General 3 — MARBLEHEAD POTTERY

Herbert James Hall, MD

Herbert James Hall was born on March 12, 1870 in Manchester, New Hampshire. His father was an accountant. He graduated from high school in Manchester in 1889. He may have carried out some undergraduate studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Hall attended Harvard Medical School and graduated with an MD degree in 1895. Dr. Hall then served as a house officer at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Boston Childrens Hospital. He began his medical practice in 1987 in Marblehead, Massachusetts.

On December 29, 1897 Dr Hall married Eliza Pitman Goldthwait. They had two children, Katherine Hall and Marshall G. Hall. In 1897 he established a medical practice in Marblehead, Massachusetts and was appointed a fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

As his practice developed, he became interested in the problems of patients with “nervous disorders,” often termed neurasthenia. One might suspect that today, these patients would be diagnosed as being depressed. All of Dr Hall’s initial patients were female. Dr Hall believed that such patients could gain esteem and regain their health through productive work. He felt that suitable manual work would have a “normalizing effect.” He called this a “work cure.” Hall prescribed the work cure as a medicine to regulate life and interests.

In the early years, his patients stayed at a local boarding house. In 1904 Dr. Hall opened his therapeutic handicraft shops in Marblehead, MA. Among the crafts promoted were hand weaving, woodcarving, metalwork, and pottery. He believed that these crafts had universal appeal. Hall recruited experienced craftspeople to assist in the instruction and the supervision of his patients, as they learned the various craft techniques. Initially the pottery program was part of a handicraft therapy program.

Unknown woman working with pottery piece in Dr. Hall’s therapeutic program. Illustration from Page 48, October 28, 1906, New York Tribune. — Unknown woman working with pottery piece in Dr. Hall’s therapeutic program. Illustration from Page 48, October 28, 1906, New York Tribune.

Soon after it began, he decided that pottery was too difficult for his patients. The pottery program was separated from the Sanitarium and Arthur Baggs was made its director. Patients were no longer expected to produce pottery. Other crafts were encouraged including cement crafts.

Screen+shot+2009-12-27+at+9.27.06+PM.jpg — This pair of candlesticks is one of the few pieces signed by Herbert J Hall (HJH).

In 1905 and again in 1909 Dr. Hall received a $1000 grant from the Harvard Proctor Fund “to assist in the study of the treatment of neurasthenia by progressive and graded manual occupation.”

Dr. Hall published an article in Keramic Studio in 1909 that discussed the details of the pottery program.

In 1912 the Handicraft program was moved to the Devereux Mansion, a property owned or overseen by Mrs. Hall’s brother, Dr. Joel Ernest Goldthwait. Dr. Goldthwait (1866-1961), also a Harvard Medical School graduate (1990), founded the Orthopaedic Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1899 and served as the first Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery at Mass General until 1909.

Patients lived at the Devereaux Mansion and did craft work in adjacent buildings on the Goldthwait property.

Hall later wrote extensively in medical journals describing the therapeutic benefit of work therapy. In 1915 he authored an essays on entitled “The Untroubled Mind” and “The Work of Our Hands.” In 1916 he authored “Handicrafts for the Handicapped.”

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Dr Hall was very involved in developing the field of occupational therapy. He coined the name “American Occupational Therapy Association” and served as the 4th President of the American Occupational Therapy Association from 1920 to 1922.

Dr. Hall died on February 19, 1923 and is buried in Marblehead, MA.

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In 2017, the centennial of the founding of the American Occupational Therapy Association, Dr Hall was named one of the “100 Influential Persons” in American Occupational Therapy.