Dr. Raymond Waggoner, who became chairman in 1937, directed the affairs of this department for thirty-four years until retirement on June 30, 1970. He was succeeded by Dr. Albert Silverman.
Housed in the Neuropsychiatric Institute, built in 1938 and connected directly to the Main Hospital, the department acquired additional space and facilities in 1952 on the seventh level of the new Outpatient Clinic.
In 1947 a separate building, the Veterans Readjustment Center, was built with state funds. Ex-servicemen from World War II were brought for protracted observation and psychiatric treatment to enable them to return to active, normal civilian life. Further expansion of facilities occurred in 1955 with the opening of the Children's Psychiatric Hospital.
This facility has been intensively used in the development of a very active program of child psychiatry under the direction of Dr. Stuart Finch. In 1960 the Mental Health Research Institute, located directly across Forest Avenue from the Kresge Research complex, was opened under the directorship of Dr. James Miller. Dr. Gardner Quarton succeeded Dr. Miller in 1968.
In 1906 the first state psychiatric hospital was built on Catherine Street on University property. Dr. Albert Barrett was named superintendent of this hospital and shortly thereafter became Professor of Psychiatry and Diseases of the Nervous System on the University faculty. Neurology was separated from psychiatry and established as a separate department in 1920.
For many years the initial Psychiatric Hospital and the Neuropsychopathic Institute of 1938 were provided with operating budgets directly from the legislature. They were not administered as a part of the Medical Center hospital group but rather by the chairman of the department of Psychiatry. This has been changed to make the Director of the University Hospital responsible for all of the Medical Center's hospital units.
In 1962 the state legislature discontinued the provision of operating funds for the Veterans Readjustment Center and the entire facility reverted, according to the terms of the original establishment, to the University to be reassigned for whatever purposes the administration saw fit. The building has now become the North Outpatient Building, an adjunct to existing Outpatient Clinic facilities.
The department has been extremely active in postgraduate psychiatric teaching with strong emphasis on psychoanalysis. Present goals and activities are being broadened to incorporate community concerns and neurobiological strengths.
Fred J. Hodges
The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey Supplement, Pages 204, 205
