Agriculture

Colony farm. A remarkable souvenir photo album depicting the Progressive Era movement towards treating mental health patients through occupational therapy working the large newly opened Colony Farm on 1000 acres next to the Essondale Provincial Hospital for the Insane later Riverview Hospital.

1912 · 59399 — Vancouver Coquitlam Sumiqwuelu B.C.: Essondale Hospital for the Mind Colony Farm W.J. Moore Photographer 1912. Oblong 8vo. 7.5 x 5.75 in. 50 leaves unnumbered. on thick black paper stock. Printed mounted title in gilt & black on black with 49 silver gelatin photographs sized 4 x 6 in. mounted each leaf w/ printed text below in gilt on gray slips. Contemporary flexible textured calf Heinn Co. binding minor rubbing shelfwear still an excellent exemplar. This exceptional souvenir photo album visually documents the efforts of the British Columbia government to relieve the overcrowding at the Provincial Hospital for the Insane in New Westminster in the first decade of the 20th Century. In 1904 after appropriating 1000 acres of the traditional lands of the Kwiketlem First Nation peoples Dr. Charles Doherty focused on clearing over 180 hecatres of the flood plain constructing dikes building state-of-the-art farm buildings to provide purpose therapeutic occupational training and food for the new hospital which would later become Riverview. The Progressive Era movement to reform treatment of the mentally ill was to not only free them from deplorable asylum conditions which reformers such as Julia Lathrop Adolf Meyer and Eleanor Clark Slagle believed only increased otherwise curable mental illnesses but also provide training to gain employment upon discharge from the hospital. Doherty insisted on paying the patients a small salary to work and live at the farm and the Holstein herd which began with 22 cows in 1910 grew swiftly after importing 50 more from New York and Carnation Farms of Seattle so that that by the end of 1912 the farm was producing nearly 50000 gallons of milk with prize cows capturing top prizes at local farm exhibitions. The photographs open with shot of the gate to Colony Farm cottages and dining halls for patients barns and milking stations stables hay barn water tower silos corrals pumping station and dairy facilities. In addition there are several photos showing land clearing burgeoning silage corn fields nurseries horse-drawn seeding cutting hay oats and steam threshing.The final photo shows the initial reinforced concrete Essondale Hospital with red brick facades in the final stages of construction and would open later in 1913. One of the photos includes an office calendar dated November 1912 while two others show the visit of Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught 1850-1942 the first Governor General of Canada to be a member of the British Royal Family and his wife Princess Louise to the successful Colony Farm Sept. 11 1912. The Colony farm was expanded in 1918 by another 700 acres and would continue to thrive through World War II. Unfortunately in 1946 a series of arson fires destroyed most of the documents of the dairy operation and Colony Farm and eventually due to budgetary pressures the farm closed in 1983. The halcyon intentions of Manchester and Doherty would later be undone during the 20th Century as budgetary restraints prevented expansion or proper treatments so that by 1956 the Essondale Hospital was housing 4306 patients and 2200 staff members in buildings designed for 1800 patients. In addition medical practices of the time ranged from electroshock therapy and forced sterilization and would eventually be closed in 1992 as the de-institutionalization movement gained favor. Moore 1887-1963 launched his photographic career with Byron Harmon in Banff Alberta and by 1912 was established in Vancouver specializing in panoramic photographs after 1913 and later forming a partnership with Wilfred F. McConnell buying the Canadian Photo Co. He retired from the firm in 1953. We could find no similar souvenir albums in institutional holdings but some are retained as part of the Riverview Hospital Historical Society Collection Glass Plate Negatives Coquitlam Archives 2022; Sam Wiebe How a Century-Old Vancouver Mental Hospital Became a Film Industry Hot Spot Montecristo Magazine 2021; History of Colony Farm Colony Farm Community Gardens 2022. Essondale Hospital for the Mind], Colony Farm, W.J. Moore, [Photographer], unknown