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
Notes: Cover title: Memorandum cash. Contents: Dec. 1910-Jan. 1915.  Jan. 1915-Oct. 1917.  Oct. 1917-July 1920
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Scope and Content: The Dept. of Public Welfare has the responsibility to provide and administer a comprehensive public welfare financial assistance program (MGLA c 18, s 2). Until 1967 the department organized the state into districts to carry out this program, originally staffed by the Division of Aid and Relief (Division of Public Assistance from 1953), under a district supervisor, and from the early 1950s (cf. St 1952, c 602) also by the Division of Child Guardianship, with respective district supervisors under a district director.  Memorandums to district directors from the Office of Field Operations (or from other officials of the department but copied to or distributed by the office) communicated directives and policy decisions.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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Scope and Content: The Dept. of Public Welfare has the responsibility to provide and administer a comprehensive public welfare financial assistance program (MGLA c 18, s 2).  It prepared official releases for the courts and local boards of public welfare (abolished by St 1967, c 658), informing them of changes in policy, procedures, programs, and legislation on a state and national level.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Also known as: Official releases
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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), the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity (St 1879, c 291), and the 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), the Massachusetts Commission on Mental Diseases (St 1916, c 285), and the Dept. of Mental Diseases (St 1919, c 350, ss 79-81), renamed the Dept. of Mental Health (St 1938, c 486)
Arrangement: Arranged by facility
Restrictions: Restricted as fragile. Access by permission of state archivist or curator of Massachusetts Archives only
Notes: Transferred to Archives from Dept. of Mental Health, 1988. Belchertown plans (1954-1965 only) transferred from Massachusetts Historical Commission, 2008
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Scope and Content: Chronically insane male paupers were transferred from Massachusetts almshouses and lunatic hospitals in 1887 to an asylum opened at the State Workhouse in Bridgewater, renamed shortly thereafter the State Farm.  Mentally infirm inmates from the State Prison were also admitted to the asylum beginning in 1890, and constituted the only admissions from 1894. The State Asylum for Insane Criminals was then officially established at the State Farm in 1895, and was renamed Bridgewater State Hospital in 1909. In 1919 the State Farm, including the State Hospital, was transferred from the State Board of Charity to the Massachusetts Bureau of Prisons (later Dept. of Correction), although as of 1923 the Dept. of Mental Diseases (later Dept. of Mental Health) retained the power to commit non-criminal insane to the institution. The State Farm was reorganized in 1955 as Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Bridgewater. The State Hospital remained as a unit within the larger entity until 1987, when it was separated with its own superintendent.
Arrangement: Arranged numerically/chronologically by admission
Restrictions: Mental health client information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 123B, s 36. Personal medical information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 4, s 7, d 26(c) and c 66A. For conditions of access consult repository
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Scope and Content: The Trustees of Massachusetts Hospitals for Consumptives (officially the Trustees of Hospitals for Consumptives) were established preliminarily in 1907, when they were known as the Massachusetts Commission on Hospitals for Consumptives, and permanently in 1910.  They were replaced by the Division of Sanitoria in the Department of Public Health in 1919, which agency was known successively by various names: by 1969, after it ceased to function at the divisional level, as the Division of Sanatoria and Tuberculosis Control.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Transferred from Department of Public Health (Tuberculosis Control), 1984
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Scope and Content: Beginning in 1911, a Homestead Commission studied how to improve housing for the urban working class.  From 1917 to 1919 (after which the function was placed in the Dept. of Public Welfare) it had the power to acquire and sell suburban homesteads to relieve urban congestion.  Minutes document decisions and actions at meetings of the commission.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Includes minutes of 42nd through 84th meetings
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Scope and Content: The Board of Parole for the State Prison and the Massachusetts Reformatory and the Board of Parole for the Reformatory for Women were established in 1913, serving jointly as an Advisory Board of Pardons.  They were succeeded by a single Board of Parole in 1916 and the Parole Board in 1937, in each case serving also as an Advisory Board of Pardons.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Transferred from the State Library, December 1977.  Volumes numbered 4, 6-7, 10-12 missing
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Scope and Content: The Public Health Council was established in 1914 as part of the State Dept. of Health (Dept. of Public Health from 1919) to make and promulgate rules and regulations, take evidence in appeals, consider plans and appointments required by law, hold hearings, and discharge other duties relating to public health as required by law.  Minutes have been created to record its activities, discussions, and actions.
Arrangement: In two subseries: (1) Minutes (2) Exhibits; Arranged within each subseries chronologically
Notes: Transferred to Archives from Dept. of Public Health, July 1983
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Scope and Content: The council was established to advise the commissioner of mental health on policy, program development, and priorities of need for comprehensive programs in mental health and retardation in Massachusetts.  Minutes were created to record decisions and actions taken by the council and its Executive Committee.  They contain information on public hearings held by the council to obtain the views of area boards and the public on departmental policy and programs; reports of the commissioner; and reports of the council’s committees on mental retardation, mental health, children, budget, management, and legislation.
Arrangement: In two subseries: (1) Minutes of the full advisory council (2) Minutes of the Executive Committee; Arranged within each subseries chronologically
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