Name/Title
"Parker Building"Entry/Object ID
2006.9.2Description
Canvas painting of the South Carolina State Mental Hospital’s Parker Building in a wooden frame.Type of Painting
EaselArtwork Details
Subject
Parker Building at the South Carolina State Hospital.Context
Built around 1897 and destroyed in 1981, the Parker Building was a structure at the South Carolina State Hospital. Its annex building, constructed in 1910, remains today. Both buildings, named after Doctor John Waring Parker (1803–1882)—the first paid assistant physician and a superintendent at the asylum—housed Black patients. Two other buildings, the Mills and the Babcock buildings, housed white patients.
Located in the Bull Street District, the South Carolina State Hospital was a publicly funded mental health hospital in Columbia. Originally known as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, the hospital was founded in 1821 as the second psychiatric hospital in the United States. Upon its completion, the Mills Building served as the primary structure until the campus grew to include additional facilities, such as the segregated Babcock and Parker buildings.
Initially the asylum was only open to paying clients, the majority of whom were white citizens. In 1828, it cost a minimum of $3 a week for board and medical care, which, with inflation, was roughly equivalent to $102 in 2024. As state funding increased, the hospital began "treating" ailments outside of mental affliction. This included individuals considered societal burdens, such as those living in poverty, those struggling with substance abuse, and women perceived to deviate from moral or gender norms.
Beginning in 1848, enslaved people were allowed admittance to the hospital after the General Assembly passed "An Act to Provide for Admission of Persons of Color into the Lunatic Asylum." However, Black patients were relegated to wooden outbuildings for decades before the Parker Building opened to Black patients around 1897. By the early 1900s, the Babcock and the Mills buildings housed over 1,000 patients, but it is unclear how many people were assigned to the Parker Building.
Over the following decades, the patient buildings deteriorated and methodologies for treating mental illness evolved, leading the hospital to cease patient care in 1989. It was officially abandoned in 1996.
An inscription on the reverse of the canvas indicates that the painting was completed around 1903. While the back of the canvas bears a signature, the artist has not been identified. Further research will be conducted in the coming months to uncover more information about the artist.Made/Created
Date made
circa 1903Place
City
Columbia, South CarolinaInscription/Signature/Marks
Type
InscriptionLocation
Reverse lower right cornerTranscription
Parker Bldg.
built 1897
About 1903 A.D.Material/Technique
Pencil
