The Lady in the Asylum: Catherine Gilbride at Danville, Part II

Patient ledger showing that the Directors of the Poor Providence payed for Kate Gilbride's board and clothing in 1877.¹

by Nancy Gilbride Casey

In Part I of this series, I introduced Catherine Gilbride, my second great grandmother, who was institutionalized at Danville Asylum in 1876. I also looked at perceptions of "insanity" during the 19th century. Click here to read Part I.

 

Who Were the Directors of the Poor?

In looking for the answer to the question, "How did Catherine come to be sent to Danville?" two clues are found in her patient file: admission information and a financial ledger clearly label her supporters as the Directors of the Poor of Providence. Why such a body had the authority to commit her can be found in Pennsylvania laws of the time.

The committal process for many of the mentally ill was codified in Pennsylvania law in 1869:

Insane persons may be placed in a hospital for the insane by their legal
guardians, or by their relatives or friends in case they have or guardians, but
never without the certificate of two or more reputable physicians, after a
personal examination, made within one week of the date thereof, and this
certificate to be duly acknowledged and sworn to or affirmed before some
magistrate or judicial officer, who shall certify to the genuineness of the
signature and to the respectability of the signers.²

Catherine’s case, however, differed in one significant way—she was poor. An 1845 act made allowances for overseers of the poor to send their ill charges to state facilities for the insane:

The several constituted authorities having care and charge of the poor in the
respective counties, districts and townships of this Commonwealth, shall have
authority to send to the asylum such insane paupers under their charge as they
may deem proper subjects; and they shall be severally chargeable with the
expenses of the care, and maintenance, and removal to and from the asylum, of
such paupers. (Act April 14, 1845, section 12, P.L. 442.)³

 

The Directors of the Poor of Providence was formed in April 1862, and served four boroughs: Providence, Hyde Park, Dunmore and Scranton. Their purpose was to: 

…erect and keep in proper condition suitable buildings for the reception, use,
accommodation and employment of the poor of said boroughs and township,
and to provide all things necessary for the lodging, maintenance and
employment of the poor of said boroughs and township.

The Directors of the Poor of Providence served the Borough of Scranton, Dunmore, Providence and Hyde Park, shown here in an 1864 map. The boroughs were later consolidated into the city of Scranton.⁴

Directors had the authority to levy taxes to raise funds for their needs; to bind out poor children under their care, by indenture, whose parents were dead or unable to support them; and to have control over the property of inmates. They had the power to grant outdoor relief—an obsolete term that was applied to the aspects of welfare assistance outside an almshouse, orphanage, or similar institute for the care of the destitute—to those they deemed needy and worthy.⁵

The naming of the Directors of the Poor in Catherine’s Danville record indicates that Catherine and her husband Michael must have been receiving aid from them at the time of her committal, perhaps outdoor relief. By law, the Directors of the Poor then also had authority to send Catherine to Danville as they saw fit. During 1877, over a quarter of Danville admissions were authorized by overseers of the poor, including the Directors of the Poor of Providence.⁶

In Part III, I'll examine Catherine's diagnosis of "puerperal insanity."

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NOTES

"The Lady in the Asylum: Catherine Gilbride at Danville," was written as part of The Ancestor Project, sponsored by the Denton County Genealogical Society, 8 September 2022.

 

¹ Kate Gilbride patient ledger, Record Group 23: Records of the Department of Public Welfare, Danville State Hospital, Volume B, 1876-1880, page 383; photocopy supplied by Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg, PA to Nancy Gilbride Casey, Tioga, TX

² Board of Public Charities of Pennsylvania, Compilation of the Laws of Pennsylvania Relating to the Insane. (Harrisburg: B.F. Myers, 1875), 3; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/66540350R.nlm.nih.gov/page/n5/mode/1up?view=theater : accessed 15 March 2022).

³ Ibid, 34.

⁴ Captain David Schooley, Henry Francis Walling, Mcnair & Sturdevant, and Lacoe & Schooley. Map of the county of Luzerne, Pennsylvania. (New York: Published by Lacoe & Schooley, 1864.); image, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/2012590201/ : accessed 18 August 2022); citing Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C. In the public domain.

⁵ Col. Frederick L. Hitchcock, History of Scranton and Its People, Vol. 1 (New York : Lewis Historical Publishing Co, 1914), 155-158, "Provision for Scranton's Poor and Insane";' image, Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=qRMVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false : accessed 17 June 2022). Also: Oxford Reference, “Outdoor Relief,” https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100257407 : accessed 27 July 2022), citing Oxford University Press.

⁶ Pennsylvania, Board of Public Charities, Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of Public Charities of the State of Pennsylvania, to Which is Appended the Report of the General Agent and Secretary, Also, The Statistical Report (Harrisburg : Lane S. Hart, 1878); digital image, ForgottenBooks.com (https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/books/EightAnnualReportoftheBoardofCommissionersofPublicCharitiesoftheStateofPennsyl
va_10265446 : accessed 14 July 2022), 240.