- Blockley Almshouse
The Blockley Almshouse, also known as Philadelphia General Hospital was a charity hospital and poorhouse located in
Philadelphia Pennsylvania .History
Built by the city in the former Blockley Township on land purchased from the
Andrew Hamilton estate in 1832, “Old Blockley” replaced the 1731Almshouse adjacent toPennsylvania Hospital at 10th and Pine Streets.Blockley was designed to house a variety of Philadelphia’s indigent population and consisted of quadrangle of four sizable buildings including a poorhouse, a hospital, an orphanage and an insane asylum. Its design is attributed to architects
Samuel Sloan and William StricklandOperated by a city committee known as the
Guardians of the Poor , Blockley’s early reputation for care was dismal. Its geographical isolation from city medical institutions limited clinical care until theUniversity of Pennsylvania , with its medical school, moved to a new site just north of the Almshouse grounds in 1871.As the latter 19th Century saw advancements in both medicine and psychiatry, Blockley’s mission gradually embraced that of a more conventional public hospital. Renamed Philadelphia General Hospital (PGH), a nursing school was opened at the site 1885 under the direction of
Alice Fisher , replacing ad hoc patient nurses with a system of skilled nursing. In 1903, operations of the hospital were turned over to the newly created Bureau of Hospitals in the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. In 1906, the insane were removed to the new hospital atByberry , later known as the Philadelphia State Hospital.In the next few decades, the original almshouse buildings were gradually replaced with modern facilities. By the 1950’s the site contained the city’s public hospital, as well as a nursing home and a home for the indigent.
In 1952, the new City Home Rule Charter placed the control of Philadelphia General Hospital with a Board of Trustees. Under contracts signed in 1959, care at PGH was carried out by the medical schools of
Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania who subcontracted work toJefferson Medical College ,Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania andHahnemann Medical School .By the early 1970s, public support including
Medicaid allowed private hospitals to expand treatment for the poor. Facing both financial difficulties as well as a stock of aging buildings, the board of PGH closed the hospital entirely in 1977.The site is occupied today by
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia , Children’s Seashore House and The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and represents a major center of medical research and care in Philadelphia.In 2001, more than 1,000 bodies associated with the Almshouse were recovered from an adjacent construction site and reburied in the nearby Woodlands Cemetery.
References
O’Donnell, Donna Gentile. "Provider of Last Resort: The Story of the Closure of the Philadelphia General Hospital". Camino Books, Philadelphia, 1995.
Bliss, Arthur Ames "Blockley days: Memories and Impressions of a Resident Physician 1883-1884". Publisher: 94 p.Printed for private circulation 1916
External links
* [http://www.phila.gov/health/history/parts/part_5.htm Philadelphia General Hospital]
* [http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/communityhousing/survey/22seeds.html West Philadelphia, Seeds of Urban Growth]
* [http://www.uchs.net/Rosenthal/blockley.html Blockley, The Memory Lingers On]
* [http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/20070507_Anatomys_graveyard.html Anatomys graveyard]
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