A Challenged State Institution Evolves

A Challenged State Institution Evolves. From Tragedy to Transformation (1940s-1950s). In the early 1950s, major media exposed Crownsville Hospital's overcrowding, underfunding and understaffing. Concerns for patient welfare were answered from within the African American community. More Black staff members were hired and new initiatives reformed standards of patient care. Community and staff empowerment led to much-needed facility growth and improvement at Crownsville, including more modern medical and psychiatric services.

Crownsville was severely overcrowded following the Great Depression. Underfunding and chronic staff shortages resulted in horrific patient conditions during this period. In 1949, the Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Afro-American published detailed incidents of patient neglect and abuse.

Unrest followed in the wake of the worsening conditions, and at several points in the early 1950s patients rose up against "C" building staff in bours-long disturbances. The incidents sparked major newspaper coverage. In 1955, the Baltimore Afro American asked, "What Causes Crownsville Riots?" discussing the "complex factors that have combined to create a situation that in the space of two years has produced three major riots which had to be quelled by police." The violent uprisings and their coverage in the press underscored the need for radical transformation in the facility's resources, personnel and capacity.

The most important transformation came in the form of community activism and empowerment. The Black community became involved in the affairs of Crownsville as church groups and patient families gained access to the Hospital, bringing increased public accountability to the standard of patient care. The Crownville Auxiliary, founded in 1954 in collaboration with the NAACP, brought white and Black female volunteers to the campus where they supported - and observed - day to day activities. The group was also instrumental in diversifying Crownsville's mostly white staff and physicians.

Dr. Jacob Morgenstern (below, left), a Holocaust survivor, become Superintendent in 1947 and ushered in a new era of reform, integration, and humanity at Crownsville. In 1948, he hired the facility's first Black medical staff member, Vernon W. Sparks, as a staff psychologist. He also hired Gwendolyn Lee (obove, right) as Supervisor of the Social Services Department, which supported some 1,800 patients in 1949. Lee hired African Americans to staff the social services department, which during her tenure, was entirely Black.

(Captions):

1947 headlines from the Baltimore Afro-American alerted the Black community to the inhumane conditions and chronic understaffing at Crownsville Hospital.

Call for Auxiliary volunteers, 1959, Baltimore Afro-American

Gwendolyn Lee chatting with a staff member as some of Crownsville's Black nurses walk past patients at work, 1953.

Dr Jacob Morgenstern cuts the ribbon with staff members for the facility's new beauty parlour, 1949.