About This Collection
The origins of the department began with the 1869 creation of the Board of Public Charities, charged with inspection of all charitable, penal, and correctional institutions in the Commonwealth. A Committee on Lunacy, established by the Board in 1883, examined places specifically for the confinement of the insane. In 1921, the Board was abolished, and the Department of Public Welfare was created in its place to coordinate and administer welfare programs. In 1923, the name of the Department of Public Welfare was changed to the Department of Welfare. A State Emergency Relief Board, established as part of the Department of Welfare in 1932, handled unemployment work relief as a result of the Great Depression. In 1937, the Department of Public Assistance was created to centralize relief programs. The State Emergency Relief Board was therefore abolished and its powers and duties, along with those of the Welfare Department's Bureau of Assistance, transferred to this new agency. Public Assistance also administered the State Board of Public Assistance and the County Boards of Assistance. It was also one of the first three state agencies to implement a merit system for employee hiring (the others being the Liquor Control Board and the Department of Labor and Industry). More on that process can be found among the records of the Civil Service Commission (RG/003). Supervision over penal and correctional institutions was transferred in 1953 from the Department of Welfare’s Bureau of Penal Affairs to the Department of Justice (RG/015) and later to the Department of Corrections (RG/058). The Departments of Public Assistance and Welfare merged in 1958 to form the Department of Public Welfare. In 2014, the Department’s name changed to the Department of Human Services. As the primary state agency concerned with the social welfare and financial needs of the citizens of the Commonwealth, the Department administers a wide range of services including: public assistance, medical assistance, aid to the handicapped, mental health and retardation programs and institutions, and the licensing and inspection of nursing homes, day-care centers and hospitals. The Western Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in Pittsburgh in 1848 as a general hospital that treated all types of illnesses and became the first institution in western Pennsylvania to offer treatment for the insane. When the Insane Department of the Western Pennsylvania Hospital was moved to a new building in Kilbuck Township outside of Pittsburgh in 1862 it was renamed the Western Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane at Dixmont to honor the memory of Dorothea Dix, an advocate for reforming the treatment of mental patients. The Dixmont Hospital was legally separated from the Western Pennsylvania Hospital in 1907 when it was individually incorporated as the Dixmont Hospital for the Insane. Supported by private contributions since 1852, it was primarily state appropriations that enabled the hospital to expand its facilities and care for an increasing number of mentally ill persons over the first nine decades of its existence. Despite receiving state appropriations, it nonetheless continued to operate as a private corporation until 1945 when it was taken over by the Department of Public Welfare. From that date, it operated under the name Dixmont State Hospital until it closed in July 1984. This collection contains records, arranged chronologically by admission date, in multiple volumes. Each volume contains an index which alphabetically lists each patient by surname with record books of personal property belonging to patients in the care of the Western Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane at Dixmont. Information provided includes the patient's name and race, date of admission and a list of the items in his or her possession, the dates and a list of additional items acquired during the patient's stay, and notes revealing from where the additional items were obtained and where they were stored. Also included are receipts for items that were placed in the safe or were transferred to another institution. Disclaimer: The Pennsylvania State Archives provides digital access to a wide variety of historical documents, some of which may be considered offensive by current standards. The Archives does not endorse views expressed in these historical collections, but presents these collections to aid in scholarly research.
