New York State Governor Monthly Reports and Minutes of Meetings of Boards of Managers of State Institutions

Alphabetical by name of institution, then chronological.

The 1896 Insanity Law (Chapter 545) and State Charities Law (Chapter 546), as amended in 1902 (Chapter 26), 1903 (Chapter 473), 1905 (Chapter 490), 1906 (Chapter 685), and 1907 (Chapter 283), required boards of managers of state institutions under the jurisdiction of either the State Commission in Lunacy or the State Board of Charities to visit, inspect, and make written reports concerning their institutions at least once a month. Managers of institutions under the Commission in Lunacy were to send copies of these reports and copies of minutes of their monthly meetings to the governor as well as to the commission. State Board of Charities institution managers were to send copies of their reports and minutes to the governor and the Fiscal Supervisor of State Charities as well as to the State Board of Charities.

This series consists primarily of copies of reports and minutes of meetings submitted to the governor by boards of managers as required by the Insanity Law and the State Charities Law of 1896 and subsequent amendments. Reports and minutes are filed together in 117 volumes covering specific years or spans of years.

The reports detail conditions at the institutions for which the managers were responsible. Some are in narrative format while others are on report forms. The reports provide such information as: condition and needs of physical facilities; appropriation requests; new construction on or improvements to facilities; capacity and population of institution; operation and management of dormitories, food services, farms, and gardens; general health of population; accidents; suicides and suicide attempts; complaints of abuse or neglect; and entertainment provided.

Reports concerning state hospitals also provide: changes in treatment of new patients; scientific work/research by hospital/medical staff; and number of nurses and nursing students.

Minutes of monthly meetings provide information such as: organization of the board and election of officers; reports from institution superintendents on population, health, deaths, new construction, and general operations of the institution; conditions and needs of physical facilities; and appropriations made and needed.

The series includes reports and minutes of boards of managers of the following institutions: Binghamton State Hospital; Buffalo State Hospital; Central Islip State Hospital; Craig Colony for Epileptics, Sonyea; Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital; Hudson River State Hospital, Poughkeepsie; Kings Park State Hospital; Letchworth Village, Thiells; Long Island State Hospital, Brooklyn; Manhattan State Hospital, Ward's Island, N.Y.C.; Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital; Mohansic State Hospital, Yorktown; New York House of Refuge, Randall's Island, N.Y.C.; New York State Custodial Asylum for Feeble-Minded Women, Newark; New York State Hospital for the Care of Crippled and Deformed Children, West Haverstraw; New York State Hospital for the Treatment of Incipient Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Ray Brook; New York State Reformatory, Elmira; Eastern New York Reformatory, Napanoch; New York State Reformatory for Women, Bedford; New York State School for the Blind, Batavia; New York State Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, Bath; New York State Training School for Boys, Yorktown Heights; New York State Training School for Girls, Hudson (formerly New York House of Refuge for Women); New York State Woman's Relief Corps Home, Oxford; Rochester State Hospital; Rome State Custodial Asylum; St. Lawrence State Hospital, Watertown; State Agricultural and Industrial School, Industry (and predecessor State Industrial School, Rochester); State Industrial Farm Colony; Syracuse State Institution for Feeble-Minded Children; Thomas Indian School, Iroquois; Utica State Hospital; Western House of Refuge for Women, Albion; and Willard State Hospital.

The series also includes five volumes of attendance records of managers of these institutions. These records were kept beginning in 1907, when a law was passed (Chapter 283) stipulating, in part, that any manager who missed three consecutive meetings would be deemed to have vacated his or her position unless the governor excused the absences. Volumes of attendance records exist for 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911, and 1912. In each volume, a table for each institution shows names of managers listed on the left and the presence (P) or absence (A) of each in a column for each month.

The series also includes two volumes of reports (1902-1905 and 1911) of the Fiscal Supervisor of State Charties. This office was created in 1902 (Chapter 252) to supervise and make reports and recommendations to the governor concerning fiscal matters at all State Board of Charities institutions. The fiscal supervisor visited each institution at least twice each year and reported on such matters as: expenditure practices; wastefulness and ways to economize; salaries and salary classifications; employment of patients an incarcerated individuals; and costs and necessity of construction or improvements.

Also included in this series are five unrelated volumes. Two volumes contain minutes of meetings of the Board of Control of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva (1911, 1913). Two volumes contain copies of correspondence (1908 and 1913) relating to appointments and resignations of judges, state agency officials, and various others. (These volumes are not part of series A0606, Appointment Letter Books, also from the governor's office.) Finally, one slim volume contains "Receipts of Secretary of State" (1908) acknowledging receipt by the secretary of state's office of documents sent by the governor's office (e.g. designations of supreme court justices; notices of charges). There is no indication of why these five volumes were filed with this series.

A0283-01: This accretion consists of 54 institutional reports and minutes of meetings that are identical in format to the records contained in the original accession. The volumes include reports for years not present in the rest of the series.

B0645Series B0645, Minutes of meetings of boards of visitors and monthly reports of institutions contains additional reports post-dating those found in this series

B1432Series B1432, Annual Reports, contains reports of the State Commission in Lunacy, submitted pursuant to the "Insanity Law" (L. 1896, Ch. 545)

B1433Series B1433, Annual Reports, contains the published volumes of annual reports of the trustees and board of Willard Asylum for the Insane (later Willard State Hospital)

A0710Series A0710, Resident case files, contains related records on veterans and their dependents who were admitted to the New York State Woman's Relief Corps Home

A0283-01: The records in this accretion were originally assigned the old accession number 581. During April 2001 the records were reaccessioned.

Partially restricted in accordance with Executive Law, Section 501-c(1)(b), relating to confidentiality of individuals in custody of the Division for Youth (now Office of Children and Family Services).