St. Elizabeths Hospital

2700 Martin Luther King Jr., Ave., SE., Washington, District of Columbia

Photos

WEST (FRONT) FACADE

Photo taken for the Historic American Buildings Survey

Map

Coordinates:
+38.85021, -76.99415
38°51'01" N, 76°59'39" W

Quadrangle map:
Anacostia

Description

St. Elizabeths Hospital, founded in 1852, began operations in 1855 as the Government Hospital for the Insane, one of the nation's earliest asylums to offer moral treatment and enlightened human care to persons with mental illness. The first medical superintendent was Charles H. Nichols (1820-1889), who collaborated with the social reformer Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) to establish a model institution in the capital city. For more than a century, St. Elizabeths was internationally recognized as a leading clinical and training institution. During the Civil War, the property was also used to house wounded soldiers. A reluctance of the soldiers to write home stating that they were recuperating at the Government Hospital for the Insane gave rise to the use of the name St. Elizabeths, the historic name of the old royal land grant of which the campus was a part. Thereafter, the institution was informally referred to as St. Elizabeths for decades until the name was formally changed by Congress in 1916. -- National Historic Landmark statement of significance, December 14, 1990

National Register information

Status: Posted to the National Register of Historic Places on April 26, 1979
Reference number: 79003101
Architectural style: Victorian: Gothic
Areas of significance: Architecture; Health/Medicine; Social History
Level of significance: National
Evaluation criteria: B - Person; A - Event; C - Design/Construction
Property type: District
Historic functions: Hospital; Cemetery
Current function: Hospital
Periods of significance: 1850-1874; 1875-1899; 1900-1924; 1925-1949
Significant years: 1852; 1878; 1902
Number of properties: Contributing buildings: 128

Update Log

May 12, 2012: Imported photos from HABS/HAER

Sources

HABS DC-349-A - St. Elizabeths Hospital, B Building (No. 75)
HABS DC-349-B - St. Elizabeths Hospital, C Building (No. 73)
HABS DC-349-C - St. Elizabeths Hospital, I Building (No. 95)
HABS DC-349-D - St. Elizabeths Hospital, J Building (No. 60)
HABS DC-349-E - St. Elizabeths Hospital, K Building (No. 66)
HABS DC-349-F - St. Elizabeths Hospital, L Building (No. 64)
HABS DC-349-G - St. Elizabeths Hospital, M Building (No. 72)
HABS DC-349-H - St. Elizabeths Hospital, N Building (No. 94)
HABS DC-349-I - St. Elizabeths Hospital, P Building (No. 100)
HABS DC-349-J - St. Elizabeths Hospital, Q Building (No. 68)
HABS DC-349-K - St. Elizabeths Hospital, R Building (No. 89)
Wikipedia
National Register database - Reference number 79003101 (Search for documents)
National Historic Landmark information