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.  From 1879 oversight of the school was vested in the Trustees of the State Primary and Reform Schools (St 1879, c 291, s 8; St 1880, c 208)–succeeding the school’s Board of Inspectors; they fixed State Primary School rules and regulations, placed inmates out of the school with families, and transferred to the school inmates from the State Reform School and the State Industrial School.  Series records decisions made at monthly meetings transmitted to the school superintendent and transcribed at the school for him.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by meeting date
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Scope and Content: The State Almshouse at Monson provided residence for paupers without settlement in Massachusetts from 1854 to 1872. The State Primary School, opened there 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 Massachusetts and some juvenile offenders. Legislation had authorized transfer of inmates from one almshouse to another by the Board of Alien Commissioners (St 1853, c 352, s 3; St 1859, c 255) and the Board of State Charities (St 1863, c 240, s 4); and by the latter board and its successor from 1879, the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity–through its Dept. of Indoor Poor–from the almshouses to the State Primary School (St 1866, c 209, ss 4-5; St 1872, c 45; St 1879, c 291).  Series documents these transfers, from the State Almshouse at Tewksbury and to a lesser degree from the State Almshouse at Bridgewater to the State Almshouse at Monson (to 1872) and to the State Primary School (from 1866)
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Files for 1854-1855, 1863-1871, 1878-1881, 1883 only
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Scope and Content: State responsibility for those in state almshouses and lunatic (from 1898 insane) hospitals was held successively by the Board of State Charities (1863), the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity (1879) and the State Board of Lunacy and Charity (1886).  Under the latter two of these boards the Dept. of Indoor Poor was responsible for adults in these state institutions and for juvenile wards of the state over three years of age. (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 of juvenile wards of the state under three years of age.) In 1898, just prior to state agency reorganization, responsibilities were redivided between a Division of State Adult Poor (with Indoor and Outdoor units) and a Division of State Minor Wards, which were carried over into the State Board of Charity. –Founding legislation for these various boards gave them the authority to transfer inmates from one almshouse or lunatic hospital to another. Pursuant to Resolves 1866, c 40; 1871 c 11 and c 77, a hospital and asylum for the harmless and incurable insane had been built at the Tewksbury almshouse, and St 1876, c 179 provided for the appointment of a resident physician as director. (St 1880, c 250, s 4 required that the Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity could transfer insane almshouse inmates only when certified insane after examination by two physicians, one with no connection to the hospital.) Eventually the almshouse’s function was specialized to the extent that St 1900, c 333 renamed it the State Hospital.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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Scope and Content: Massachusetts Resolves 1846, c 117 appointed Commissioners on Idiocy to inquire on: the condition of idiots in the commonwealth and if anything can be done for them. The commission’s report, written by Samuel Gridley Howe of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, led to the establishment by Resolves 1848, c 65 of the Experimental School for Teaching and Training Idiotic Children, located at the Perkins Institution. The school was incorporated as the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth (St 1850, c 150), located near Perkins in South Boston, with Howe serving as president until his death in 1876. It was renamed the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded by St 1883, c 239, reflecting the establishment of a separate asylum department for those beyond school age or not capable of being helped by the school’s instruction. Funds for the construction of a new facility in Waltham were provided by Resolves 1888, c 82, and occupation of the new site began in 1890, with the South Boston facility closing in 1892. St 1925, c 293 renamed the institution the Walter E. Fernald State School, in honor of the superintendent of the school, 1887-1924. A 2003 gubernatorial initiative to close the Fernald School (known as the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center since 1993) by 2007 was contested during the subsequent decade, until the institution was shut down permanently in Nov. 2014. –In 1914 the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded instituted the first traveling clinic to evaluate children. The Wrentham State School started a similar program in 1917. St 1919, c 277 required school committees to provide special education to mentally retarded students within the public school system. In order to diagnose children in accordance with the provisions of this act, by 1921 traveling clinics were established in all fourteen institutions under the Dept. of Mental Diseases. Additional physicians and psychiatrists were appointed specifically at the institutions to operate these programs. The law was amended by St 1922, c 231 and St 1931, c 358, increasing the number of children eligible for examination. The Dept. of Mental Health mostly abandoned the traveling school clinic program during World War II due to personnel shortages. In 1952 a system of mental health centers was introduced in the state, providing consultation services to school systems. A redistribution of evaluations to school and community resources with assistance of these centers became official in 1955. –Traveling teams of psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychometrists provided physical and psychometric examinations of children and sociopsychiatric studies of the child and family, in order to identify mentally retarded children in each school, and make recommendations for their care, training and special education services. The Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded hosted the traveling clinic in the district originally covering Danvers, Fall River, Gloucester, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford, Revere, Salem, Waltham, Watertown, and Worcester. Additional towns were surveyed in the later years.
Arrangement: In two subseries: (1) Clinic case files; arranged first for Worcester, then alphabetically by municipality, thereunder by case no. (2) Extant clinic survey logs
Restrictions: Evaluative 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 Experimental School for Teaching and Training Idiotic Children conducted at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind from 1848 was incorporated by Massachusetts as the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth in 1850.  It was renamed Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded in 1883 and Walter E. Fernald State School in 1925.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by school, thereunder chronologically by year
Restrictions: Evaluative 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 State Almshouse at Monson provided residence for paupers without settlement in the Commonwealth from 1854 until 1872.  The institution managed an annual budget to sustain its operations.  Attendant financial records include trial balances, showing summarized debit and credit entries for assets, state appropriations, and expenses.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by month
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Scope and Content: Massachusetts Resolves 1846, c 117 appointed Commissioners on Idiocy to inquire on: the condition of idiots in the commonwealth and if anything can be done for them. The commission’s report, written by Samuel Gridley Howe of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, led to the establishment by Resolves 1848, c 65 of the Experimental School for Teaching and Training Idiotic Children, located at the Perkins Institution. The school was incorporated as the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth (St 1850, c 150), located near Perkins in South Boston, with Howe serving as president until his death in 1876. It was renamed the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded by St 1883, c 239, reflecting the establishment of a separate asylum department for those beyond school age or not capable of being helped by the school’s instruction. Funds for the construction of a new facility in Waltham were provided by Resolves 1888, c 82, and occupation of the new site began in 1890, with the South Boston facility closing in 1892. St 1925, c 293 renamed the institution the Walter E. Fernald State School, in honor of the superintendent of the school, 1887-1924. A 2003 gubernatorial initiative to close the Fernald School (known as the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center since 1993) by 2007 was contested during the subsequent decade, until the institution was shut down permanently in Nov. 2014.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Contents: 1851-1879 1 volume . 1879-1899 1 volume 1890-1903 (folder of drafts, related notes). 1899-1910 1 volume (handwritten draft). 1899-1913 1 volume 1914-1925 1 volume 1925-1944 1 volume 1941 (bylaws in folder). 1944-1952 1 volume 1952-1961 1 volume 1961-1969 (folder). 1970-1977 1 volume
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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 by month
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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
Restrictions: Mental health client information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 123, s 36. For conditions of access consult repository
Notes: Transferred to Archives by Tewksbury Hospital, Tewksbury, Mass., Mar. 1999
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Scope and Content: The Massachusetts Hospital for Consumptives and Tubercular Patients was established in 1895 and opened at Rutland in 1898.  It was successively renamed the Massachusetts State Sanatorium in 1900, Rutland State Sanatorium in 1910, Rutland Hospital in 1963, and after the move to a new facility, Rutland Heights Hospital in 1965.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Transferred to Archives from Dept. of Public Health (Tuberculosis Control), 1984
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