Health and Medicine | Page 7

Detention Building at St. Peter State Hospital

The Detention Building at St. Peter State Hospital (St. Peter, Minnesota), ca. 1910.

Corridor inside St. Peter State Hospital, ca. 1910

Corridor inside St. Peter State Hospital (St. Peter, Minnesota), ca. 1910.

St. Peter State Hospital, ca. 1905

St. Peter State Hospital, ca. 1905 (St. Peter, Minnesota), ca. 1905.

Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane, 1874

Postcard depicting the Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane, St. Peter, 1874. The institution was renamed St. Peter State Hospital in 1893. Public domain.

Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane, ca. 1868

Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane in St. Peter, ca. 1868. The institution was renamed St. Peter State Hospital in 1893.

Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane, 1867

Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane in St. Peter, 1867. The institution was renamed St. Peter State Hospital in 1893.

St. Peter State Hospital

In the 1860s, Minnesota experienced rapid population growth due to immigration. To serve the needs of these new citizens, the state legislature passed an act for the establishment of an asylum for the “insane” in St. Peter in 1866. As it filled to capacity and then expanded, it became the primary site for housing mentally ill people considered dangerous or sexually aggressive.

MN90: Hello from Minnesota, Herr Hitler

August 1933, Charles Fremont Dight, Minnesota physician and founder of the Minnesota Eugenics Society, was tapping out a letter of congratulations. His recipient? Germany’s new chancellor, Adolf Hitler. MN90's Britt Aamodt reports.

Charles F. Dight

Charles F. Dight in Minneapolis, undated. From box 1 of the Charles Fremont Dight papers, 1883–1984, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Dight, Charles Fremont (1856–1938)

Charles Fremont Dight grew up believing in the power of medicine to ascertain and correct natural or social problems. After a series of disappointments in politics in the 1910s, he turned to the burgeoning field of eugenics in the 1920s to realize his dream of a centrally planned economy and population.

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