From the Geil Archive (30)—Halloween Edition: The Sanitarium

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[a] Creepy RF

Click here for other posts written by Guest Contributor Julia Lacher:

1-About Me                                       2-American Flag                     3-Simultaneous Coin Extractor

4-Geil Visits the British Museum       5-Friends in High Places        6-Sanitarium

Julia Lacher is a proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, and graduated from Beloit College in May with a double major in Anthropology and History and a minor in Museum Studies. She is the only intern working with William Edgar Geil's papers at the Doylestown Historical Society who did not take Professor Rob LaFleur's class on "The Accidental Ethnographer," and is currently wondering what she got herself in to.

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Please note that all items marked "DHS" are property of the Doylestown Historical Society, and used with DHS permission. If you wish to use an image, you need permission of the Society. Please contact Robert LaFleur (lafleur@beloit.edu), and he will put you in contact with the appropriate people.

Before I began to work with Geil’s papers, I never really stopped to think about the kinds of materials that make up an archive—it’s all paper, right? However, the more I work with this collection, the more I understand the incredible diversity of material in Geil’s archive. There are envelopes, thin onion-skinned sheets, folders made of heavy cardstock, lined writing paper, telegrams, receipts, bills, and stationery from hundreds of different personages, hotels, organizations, and, to my surprise, sanitariums. 

[a] Fancy Stationery DHS

The view of sanitariums in popular culture today isn’t all that positive. Dozens of horror movies begin with atrocities committed at remote and lonely sanitariums, often inhabited by the criminally insane who are only outdone in creepiness by their sadistic doctors. It was this version of sanitariums that inspired this Halloween post. So I was surprised to see such a large amount of Geil’s notes written on stationary from different sanitariums: the famous Battle Creek sanitarium in Michigan, and the Clifton Springs Sanitarium in New York.

[b] Clifton Springs RF

Clifton Springs, New York, is a small town of about 2,000 people located in the Finger Lakes region of New York, southeast of Rochester. The town is named for the springs that run through it, which are rich in sulfur and other minerals. The first European settlers arrived in 1801, and were quick to utilize the health benefits of the springs. However, it wasn’t until 1849 that any institution existed to bring the healing properties of the water to the masses.

In 1849 Dr. Henry Foster founded the sanitarium after a religious conversion experience.  He firmly believed that prayer and medicine should be intertwined. In an informal address in October of 1892, Foster explained “God’s ordinary way of healing is through medicines, through hygienic applications, through all well-known remedies. His extraordinary mode is in direct answer to prayer.”

People came from all over to experience the mineral springs, and unlike the current popular view of sanitariums as hellacious prisons for those with uncurable and dangerous disorders, Foster’s sanitarium was more like a health resort, offering services for minor and chronic ailments.

Geil would have been familiar with the sanitarium through his participation in religious revivals all over upstate New York. It is also likely that Foster’s amalgamation of science and religion would have appealed to Geil’s sensibilities.  

[c] Monkeys Enjoy Hot Springs RF

Unfortunately, it is unclear when exactly he stayed at the sanitarium, and for how long. The stationary he writes on is dated 190_, so without more research we can’t be more specific than sometime in the first decade of the twentieth century. Perhaps he came there to rest after his missionary work in Australia in 1902 and his subsequent travels in China and Africa. The peaceful surroundings would have been a good place for him to write. Six of Geil’s 12 books were written between 1902 and 1909, so it’s possible we owe Clifton Springs for Geil’s inspiration to write. 

Whatever the reason and duration of his stay, Geil would have enjoyed living in the impressive five-story red-brick sanitarium, designed in monumental Romanesque style, complete with a chapel boasting a mosaic of the Last Supper designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany as its centerpiece. 

The sanitarium still exists as Clifton Springs Hospital and Clinic, featuring The Springs Integrative Medicine and Spa Center, where visitors can continue to experience the healing mineral waters as Foster had envisioned. 

[d] Tiffany Mosaic, Marquette Buidling, Chicago, IL RF