Scope and Content: Metropolitan State Hospital opened in Waltham, Mass. in 1930 and was closed in 1992. Appropriations for a segregated children’s unit at the hospital were made as early as 1946 (St 1946, c 309, item 1701-13; see also St 1946, c 491). In 1954 a William C. Gaebler Children’s Unit was formally established, known some time after 1969 as the Gaebler Children’s Center. It was responsible for providing residential care and treatment to mentally ill children of Massachusetts under the age of sixteen. Psychological test data case files were created to diagnose the nature of mental illness of children who were hospital patients.
Arrangement: In two sequences: (1) 1946 (bx 1); (2) 1947-1992 (bx 2-24) Arranged within each sequence alphabetically by patient name
Restrictions: Mental health client information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 123, s 36. For conditions of access consult repository
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Scope and Content: The State Almshouse at Tewksbury opened in 1854.  It was renamed successively the State Hospital (1900), the State Infirmary (1909), Tewksbury State Hospital and Infirmary (1939), and Tewksbury Hospital (1959)
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by varying year spans, thereunder by account, and then chronologically by month
Notes: Records for 1889-1890 lacking
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Scope and Content: The State Primary School, opened at the State Almshouse at Monson in 1866 and continuing after the almshouse’s closing in 1872 until 1895, provided lodging, instruction, and employment for dependent and neglected children under age sixteen without settlement in the Commonwealth and some juvenile offenders.  The institution managed an annual budget to sustain operations.  Attendant financial records include ledgers to summarize expenses for goods, services, and salaries by account.
Arrangement: Arranged by account
Notes: Contents: 1880-1881.  1887-1895
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Scope and Content: The Reformatory Prison for Women was opened in Sherborn in 1877.  It was renamed the Reformatory for Women by St 1911, c 181 and because of a redrawn boundary line its fuller designation was changed from the Reformatory for Women at Sherborn to the Reformatory for Women at Framingham by St 1932, c 180, s 24.  Under St 1955, c 770 it received its current name, the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Framingham.
Notes: Transferred to Archives from Education Dept., Wellesley College through the college archivist. Holdings: Volume 5, no. 4 (Sept.-Oct. 1941) only
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Scope and Content: The Massachusetts Reformatory was opened in 1884 and renamed Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Concord, in 1955.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Restrictions: Criminal offender record information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 6, ss 167-178. For conditions of access consult repository 
Notes: Transferred to Archives from MCI Concord, July 1982
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Scope and Content: Since 1971 the Executive Office of Human Services (Executive Office of Health and Human Services since 1992) has been responsible through its constitutent agencies for the delivery of a wide range of services to persons with financial, health, social, protective, rehabilitation, and correctional needs. Its role is one of management and fiscal oversight, coordination of interagency planning and program development, and policy analysis.  Series was created by the office’s health policy unit to oversee departments and establish policy.
Arrangement: Arranged chiefly alphabetically by subject
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Scope and Content: St 1851, c 342 provided for a board of commissioners in relation to alien passengers and state paupers (as potentially related classes of persons), commonly called the Board of Alien Commissioners and consisting of a Council member appointed by the governor, the state auditor, and the superintendent of alien passengers for Boston. The first duty the act assigned was for the Board to appoint persons to annually visit almshouses and other institutions holding those alleged to be state paupers to determine whether laws pertaining to the status,  support, local settlement, and work requirements of such paupers were being upheld. The commissioners also worked towards the establishment of state almshouses (St 1852, c 275, ss 1-10). St 1863, c 240 transferred these functions to the succeeding Board of State Charities.
Arrangement: In six subseries
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Scope and Content: Under the Massachusetts State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity (1879-1886) and the State Board of Lunacy and Charity (1886-1898), the Dept. of Outdoor Poor was responsible for adults in need of state medical or general assistance not committed to state institutions under the board’s jurisdiction and for juvenile wards of the state under three years of age.  Visitors for the department’s unit for the sick state poor were charged with determining the status of and care for foundlings or other deserted children, as had been done earlier done under the Board of State Charities (see: its Massachusetts Infant Asylum case histories, 1871-1879 (M-Ar) 541X)). Attempts were made to identify the parents of the deserted children, in order to procure sources of child support.
Arrangement: Arranged by case no./chronologically
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Scope and Content: Programs and institutions for the mentally ill and retarded of Massachusetts were among the responsibilities successively of the Board of State Charities (St 1863, c 240), State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity (St 1879, c 291), and State Board of Lunacy and Charity (St 1886, c 101).  They were then the sole responsibility successively of the State Board of Insanity (St 1898, c 433), Massachusetts Commission on Mental Diseases (St 1916, c 285), Dept. of Mental Diseases (St 1919, c 350, ss 79-81), and Dept. of Mental Health (St 1938, c 486)
Arrangement: Arranged by institution, thereunder chronologically by date of inspection
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Scope and Content: The Boston Lunatic Hospital was established as a municipal agency in 1839; it was renamed Boston Insane Hospital in 1897.  It was made a Massachusetts state agency under the name Boston State Hospital in 1908 and closed in 1981.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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