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At the turn of the nineteenth century the treatment of those deemed lunatics, paupers, or insane shifted away from a form of custodial care that relied heavily on the use of restraints and physical punishment. Instead, European reformists like William Tuke and Samuel Pinel began “releasing madmen from their chains,” and advocated for traitement moral, or moral treatment.[1] As moral treatment spread to the United States a new architectural form began to dot the landscape. In December 1821, after much lobbying from representatives Samuel Farrow and William Crafts, and other pro-reformists, the South Carolina State Legislature passed an act authorizing “the erection of suitable buildings for a Lunatic Asylum, and a school for the Deaf and Dumb.”[2] Robert Mills, then the State Architect and Engineer, designed a stately, curative mental hospital that has undoubtedly contributed the history a particular architectural form: the asylum.
In July 1822 the cornerstone was laid for the Greek Revival brick building.[3] Mills’ plans incorporated a central structure, flanked by several wings with single-loaded corridors to allow for proper ventilation and movement of the patients, essential for a curative environment. The structure, completed in 1827, was laid in Flemish brickbond, a pattern that was both popular for the period and strong enough to support the towering walls. Additionally, like other buildings Mills designed during this period, the use of brick helped to alleviate concerns about fire safety. The finished façade is also representative of Mills’ work: a Greek Revival, temple-front, with Doric columns supporting a triangular pediment. The monumentality of this stately structure not only defined its function as a state entity, but also identified with high-class individuals that the asylum sought to attract.[4] Additionally, Mills’ designs called for separated courtyard gardens for male and female patients, and rooftop gardens for both visitors and patients. The original Lunatic Asylum, with its gardens, south-facing patient rooms, open corridors, and hidden room locks, was designed to create a calming and comfortable environment, capable of curing the mentally ill.
While Robert Mills designed the Lunatic Asylum, the Lunatic Asylum’s Board of Regents contracted several other men to carry out the construction of the hospital, a wall, and several outbuildings. From 1828 to 1829 the Regents made several contracts with William Gray, a brickmason, for the construction of the asylum and the twelve-foot-high brick wall that enclosed it.[5] In 1830, the first of what later became a conglomerate of outbuildings were constructed in the south yard of the Asylum. The Regents contracted Thomas Davis and Thomas Wade for the brickwork and carpentry associated with the construction of a storeroom and a smokehouse.[6] These two outbuildings are the first signal that Mills’ plans were not going to be sufficient in accommodating the needs of the Asylum.
As the number of patients admitted to the asylum grew in the 1830s, the Regents requested several alterations to the site. While two wings were constructions in 1838, the Asylum again found itself with limited space due to an act passed in 1842 requiring all South Carolina districts to send their paupers to the state asylum.[7] Consequently, in 1844 two additional wings were constructed to alleviate overcrowding. In 1848, the state legislature passed an act authorizing the “admission of Persons of Color into the Lunatic Asylum.”[8] While the Asylum admitted few African American patients until the end of the Civil War, Southern ideology about racial difference and segregation dictated the nature and orientation of the built environment of the Lunatic Asylum through the twentieth century. [9]
Although the Regents tried to alleviate overcrowding with additions and the construction of temporary wards, ultimately the site of the original Lunatic Asylum did not provide enough space to house the growing patient population. Construction of the “New Asylum,” later known as the Babcock Building, initiated the movement of patients from the “Old Asylum” into new wards separated by gender and race.[10] Male patients were the first to be moved out of the old building into the new wards. From approximately 1858 to 1907 the Old Asylum functioned as a female ward. As Babcock expanded, white female patients were slowly moved into the new wards and by 1907 all white females were moved out of the old building.[11] Until 1937, the Old Asylum functioned as a ward for African-American female patients, at which time all African-American patients were moved to State Park, a satellite for the care of African Americans in the segregated South Carolina.[12] Not only did this separation of patients signal a momentous change in the history of the South Carolina State Hospital, but also a significant transformation for the Mills Building.
For nearly a century the Old Asylum functioned as a patient ward. Between 1937 and 1939 the building underwent renovations, changing the asylum, which became known as the Mills Building by the 1950s, into a residence for white nurses.[13] This transformation of the building is representative of ongoing changes in mental health care at the turn of the twentieth century. At the same time the Asylum, renamed the South Carolina State Hospital in 1919, converted from a congregate system, in which patients were housed in one building, to a segregate system or cottage plan that separated patients into smaller housing units.[14] The Mills Building did not offer acceptable accommodations for patients based on this new system of care.[15] Changes in mental health care occurred again in the mid-twentieth century, when the State Hospital underwent deinstitutionalization, which removed patients from the central state institution and placed them into specialized community centers. The decentralization of care no longer required a centralized nurses’ residence and by 1975, the Department of Mental Health vacated the Mills Building.[16]
For nearly twelve years the Mills Building stood vacant. Between 1983 and 1987 a redevelopment team consisting of Keenan Company and Mashburn Construction worked to rehabilitate the building to make it suitable for reuse.[17] Since the Mills Building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the project was eligible for National Park Service tax credits. While the work on the original Mills Building was approved, the National Park Service did not approve the original design for a modern addition to the south elevation. While the evolution of the design process is unclear, the developers ultimately abandoned their original design, which situated the addition in the south courtyard, blocking the view of the south elevation. Instead, the Mills Annex was constructed in the southeast corner of the lot, attached to the east wing on its south elevation by a modern hyphen.[18] Upon completion of the rehabilitation work, the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) moved into the building, under a “lease-back” agreement made with the developers. DHEC rented the building and the addition for a period of twenty years, at which time the state would regain ownership of the property.[19] Finally, in 1992, the Mills Annex was renamed the Michael D. Jarrett Building, in commemoration of the South Carolina Commissioner of Public Health.[20]
The history of the Mills Building (formerly known as the Lunatic Asylum and the Old Asylum) is a long and complex history. From its inception the building was designed for a particular function, with much attention to detail. The fact that the building housed multiple functions, similar and different to its original purpose, and that it continues to serve the purpose of its current owners, demonstrates that this building is not dead yet. While the Mills Building is not included in Bob Hughes’ redevelopment project, it is not unforeseeable that the DHEC will one day cease to use the building, especially in light of what will soon develop around them. Therefore, it is not unnecessary to think about how the building can be reused.
Currently, the Mills Building houses the offices of DHEC employees. It serves this role well, and therefore, could be reused again as office space for a single or multiple companies. Additionally, rooms on the ground and main floors are ideal for meeting spaces and small events. Another possible use of the building is to turn it into a museum and community center. This building could certainly accommodate museum galleries on the ground and main floors to exhibit the history of mental health care, the architectural history of South Carolina and Columbia, or the institutional history of South Carolina, with office space on the remaining floors.[21] Since Hughes’ preliminary plans for the site are determined to create a new center of activity for the city, a public use for the building is ideal, and would symbolize the culmination of the trajectory of the hospital from a building meant to confine and separate a group of people from society to the “open-door policy” of the 1960s.[22] Future developers, the City of Columbia, and the State of South Carolina would do well to consider the role of the Mills Building in the history of mental health care, architecture, Columbia, and the state.
[1] Carla Yanni, The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 24.
[2] South Carolina State Legislature, December 1821; Peter McCandless, Moonlight, Magnolias, and Madness: Insanity in South Carolina from the Colonial Period to the Progressive Era, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 41-46.
[3] “Lunatic Asylum, Columbia, SC.” Charleston Courier (Charleston, SC), Feb. 19, 1824.
[4] Yanni, Architecture of Madness, 20; McCandless, Moonlight, Magnolias, and Madness, 58.
[5] South Carolina Lunatic Asylum Board of Regents, in report by Inez Fripp, October 1932, Administrative, Correspondence, and Speech Files of the Director, ca. 1919-2001, Buildings File, Box 2A B-C, Series 190018, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC.
[6] South Carolina Lunatic Asylum Board of Regents, in report by Inez Fripp, October 1932, Administrative, Correspondence, and Speech Files of the Director, ca. 1919-2001, Buildings File, Box 2A B-C, Series 190018, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC.
[7] South Carolina Lunatic Asylum Board of the Regents, “Report of the Regents of the Lunatic Asylum to the Legislature of South Carolina: 1842,” Box 1, Series 190002, Mental Health Commission Annual Reports of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health 1838-1903.
[8] South Carolina Lunatic Asylum Board of Regents, “Report of the Regents of the Lunatic Asylum to the Legislature of South Carolina: November 1848,” Box 1, Series 190002, Mental Health Commission Annual Reports of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health 1838-1903.
[9] Primary sources hinting at racial ideology and architectural segregation at the Asylum before the Civil War see, “Notice for Contractors.” Charleston Courier (Charleston, SC), Mar. 9, 1849; Department of Mental Health Historical Research Files c. 1900-1999, Box 1, Series 190093, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC.
[10] Babcock was constructed in several building campaigns from the 1857-1885. For More see page on Babcock.
[11] “Eighty-fifth Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1908,” Box 2, Series 190002, Mental Health Commission Annual Reports of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health 1838-1903.
[12] “Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital, For the Year 1937,” Box 2, Series 190002, Mental Health Commission Annual Reports of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health 1838-1903.
[13] McPherson Company, “Report for the South Carolina State Hospital;” “Hospital Area Columbia,” facilities map of South Carolina State Hospital, Columbia, SC September 1941. Dates for the renaming of the “Old Asylum” to the Mills Building are based off of Leila Johnsons 1930 dissertation and an 1949 architectural survey and rehabilitation report of the SC State Hospital. Leila Johnson, “A History of the South Carolina State Hospital,” Phd Diss, University of Chicago, 1930. The McPherson Company, “Report for the South Carolina State Hospital, Columbia, SC, April 12, 1949,” Architectural report, Columbia, SC 1949.
[14] Yanni, Architecture of Madness, 51, 79.
[15] In the 1890s the Regents change the name from the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum to the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, symbolizing changing treatment ideals. Additionally, in 1919 the board moved “insane” from the name of the hospital altogether, removing the stigma associated with early mental health care.
[16] “Renovation at State Hospital Reveals Hidden Treasure” The State, Columbia, SC, Mar. 1987.
[17] “Renovation at State Hospital Reveals Hidden Treasure” The State, Columbia, SC, Mar. 1987.
[18] Folder 2100 Bull Street (Robert Mills Bldg, Additional Files), Container 22, Series 108080 Dept. of Archives and History State Historic Preservation Office Federal Rehabilitation Tax Incentive Program Files and Photographs 1978-2000, Richland County, Columbia
[19] “Renovation at State Hospital Reveals Hidden Treasure” The State, Columbia, SC, Mar. 1987.
[20] Scrapbooks and Agency History Files, Department of Health and Environmental Control, Container 1, Series 169075, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, SC.
[21] See Richardson-Olmstead Complex redevelopment plan in Buffalo, NY, for example, http://www.richardson-olmsted.com/index.php.
[22] “One Hundred and Fortieth Annual Report, South Carolina State Hospital, For the Year Ending June 30,1963,” Box 1, Series 190093, State Dept. of Mental Health, Division of Education and Research, Historical Research Files, ca. 1900-1999.