Cottage at the Leper Colony on St. Croix in December 1941
Source: Photographer Jack Delano, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. Call Number: LC-USF34- 046975-D.
Description
The Public Works Administration reconstructed the Leper Asylum on St. Croix and added new buildings that included a laboratory. The colony was originally located two miles west of Christiansted, in the Richmond district, adjacent to a penitentiary and an “insane asylum.”
“On St. Croix a new leper colony will be set up with $25.000 of PWA funds,” writes The News-Review from Roseburg, Oregon, on June 27, 1934. As noted in National Archives records, the work included the construction of three new cottages, dormitory buildings, completion of… cisterns, drains, additional water supply, construction of sidewalks, grading and landscaping at the Leper Colony […] $14,632.58”
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Leper Asylum on St. Croix
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Cottage at the Leper Colony on St. Croix in December 1941
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Leper Colony on St. Croix in December 1941
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Original caption reads: “Kitchen in the leper colony.” Source: Photographer Jack Delano, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. Call Number: LC-USF34- 046992-D.
Leper Colony Kitchen in 1941
Original caption reads: "Kitchen in the leper colony." Source: Photographer Jack Delano, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. Call Number: LC-USF34- 046992-D.
Source notes
National Archives, RG 55, Records of the Government of the Virgin Islands, Correspondence and related records, PWA Programs in the V.I., 1933-38, Box 1. U.S. Department of the Interior, Annual Report of the Governor of the Virgin Islands for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1934, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934, pp. 2-3. The News-Review from Roseburg, Oregon, on June 27, 1934, p.2, (https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/96302206/), accessed on May 11, 2017. The Hospital Corps of the Navy, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Navy Department, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1919, p. 99.
Project originally submitted by Brent McKee on May 11, 2017.
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I found a photo of lepers in Christiansted in things belonging to my great aunt. I think she corresponded with Catholic missionaries who worked in the Caribbean.. It’s a small picture, black &white, probably from the 1930’s