CA State Photographic Album 5

Metadata

Title

Alternative Title

Featuring Norwalk and Patton State Hospitals

Created Date

Circa 1930

Description

This album includes photographs, circa 1930, of Norwalk and Patton State Hospitals. Patton State Hospital opened in 1893 and was significant in that is was the first state psychiatric hospital built to serve Southern California. Patton still operates as a psychiatric hospital today, but the its original buildings were razed and modernized mostly in the 1950s. Norwalk State Hospital, still in operation and known today as Metropolitan State Hospital, opened in 1916. Norwalk was the second state psychiatric hospital built in Southern California. The photographs in this album show hospital buildings and the surrounding grounds and farms, circa 1930. The album shows the major buildings but may also include the only known images of many minor structures which may no longer exist today. The album also contains images of state-owned land and equipment and includes statistics about state properties such as information on construction, dates, dimensions, and additions. According to State Archivist J.N. Bowman in 1955, no other state had been found with such a complete series of pictures of its buildings within such a restricted time-period. Records of state hospitals in California are of high interest to researchers, and the time period that these particular records cover is significant because it is during the Great Depression, which caused an increase in the number of patients committed to the psychiatric hospitals.

Creators and Contributors

Creator: California. Department of Finance

Subject Topic

Metropolitan State Hospital (Norwalk, Calif.)
Depressions--1929--California
Psychiatric hospitals

Subject Entity

Patton State Hospital (Patton, Calif.)

Spatial Coverage

California
Norwalk (Calif.)
Patton (Calif.)

Temporal Coverage

1930 1929 to 1941