Cottage
for "Colored Women" 1906. This
picture shows the entrance to what was called the "Cottage for Colored
Women." The two-story structure was completed in March of 1906, and
was almost certainly the first hospital building built specifically for
African-American psychiatric patients in the State of Maryland.
(African-American patients were not admitted to Springfield until much later,
and "The Hospital for the Negro Insane of Maryland" -- later, Crownsville Hospital
Center -- was not founded until 1910.) After female African-American
patients were transferred from Spring Grove to Crownsville in 1913, the building
became known as the "TB Cottage," and was used to house (white) female
patients that suffered from tuberculosis. According to
the annual report of
1906, the building housed 25 patients. The upper floor was used as
sleeping quarters, and the lower floor included a sitting room ("for those
who do not work") and a dining room. The building is no longer extant, but
it was located immediately behind the Main Building, in the exact spot where
stands today the Lawn Shop. Its location can be seen in the 1927
aerial view of Spring Grove (below the tall smoke stack on the right).