as decoration in the board of director’s conference room at the Michigan Asylum for the Insane.  Circa 1880.

The Michigan Asylum for the Insane was the first state hospital built and maintained by the State of Michigan solely for the management and care of those of its citizens who became victim of an illness that was poorly understood and badly managed.

The Asylum at Kalamazoo was the first Institution or Asylum in the nation to add to its corps of treatment personnel, a registered nurse, and to establish a Training School for Nurses in 1892; the first hospital in the State of Michigan to establish out-patient clinics and the first hospital operated by a State to establish a school of Occupational Therapy in 1922, and the first State Hospital in Michigan to establish a unit for children and adolescents. 

In 1837 Michigan had accumulated enough settlers to became a State in the expanding United States of America.  Scarcely a decade passed after Statehood before active planning began to establish a new institution, which would provide care for those citizens of the new state with psychiatric disorders.  In 1859, that new institution, the Michigan Asylum for the Insane, opened its doors in Kalamazoo.  It was to become a model for a system of publicly funded state hospitals that were built all over the better part of a century in locations throughout the state.

The first patient, a woman, was admitted to the Asylum on April 13, 1859, however, the Asylum was not officially opened until August 29, 1859.  While females were being admitted after the official opening no ward had been opened for the reception of males until March 13, 1860 and was filled almost immediately.

William A. Decker, M.D., Asylum for the Insane: A History of the Kalamazoo State Hospital, Arbutus Press, copyright 2008

Dorothea Dix was an early 19th century activist who drastically changed the medical field during her lifetime. She championed causes for both the mentally ill and indigenous populations. By doing this work, she openly challenged 19th century notions of reform and illness.

Dorothea Dix, a teacher in Boston Massachusetts, accepted an invitation to hold a prayer meeting in the female prisoners’ cells at a Cambridge Massachusetts jail.  On her visit she found, among the prisoners, a number of insane persons, unkempt and neglected, in quarters that were unheated, because of the belief that the insane were insensitive to pain and environmental effects such as cold so therefore no money was to be squandered on them.  She was convinced that many could be restored to sanity if treated humanely.  Dix proceeded to convince the legislatures of many states to construct public asylums where the insane could live in reasonable comfort, receive humane treatment, and be encouraged to live more enriched lives.  By 1852, she had persuaded the officials of 11 states to establish asylums, one of the first was Michigan.

Michigan Governor Epaphroditus Ransom, a native of Kalamazoo, Michigan, impressed with the advocacy of Dorothea Dix on behalf of the Insane, in a special message to the Michigan Legislature on February 28, 1848, urged the Legislature to provide some plan for the humane care of the insane.  The Legislature responded by passing Act 187 of the Public Acts of 1848 providing for the establishment of an asylum for “insane” people, and an institution for the deaf, dumb and the blind to be known as the Michigan Asylum for the Insane. 

Elizabeth Jane Cochran/Nellie Bly

Elizabeth Jane Cochran, who wrote under the pen name Nellie Bly, was a reporter for the New York World newspaper who took an undercover assignment in 1887 for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island in New York City.

It was not easy for Bly to be admitted to the asylum: she first decided to check herself into a New York boarding house called "Temporary Homes for Females". She stayed up all night to give herself the wide-eyed look of a disturbed woman and began making accusations that the other boarders were insane. Bly told the assistant matron: "There are so many crazy people about, and one can never tell what they will do." She refused to go to bed and eventually scared so many of the other boarders that the police were called to take her to the nearby courthouse. Once examined by a police officer, a judge, and a doctor, Bly was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a few days, then after evaluation was sent by boat to Blackwell's Island.

Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. After ten days, the asylum released Bly at The New York World's behest. Her report, published October 9, 1887 and later in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation, prompted the asylum to implement reforms, and brought her lasting fame. She had a significant impact on American culture and shed light on the experiences of marginalized women beyond the walls of the asylum.

Epaphroditus Ransom

Epaphroditus Ransom was born in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts in 1798 and relocated to the Michigan Territory on November 14, 1834, in the small town of Bronson, which is now Kalamazoo, Michigan. There he gained admittance to the bar and began practicing law. He took up farming and other business ventures and soon became active in politics. He served in the state legislature and became that area's first circuit court judge, riding horseback through the wilderness to hear cases.  In In 1848, Ransom resigned from the court after being elected governor, and was the first governor to be inaugurated in Lansing, Michigan, after the state capitol moved there from Detroit.

Governor Ransom was so impressed by the advocacy of Dorothea Dix he immediately urged the Michigan Legislature to provide some plan for the humane care of the insane of the state.  The Legislature responded by passing Act 187 of the Public Acts of 1848 providing for the establishment of an asylum for insane people. At the same time, it appropriated 5,121 acres of Salt Springs Land and proceeds from the sale of this land be deposited in an Asylum Fund for the purchase of a suitable site, and construction of buildings.

The Board of Trustees held their first meeting in Detroit on May 22, 1849, and made public their selection of a site for the Asylum for the Insane at Kalamazoo.  Originally the asylum was to be located in the area of Kalamazoo which was considered downtown.  When the Board of Trustees heard that there were between 300 and 400 insane persons in the State of Michigan they petitioned to relocate the proposed site to an area on the outskirts of town.  On December 1, 1853, the state purchased a quarter section (160 acres), from Charles E. Stuart, a former law partner of Governor Ransom.

Dr. John P. Gray

John Perdue Gray was an American psychiatrist at the forefront of biological psychiatric theory during the 19th century.  He attended Dickinson College, then the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he received his medical diploma in 1848.  He was also the editor of the American Journal of Insanity, the precursor to the American Journal of Psychiatry.  He was a psychiatric expert in the trial for the assassination of President James A. Garfield

In 1854 the Board of Trustees offered the position of Medical Superintendent of the newly formed asylum to Dr. John P. Gray, who was at that time the Acting Medical Superintendent of the New York State Asylum at Utica. He accepted the position with the proviso that he be allowed to remain at his post in Utica, but by correspondence and visits, superintend the construction of the hospital. The salary agreed upon was $800.00 per year.

In 1856, he resigned as Medical Superintendent of the Michigan Asylum for the Insane at Kalamazoo to become the Medical Superintendent of the New York Asylum for the Insane at Utica, the largest mental hospital in the country at that time.

Dr. Gray was succeeded by Dr. Edwin H. Van Deusen, who had served as Dr. Gray’s Assistant at the New York Asylum in Utica.

Dr. Edwin H. Van Deusen

Dr. Van Deusen was born in Livingston, New York in 1828. At the age of 20, he enrolled in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at New York and graduated two years later. His medical specialty turned to the diagnosis and treatment of the mentally ill when he was appointed as the first assistant physician at the New York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica in 1855. He held this position for three years.

After the State of Michigan had enacted legislation to establish the Michigan Asylum for the Insane in Kalamazoo, Dr. Van Deusen made several trips to the city to superintend the erection of the Kalamazoo Asylum and to form public opinion favorable to the institution. He was appointed Medical Superintendent of the asylum and moved here with his wife in the fall of 1858. Even though legislation had been passed to establish the facility, financial appropriation in sufficient amount to run the institution had not followed. Dr. Van Deusen helped secure $100,000 to do so. Building expansion quickly followed, as well as new techniques for the treatment of its patients. As was later said of his tenure, Dr. Van Deusen’s studies in neurasthenia paved the way for the establishment of preventive medicine that would leave practitioners of diagnosis and treatment of the insane forever in his debt.

During his years in Kalamazoo, Dr. Van Deusen also served on commissions that oversaw the site locations and construction of the Eastern Michigan Asylum for the Insane at Pontiac and the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane at Traverse City.

After 20 years in his post of Medical Superintendent, Dr. Van Deusen retired in 1878 because of ill health. His retirement, however, proved an impetus for continued philanthropic contributions to the city by him and his wife until their deaths, his in 1909 and his wife’s in 1914. For 36 years they shared their substantial means in quiet acts of community improvement.