Scope and Content: Bridgewater, Mass., was the site successively of a State Almshouse (1854-1872) for so-called willing and needlessly dependent paupers, and the State Workhouse (1866-1887), for paupers convicted of misdemeanors as well as paupers generally (from 1872), and incorrigible juveniles (1869-1948). The State Workhouse was renamed the State Farm (1887-1955), which also included a State Farm Hospital for the medical needs of all inmates, as well as locals and poor admitted solely for medical treatment. The change in name was in deference to the admission of insane male paupers (1886), although it was  followed by the admission of aged and physically or mentally infirm inmates of the State Prison (1890). Insane admissions were then limited for a time to criminals (1894), forming a division called the State Asylum for Insane Criminals (1895), which was renamed Bridgewater State Hospital (1909). Units at Bridgewater were later added for female prisoners (1909-1930), so-called defective delinquents (males from 1922, females 1926-1954)–mentally impaired inmates requiring segregation from standard inmate or institutionalized populations–and for drug and alcohol addicts (from 1922, females to 1930 only), eventually mostly voluntary admissions. All Bridgewater State Farm facilities and divisions (including prison, almshouse, insane, and medical hospital functions) were administered by a common superintendent. The running of the State Farm, including industries and extensive agricultural operations, relied on work performed by all capable inmates.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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Scope and Content: Cushing Hospital in Framingham, Mass., intended for the care and custody of elderly persons, was purchased by the Commonwealth from the federal government in 1955, opened in 1957 under the Dept. of Mental Health, transferred to the Dept. of Public Health in 1984, and closed in 1991.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Transferred to Archives by Tewksbury Hospital, Tewksbury, Mass., Mar. 1999
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Scope and Content: The commission has the statutory authority to investigate objections as to the legality, validity, completeness, or accuracy of nomination papers or actions required by law to give access to a state ballot, or to place an initiative or referendum question on a state ballot; and to render a decision on any matter referred to it (MGLA c 55B, s 10).  Case files document the resolution of individual complaints regarding access to the ballot.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Boxes 1-4: 1970-1979.  Boxes 5-6: 1991, 1997-1998.  Boxes 7-10: 2000
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Scope and Content: The State Ballot Law Commission renders decisions concerning objections to validity of nomination papers or other actions placing candidates or initiative/referendum questions on the ballot (MGLA c 55B, s 4).  Until passage of St 1980, c 134, s 8, jurisdiction extended to public policy questions on such ballots.  This series concerns the challenge of Charles H. McGlue et al. to placing on the 1964 ballot a referendum question to repeal or suspend a legislative pay raise because of fraudulent signatures.
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Scope and Content: The commission, acting as the State Board of Voting Machine Examiners, was responsible until 1977 for examining and approving all voting machines, ballot boxes, and counting apparatuses and for filing its reports with the state secretary. (Until 1903, approval was by the state secretary, treasurer, and auditor, and for the period 1903-1912 reports were filed by a separate State Board of Voting Machine Examiners.)  These filings include drawings, blueprints, photographs, patents, advertisements, and written specifications of the voting machines submitted to the board by their inventors or manufacturers.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by date filed
Notes: Formerly part of state secretary’s: Miscellaneous collection, boxes 95-95A. –Blueprints removed to: Massachusetts. Office of the Secretary of State. Maps and plans ((M-Ar)50), no. 4133, 4138, 4146-4148
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Scope and Content: The State Board of Agriculture, established by Massachusetts in 1852, was replaced successively by the State Dept. of Agriculture in 1918 and the Dept. of Agriculture in 1919. That body was renamed the Dept. of Food and Agriculture in 1975.
Notes: Transferred to Archives, Feb. 1996, from State Library of Massachusetts, Special Collections
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Scope and Content: St 1857, c 40 mandated a public series of documents to be numbered separately from the Senate and House series.  These were to consist of the annual reports of public offices, boards or institutions required by law for submission to the General Court or governor and council.  the state secretary was made responsible for their publication and distribution (later, their republication and distribution).  From at least 1892 this responsibility was carried out by the Document Division, know from ca. l921 as the Public Document Division.  In the late l970s that unit was succeeded by the State Bookstore.  Annual reports of state agencies include both published and unpublished documents: how many of the latter have existed in published form is unclear.
Arrangement: In subseries by agency; arranged within each subseries chronologically by year
Notes: Many subseries called numbered item of: Public document (P.D.).
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Scope and Content: The Penikese Hospital was founded in 1905 for the care and treatment of lepers.  This narrative, composed by the secretary of the State Board of Charity, tells of the origins, establishment, and development of the hospital.
Notes: Transferred to Archives from Dept. of Public Welfare, 1981.
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Scope and Content: Bridgewater, Mass., was the site successively of a State Almshouse (1854-1872) for so-called willing and needlessly dependent paupers, and the State Workhouse (1866-1887), for paupers convicted of misdemeanors as well as paupers generally (from 1872), and incorrigible juveniles (1869-1948). The State Workhouse was renamed the State Farm (1887-1955), which also included a State Farm Hospital for the medical needs of all inmates, as well as locals and poor admitted solely for medical treatment. The change in name was in deference to the admission of insane male paupers (1886), although it was  followed by the admission of aged and physically or mentally infirm inmates of the State Prison (1890). Insane admissions were then limited for a time to criminals (1894), forming a division called the State Asylum for Insane Criminals (1895), which was renamed Bridgewater State Hospital (1909). Units at Bridgewater were later added for female prisoners (1909-1930), so-called defective delinquents (males from 1922, females 1926-1954)–mentally impaired inmates requiring segregation from standard inmate or institutionalized populations–and for drug and alcohol addicts (from 1922, females to 1930 only), eventually mostly voluntary admissions. All Bridgewater State Farm facilities and divisions (including prison, almshouse, insane, and medical hospital functions) were administered by a common superintendent. The running of the State Farm, including industries and extensive agricultural operations, relied on work performed by all capable inmates. –In 1955 the Massachusetts correctional system was reorganized, so that the State Farm at Bridgewater became the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Bridgewater, commonly called MCI Bridgewater. With this change, Bridgewater’s admittance of misdemeanor convicts (since 1866), state charges (i.e., almshouse paupers, since 1872), and aged or infirm state prisoners (since 1890) was terminated, leaving the prison population (i.e., aside from Bridgewater State Hospital) almost entirely those with alcohol or drug-related convictions. In 1958, a specialized unit serving the whole state corrections system, the Massachusetts Treatment Center of the Sexually Dangerous, was added.  The population of MCI Bridgewater changed again with St 1971 c 1076, which abolished the crime of public intoxication, limiting drug and alcohol admissions to civil commitments, voluntary or otherwise; also abolished was the then-controversial unit for defective delinquents (since 1922). The Bridgewater State Hospital serving the insane was placed under separate administration in 1987, the Old Colony Correctional Center opened in 1987, and in 1990 the MCI addiction center was placed under the Southeastern Correctional Center, which had opened in 1976. Since by 1990 the Treatment Center of the Sexually Dangerous had also become a separate unit, at that point the existence of MCI Bridgewater as an administrative entity ended. After SECC’s closing in 2002, addiction treatment was provided at the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center. A Massachusetts Boot Camp for youthful offenders was located at Bridgewater from 1992 until after 2000.
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Scope and Content: The Division of Legal Medicine was established in 1956 to provide psychiatric services to courts and correctional institutions and to ensure that persons who came into contact with the criminal justice system received needed mental health care.  Pursuant to then MGLA c 123, ss 90, 100, and 101 (cf. since 1970, ss 4, 15-16), the Dept. of Mental Health held responsibilities, exercised through the division, in the discharge from the state hospitals of insane persons who were known to have attempted or committed violence against others or persons who had been indicted for murder or manslaughter but acquitted by reason of insanity.  State hospital discharge case files were created to provide a record of the discharge approval process.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by name
Restrictions: Mental health client information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 123, s 36. For conditions of access consult repository
Notes: Box 1: A-D. Box 2: E-J. Box 3: K-O. Box 4: P-Z
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