Scope and Content: Westfield State Sanatorium, renamed Western Massachusetts Hospital in 1962, provided care and treatment of tuberculosis patients from its opening in 1910 until 1974.  Case files were kept by sanatorium medical staff to provide a medical history and treatment record for each patient.
Arrangement: Arranged by case no./chronologically
Restrictions: Public health hospital/clinic client information restricted 
Notes: Transferred to Archives, Aug.-Sept. 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 is created to oversee its departments and establish policy.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by subject
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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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Scope and Content: The Psychopathic Dept. of Boston State Hospital was established in 1912.  It became Boston Psychopathic Hospital in 1920; that was renamed Massachusetts Mental Health Center in 1956.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by patient.
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 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 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 G. 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 still in litigation as of 2013.
Arrangement:  Arranged chronologically
Notes: Formerly designated (when held in agency) as: (M-Ar)N154.
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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)
Notes: Contents: 1863-1887.  1888-1897.  1907-1908
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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.  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 Primary 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 as transmitted to the school superintendent.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by meeting date
Notes: Files for 1879, 1889-1890, 1892-1893 (some incomplete) only.  For a complete record see: Transcripts of votes of Trustees of the State Primary and Reform Schools, 1879-1895 ((M-Ar)901X)
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Scope and Content:  The State Prison was opened in 1805 at Charlestown, Boston, as a successor to the prison on Castle Island.  During 1878-1884 the prison was closed and inmates kept at Concord.  With that exception, Charlestown remained the state prison until replaced by Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Walpole, 1955-1956.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by prisoner, thereunder 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) –Under the provisions of St 1854, c 95, persons confined in a jail or house of correction who were diagnosed with mental illness could be removed to a lunatic hospital or other suitable location if ordered by the governor, with transport assigned to the county sheriff. St 1880, c 250 authorized the State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity to designate two persons to examine state prison and reformatory inmates alleged to be insane and report to the governor, who could issue warrants to prison superintendents or wardens for their transfer to state lunatic hospitals (state insane hospitals from 1898). St 1909, c 504, s 105 transferred power to issue warrants to the superior court in the county where the prison was located.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Spine title: Removals from prisons, etc. to lunatic hospitals
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