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By: Robert Olguin
South Carolina’s governor Richard I. Manning remarked in 1915 upon the deteriorating conditions of South Carolina’s Asylum expressing his concern that “in their present physical condition many of the buildings are not fit for human beings to be housed in, and immediate repairs should be made.”[1] In fact, Manning expressed further concern that the poor sanitary conditions in the existing kitchen and dining rooms attributed to the despicable conditions throughout the Asylum. As essential to the Asylum’s function and operation, the wretched state of the dining rooms and kitchen in 1915 embodied the need for additional construction of facilities within the Asylum to dramatically improve conditions. It is curious, then, how sixty years earlier the Asylum’s Board of Regents commissioned a brand new facility in order to expand the existing campus to address similar problems. Tracing the previous ideology and intention of the architects and Board of Regents in 1857 may then, answer the question of why the Board of Regents commissioned a new extant dining room and kitchen in 1916.
In 1857, as the asylum grounds expanded and the Old Asylum building became overcrowded, the Board decided to construct a New Asylum to help update and renovate the existing conditions. Following the Kirkbride plan, George E. Walker orchestrated a new complex that would become the center and pride of Columbia’s asylum grounds. This new architectural plan, which dominated nineteenth century way of thinking, intended to update South Carolina’s Asylum in a manner reflecting the new ideas and philosophies regarding moral treatment. Some of these philosophies included, developing regimented schedules for the patients, abundant air circulation within the rooms of the building, and requiring occupational tasks for each patient.[2] In theory, prescribing to these ideas and methodologies significantly improved patient’s health and through Kirkbride’s plan, the purpose built rooms and structures created the environment in which this could happen.[3]
Within Thomas Kirkbride’s plan, the “V” shaped building generally had three floors segregated by sex with the center of the structure commonly housing the kitchen and bakery. In each individual wing, Kirkbride placed parlors, bathrooms, and even a dining hall to cater to every patient in that wing.[4] The idea, in regard to food consumption and preparation, was that a central kitchen, located in the center of the complex, cooked all the food and then delivered it to each ward’s dining rooms. With regard to South Carolina’s Insane Asylum, Walker envisioned the use of dumb waiters to distribute food to these dining rooms. Walker provided access in his original kitchen to a basement where employees would be able to wheel food to dumb waiters, which would then transport the meals to the dining rooms. This system of food distribution throughout the campus lasted for over fifty years until the campus’ population became over populated and the kitchen facilities no longer could adequately prepare and distribute food in a timely and efficient manner.
On May 11, 1915, the Board of Regents voted to extend a contract to George E. Lafaye to serve as head architect for the Hospital. The biggest reason the Board offered Lafaye a contract stemmed from his previous interaction with them. In 1909, Lafaye working in the firm of Shand & Lafaye, helped produce a detailed report examining the entire asylum campus to determine the present condition of every building.[5] This report, included in the Legislative Investigating Committee of 1909, spurred the Board to finance and approve additional construction and repairs of buildings.[6] Within this report, Lafaye assessed the present kitchen and dining room system citing the system’s inadequacy, arguing instead for the construction of a centralized kitchen with adjacent dining rooms to limit food waste, financial loss, and improved health.[7] Sanitary conditions were an additional concern as the report explained the existing main kitchen had holes in the screened windows constantly letting in flies and made frequent remarks about the cleanliness of the New Asylum’s dining rooms.[8] The major problems, as Lafaye explains in the report, revolve around the slow process of distributing food via dumb waiters to the numerous dining halls within the New Asylum, which ultimately take time and often cause the food to be served cold leading to waste, financial loss, and potential food borne illness.[9] In fact, a leading expert on welfare visited the Asylum during the investigation and reported “that the food was unappealing and insufficient in amount. The regular menu was starchy and monotonous, with a heavy concentration on hominy, corn bread, and bacon.”[10] Unfortunately, it took six years and the urging of South Carolina’s governor for the recommendations of this report to even be considered.
In a report to the Board of Regents on January 1915, the governor of South Carolina, Richard I. Manning, criticized the conditions of the South Carolina Insane Asylum, stating, “the institution does not in any way conform to the standards existing in a modern hospital for the insane.”[11]Manning largely reiterated Lafaye’s initial concerns and insisted the Board immediately act upon the Legislative Report’s recommendations and explained the Board had the Governor’s full support in the renovations. In fact, right before several of the Board members, including Manning, toured the Asylum’s campus to reinforce and consider the details of the legislative report.[12]
From their visit and the Governor’s message, the President of the Board of Regents called a special session twelve days later “for the purpose of allowing the Regents to discuss among themselves the most urgent needs of this Hospital for this year.”[13] Attributing the negligence of the Asylum’s conditions to a lack of information, the Board immediately allocated funds to renovate and repair the faltering conditions at the asylum.[14] Since health and sanitary conditions were a primary concern, the addition of a new kitchen and dining rooms were high on the Board’s list of renovations and these buildings received immediate appropriations of funds.[15] The Asylum buildings also could no longer contain all the patients, as every building was rather overcrowded.[16] These appropriations allowed Lafaye and his subsequent firm the opportunity to design and build facilities on the campus over the next sixty years.[17]
The first wave of renovation Lafaye orchestrated included remodeling the existing kitchen in the Administration Building and building male and female dining rooms adjacent to the kitchen.[18] The first step in this process required Lafaye to reorganize the composition of the east end of the Administration Building. Before the construction started, the section of the Main Building, which would soon become the kitchen storeroom, housed three floors and a basement. Numerous rooms and offices permeated each of these floors, including dining halls, a pharmacy, medical office, male attendant’s sitting room, and many more. Located on the east wall of the first floor was the Administration Building’s kitchen and storeroom. Within Lafaye’s plans, this area of the Main Building was to be completely renovated including increasing the height of the ceilings to twenty feet by removing that portion’s second floor. This area thus became the new kitchen storeroom and a separate kitchen was to be built East of the end of the Main Building.[19] The third floor of this section remained and was converted into dormitories for male employees.[20]
For an illustration of the new kitchen and the level of detail and attention Lafaye paid to his work, Lafaye’s architectural report recounts the kitchen’s original contents and materials.
“The main kitchen will have a red quarry tile floor and will be wainscoted with white titles to the sills of the windows. The walls are smoothly plastered and enameled. The kitchen will be equipped with an entire new equipment which has been especially planned to serve this institution. The large steam kettles are arranged in the center of the room so that they can be easily ventilated and cleaned. Over these kettles and the range is a large ventilating hood connected to a brick stack. All the tables and sinks are of polished steel.”[21]
All of these materials and the cost of labor resulted in sum of $33,770.70.[22]
Fifty feet to the north of the kitchen, Lafaye constructed the women’s congregate dining room, which was connected to the kitchen by a covered passageway. Finished and first occupied in 1916, this one story brick building had exposed steel trusses on the high ceilings, a slate roof, plastered and painted interior walls, and a concrete floor, all amassing a sum of $20,018.70.[23] The maximum occupancy peaked at 600 people and had three interior rooms within the main dining hall, the dining area, a scullery and serving room, and a room for the white women nurses. About seventy-five tables fit into the main dining area with each table accommodating eight patients. Extending from the dining room’s south entranceway was a covering that connected the dining hall directly to the kitchen.[24]
Directly opposite of the female dining hall and on the south side of the kitchen, Lafaye constructed the male congregate dining hall. While the building entertained the same materials and furnishings of the female hall, the male dining room was smaller with a maximum occupancy of five hundred patients and only costing $19,910.50.[25]
As time wore on and the hospital grounds further expanded, the patient population increased and the 1915 and 1916 kitchen and dining rooms no longer could sustain the entire campus. With the addition of buildings such as Ensor, Williams, or the Maximum Security Buildings, Lafaye’s firm had to rethink the distribution of food, which they began to do by incorporating dining halls and kitchens in the aforementioned buildings. Further, with the construction of the Food Services building in 1954, the significance and importance of the 1915 kitchen became obsolete as the roughly 400ft wide distribution center cooked and sent food across the campus and even to the segregated campus at State Park.[26] In fact, because of this new redistribution and the generic term of dining rooms and kitchens, it is hard to determine the exact deinstitutionalization of the kitchen and dining rooms behind the Babcock building.[27] However, according to an interview conducted by Kim Campbell on March 26, 2014 with Mike Mefford, a former employee of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, Mefford recalled the dining halls operated for patients until the Babcock Building was shut down in 1989 or 1990. These buildings, then, remained in function until either 2000 or 2001 as hospital supply storage. This unfortunately is the only account that speaks to the deinstitutionalization of the Kitchen and Dining Rooms.
Since the deinstitutionalization, the kitchen and dining rooms have remained unmaintained and neglected. While this mainly is attributed to the closure of the entire facilities, the question arises of what to do with these three buildings? Most recently, a new developer, Bob Hughes, purchased the property with ideas to add housing, shopping, and even a minor league baseball stadium on the campus grounds. So, what does this mean for the kitchen and dining rooms? How do these abandoned buildings fit into the future narrative of the Bull Street campus? Are they worth preserving or should they be demolished to resell their materials?
To formulate a response regarding these challenging questions and the preservation of these institutional building’s, one must consider “tangible architectural elements of a property that convey its significance, because of its association with specific events or persons, or that recall a significant point in history, or that represent the work of a particular craftsman or architect.”[28] In addition, one must first analyze the uniqueness of the buildings themselves. In this situation, these three buildings do not offer much in terms of individual significance, other than they provided communal areas with which patients could “socialize” and receive sustenance and nutrition. In fact, these dining halls and kitchen did not significantly differ from other dining rooms or kitchens as the architectural plans demonstrate.[29] This narrow focus and attention simply on the three buildings provides no incentive to advocate the preservation of these buildings. However, once one connects the buildings to the larger context of the area, then, one understands their significance.
As mentioned above, the dining rooms and kitchen only constituted part of the improvements and construction of the campus between 1909-1920. Therefore, one cannot isolate these three buildings because they are integral to a larger narrative of the campus. For example, it would not make sense to preserve the kitchen without the bakery, since the two worked in tandem to supply food across the campus. As Anthony King explains, “buildings are essentially social and cultural products. Space is socially produced.”[30] A building by itself is simply a structure with walls and a roof, it is how the institution envisions and utilizes the structure that generates the building’s significance. Unfortunately, it is often the case regarding properties the size of Bull Street to partition sections of the property without regard to how the buildings interacted with one another when the area is redeveloped. Any change to the once intentional layout of the property significantly alters the historical understanding of the previous area’s function. This means that in order to preserve the dining halls and kitchen, one must preserve the entirety of the Babcock Building, Icehouse, and Bakery. While this is not impossible to do, the likelihood of the kitchen and dining halls preservation is minimal, as the large expense and scale of saving all of those buildings will be the leading factor in promoting their demolition.
[1] “Governor Manning’s Report, January 1915,” Box 1, Series S190080, South Carolina State Hospital for Insane (Columbia, S.C.), Folder: Governor Richard Manning’s special message on the State Hospital for the Insane to the General Assembly and a 1915 report to the Governor, 1915-1916, South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
[2] A short anecdote illustrating the health benefits of occupational work for patients can be found in “Message of Richard I. Manning, Governor to the General Assembly of South Carolina,” Box 1, Series S190080, South Carolina State Hospital for Insane (Columbia, S.C.), Folder: Governor Richard Manning’s special message on the State Hospital for the Insane to the General Assembly and a 1915 report to the Governor, 1915-1916. Another interesting connection is Lafaye and Mr. Sirrine (member of the Board) are quoted in the minutes of a Board meeting explaining, “it will be to the best interest of the State and to save money, to do the proposed work on the buildings etc. by day labor, using as many patients as possible with our own Superintendent in charge and not by contract.” “Board of Regents Minutes, June 10, 1915,” Box 6, Series S190001, Mental Health Commission, Minutes of the Mental Health Commission, (Board of Regents, State Hospital for the Insane), Sept. 8, 1910-Dec. 9, 1915, South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
[3]Carla Yanni, The Architecture of Madness Insane Asylums in the United States: Architecture, Landscape, and American Culture, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 38.
[4]Christopher Payne, Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals, (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2009), 10.
[5] Nineteenth Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, for the year 1914, Box 2, Series S190002, Mental Health Commission Annual Reports of the South Carolina Department of Mental Health, 1905-1958, South Carolina Department of Archives and History. Any additionally cited Annual Reports may be found in this same repository.
[6] For a more extensive account of the 1909 report, see Peter McCandless, Moonlight, Magnolias, & Madness: Insanity in South Carolina from the Colonial to the Progressive Eras, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).
[7] The Board of Regents affirms this sentiment in their yearly report. Ninety-Second Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1915.
[8] This account also claims that a head cook from the main kitchen “died of tuberculosis shortly after leaving the hospital.” Peter McCandless, Moonlight, Magnolias, & Madness: Insanity in South Carolina from the Colonial to the Progressive Eras, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 281.
[9] Twentieth Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, for the year 1915.
[10]Peter McCandless, Moonlight, Magnolias, & Madness: Insanity in South Carolina from the Colonial to the Progressive Eras, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 281. Another interesting aspect of this is the correlation of poor nutrition to Babcock’s study of Pellagra.
[11] Governor Manning’s Report, January 1915.
[12] Governor Manning’s Report, January 1915.
[13] “Board of Regents Minutes, Special Session, January 26, 1916,” Box 6, Series S190001, Mental Health Commission, Minutes of the Mental Health Commission, (Board of Regents, State Hospital for the Insane), Sept. 8, 1910-Dec. 9, 1915, South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
[14] “Statement of the Board of Regents, State Hospital for the Insane, Read Before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, February 9, 1915,” Box 1, Series S190080, South Carolina State Hospital for Insane (Columbia, S.C.), Folder: Governor Richard Manning’s special message on the State Hospital for the Insane to the General Assembly and a 1915 report to the Governor, 1915-1916, South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
[15] The General Assembly decided in 1916 to set aside $600,000.00 that would be distributed over four years in $150,000.00 increments. Ninety-Third Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1916.
[16] For perspective regarding the overcrowded conditions, the total population in 1914 was 2,738. According to Christopher Payne, Kirkbride plan’s initial maximum patient occupancy capped at 250 patients, increasing to 600 after 1860 due to a ruling by the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane. This means that before Lafaye built the new dining rooms, the existing dining rooms in Babcock reached capacity at 600 patients. In fact, by 1916, the population further increased to 2,886. Payne, 10, and Ninety-Third Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1916.
[17] “Board of Regents Minutes, State Hospital for the Insane, Columbia S.C, May 11, 1915,” Box 6, Series S190001, Mental Health Commission, Minutes of the Mental Health Commission, (Board of Regents, State Hospital for the Insane), Sept. 8, 1910-Dec. 9, 1915, South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
[18] It is important to note that these three buildings are only a small fragment of Lafaye’s early construction as he also built a bakery, icehouse, and dairy barn.
[19] Interestingly this was the first direct alteration of Kirkbride’s plan since Lafaye found the only way to appease the overcrowding conditions was to build a separate central unit that would be large enough to contain a large population of the campus. To not alter the architectural aesthetic, Lafaye planned the new construction to extend East of the center of the Main building.
[20] Ninety-Third Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1916.
[21] Ninety-Second Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1915.
[22] Ninety-Fifth Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1918. For an additional breakdown of prices, particularly proposed contracts for building materials, see: “Minutes, State Hospital for the Insane, Sept, 20, 1915,” Box 6, Series S190001, Mental Health Commission, Minutes of the Mental Health Commission, (Board of Regents, State Hospital for the Insane), Sept. 8, 1910-Dec. 9, 1915, South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
[23] Ninety-Fifth Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1918.
[24] Ninety-Third Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1916.
[25] Ninety-Fifth Annual Report of the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane, For the Year 1918.
[26] This width is a rough calculation through the use of Google Maps and their bar scale.
[27] An example of the problems in determining the accurate reference to the 1915 kitchen and dining rooms is the construction project file SC-87. Within this document, it details the alterations of the kitchen on March 17, 1950. The problem, however, it does not clarify which kitchen. [Contract between South Carolina State Hospital Columbia, Richland County, S.C., Project No,: SC-87 – Kitchen Alterations], South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
[28] H. Ward Jandl, “The Challenge of Adapting Historic Institutional Buildings to New Uses” in Changing Places: Remaking Institutional Buildings, eds.,Lynda H. Schneekloth, Marcia F. Feuerstein, and Barbara A. Campagna (Fredonia, N.Y: White Pine Press, 1992), 214.
[29] See the Lafaye Architectural Plans for the Main Building, Women’s Dining Room, Men’s Dining Room, and Kitchen in, Commission No. A-153, Lafaye Associates Records, 1902-1981, University of South Carolina, South Caroliniana Library.
[30] Anthony King, “Building Institutionally Significant Histories: On Understanding the Adaptive Reuse of Buildings” in Changing Places: Remaking Institutional Buildings, eds.,Lynda H. Schneekloth, Marcia F. Feuerstein, and Barbara A. Campagna (Fredonia, N.Y: White Pine Press, 1992), 129.