The records of the Racine County Institutions consist of the records of the Racine County Home, County Hospital, Hospital for Mental Diseases, and Sunny Rest Tuberculosis Sanatorium which were often referred to collectively as the Racine County Institutions. High Ridge Hospital, a more recent name given to the institutions, is not mentioned in the records described here. The institutions were divided into two administrative categories: the Tuberculosis Sanatorium and the Racine County Hospitals and Home. Each was managed by a separate superintendent and each submitted separate annual reports to the County Board of Supervisors.
The Racine County Hospitals and Home provided care for patients in three types of units -- the County Home, County Hospital, and Hospital for Mental Diseases. County homes had their origin in the poorhouses which were created by the Wisconsin poorhouse law enacted in 1849. Poorhouses were managed by a Superintendent of the Poor who was subject to the direction and control of the County Board of Supervisors. Early poorhouses were often repositories for social outcasts and indigents where little effort was made to segregate criminals, the insane, orphans, the aged, and the physically disabled. The recognition of the deplorable conditions in poorhouses by the State Board of Charities and Reform and the gradual movement throughout the United States to establish more sophisticated public relief programs, changed the role of poorhouses to providing care mainly for aged indigents and seriously ill persons unable to live alone and lacking relatives willing or able to provide a home for them.
In 1919 management of county institutions was placed under the authority of boards of trustees elected by the County Board of Supervisors with the trustees having the power to hire superintendents and prescribe their duties. In 1927 the term “county home” replaced the word “poorhouse” in the statutes.
The terminology applied to the asylum also changed through time. In the early records it is called the Asylum for the Chronic Insane or the Insane Asylum while in the later records it is referred to as the Hospital for Mental Diseases and is almost always abbreviated as HMD.
The procedures for admittance to the County Home and Hospital also changed. Applications were once made to the Board of Trustees or directly to the institutions, but eventually applicants under 65 years of age were processed by the State Social Services Department and those over 65 were processed by the State Department of Public Welfare. Mental patients were admitted by court order.
Sunny Rest Sanatorium began receiving tuberculosis patients in 1913. A board of three trustees, elected by the County Board of Supervisors, established policies and appointed a superintendent to manage the institution. Patients were admitted upon recommendation of a physician and approval by the county court. By the late 1950s, improved treatment and prevention of tuberculosis resulted in a sharp decline in the sanatorium's patient population. To promote efficient management, the sanatorium was combined with the other county institutions in 1960 under a single administrator. In 1962 the sanatorium was closed while an out-patient clinic was maintained to treat tuberculosis.
