MENTAL HEALTH
IN MISSOURI STATE PUBLICATIONS
With one-click links to the MOBIUS union catalog
1844
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1930-1944
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1947-1954
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1989-1998
Current Missouri Division of Mental Health
"In 1847, twenty-six years after her admission to the Union, Missouri made the first provision for the state care of her “mentally deranged” citizens by authorizing an "asylum for the insane" at Fulton...The 18th Century of the "asylum approach" to the treatment of the mentally ill was considered an innovative and enlightened method of restoring mental health to individuals in the then sparsely populated nation" --Taken from Missouri Dept. of Mental Health web page on its history.
Although the St. Louis Insane Asylum was not technically a state institution, Missourians from other parts of the state were sent there because of lack of facilities in their own areas. In 1877 the Missouri General Assembly made an appropriation of $70,000 for support of the asylum. This appropriation was vetoed by Governor Phelps, on the ground that it was not a state institution--it being built and controlled by the City of St. Louis. The matter went before the Supreme Court, which rendered an opinion in favor of the asylum. (Taken in part from the 1901 Report of the Committee...to Visit and Examine the State Institutions of Missouri, page 113.)
Quest for a cure: care and treatment in Missouri's first state mental hospital
(Exhibit by the Missouri State Archives)