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[xxburtonxx38]

hello every one
im new to the whole urban exploring thing but im like obsessed with it

ive been to like 5 hosptails so far but so far my favorite one is fernald school in waltham MA right neer Met State. parts of the place are still open. but the buildings that are abandoned are pretty cool but why cant i find any info/pictures of fernald school and why does no one go there is there somthing i dont know.

if any one knows any thing or have been there please help me
and let me kno if theres any thing i should kno about the place before i go there


ALSO me and my sister have taken some cool picture there i think there pretty cool








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[RallyRed 98]

google fernald school, there is plenty of basic research on what the school was about.  60 minutes did a story on it and hacked it up pretty thoroughly... let's just say they took a side for sure.

that newer wing is so bland though.  sadly it reminds me of one of my dorms in school.

[Ectoplasmic Terrier]

Fernald itself is still in operation, as far as I know.  It was notorious, but I don't think it was as bad as Belchertown, 80 miles west.  One of my teachers applied for a job there once.  After the tour, she decided not to work there.  She said a other prospective employees couldn't even finish the tour!

One of the most infamous cases of human experimentation took place at Fernald.  Radioactive breakfast cereal.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V114/N28/fernald.28n.html

[Jude]

Yikes.     Sounding ominous for sure.......

XX,  love your pic of the swings,   it looks so forlorn.

Ma

[Zebra]

I love the gerny shot! and The swings too.
Mmmmmmmm!   Breakfast cereal with two scoops of radiation.

[sugar_magnolia]

ET, thanks for sharing the story about the radioactive breakfast cereal study.  Personally, I find the whole thing to be very disturbing -- especially by using mentally retarded students as test subjects without their parents knowing about it.  Hell, even if the parents did know about it, it wouldn't make it any better.  If they actually thought it was so "safe", why didn't they use other test subjects?  Did they think that if something went wrong and it actually did harm someone it would be ok because the person was mentally retarded anyway?  Sorry to go off about this, but it really makes me angry.  I'd like to hear other people's views about this.  Thanks.

[PaExplorations]

You can also check out the book "The State Boys Rebellion " by Michael D'Antonio :



At age seven, an orphan boy named Freddie Boyce finally believed he had found a real home with a kindly widow who raised foster children on her farm in rural Massachusetts. But when his foster mother died in the winter of 1949, Freddie was subjected to a rudimentary IQ test and then sent to a state institution for the feebleminded. There, along with other relatively normal State Boys, he would endure neglect, abuse, and terror and live without the hope of ever being free again.

Though they couldn't possible know it, the children of the Fernald State School were the victims of bad science and a newly developed bureaucracy designed to save America from the so-called "menace of the feebleminded." Beginning early in the twentieth century, United States health officials used crude versions of the modern IQ tests to identify supposedly "deficient" children and lock them away. The idea was to protect society from potential criminals and to prevent so-called undesirables from having children and degrading the American gene pool.

Under programs that existed in almost every state and continued into the 1970s, more than 250,000 children were separated from their families. Tens of thousands of these were not disabled but merely unwanted orphans, truants, or delinquents. Yet they were denied proper education, routinely abused, and could be subjected to forced surgical sterilization, lobotomy, shock therapy, and psychotropic drugs.

The State Boys Rebellion is the dramatic and meticulously researched true story of Fred Boyce and a group of boys who never accepted their incarceration at the Fernald State School in Massachusetts and insisted they were normal. In many cases, school officials noted that they were not disabled and did not belong in an institution. But the school depended on their unpaid labor, and so they were kept locked away in wards where many were beaten, raped, forced to fight each other. They were offered no hope for freedom and knew that others had grown old and died within Fernald's walls.

Inspired by what they learned from television and radio about the national civil rights movement, the State Boys protested their mistreatment, pleaded in vain for their freedom, and rebelled by running away. Finally, in a desperate attempt to get attention for their plight, they seized control of a prisonlike ward and demanded their rights. Although the participants in this dramatic event were imprisoned for their actions, the takeover eventually led to freedom for many State Boys, who were given minimal training and then released to fend for themselves.

In these pages, the reader will learn how the State Boys struggle to survive without family, social connections, or education. Some never adjust and die of alcohol and drug abuse. Others manage to build stable lives, with good jobs, family, and friends. While they try to forget the past, it all comes rushing back in the 1990s when news reports announce that they had been used as human guinea pigs in Cold War experiments in which they were fed radioactive oatmeal. Under Fred Boyce's leadership, the State Boys reunite, sue, and win a multimillion-dollar settlement.

To capture this story, award-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio worked closely with the surviving State Boys, interviewed former Fernald teachers and professionals, used the archives of the school, and won the release of previously sealed papers. The result is a thoroughly documented story from an almost-forgotten corner of American history. It reveals the danger in misguided science, the fearsome power of unchecked bureaucracies, and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit.

[sugar_magnolia]

PA Ex, THANK YOU SO MUCH for your reply.  I am definitely going to get this book.  Thanks!

[Jude]

Wow this sounds like a very interesting read,  thanks!

Ma

[Ectoplasmic Terrier]

They used to stick away kids with cerebral palsy in these institutions.  CP was particularly tought because most of its victims are of normal intelligence, but the physiological deficits are so severe, they seem retarded.

As to the radiation experiments at Fernald, I'm afraid this was the prevailing attitude:
"Look, they're just retards, they're not worth a damn anyway,  so might as well get some use out of 'em."
Welcome home, Dr. Mengala!
 :twisted:

[Peat Moss]

I got to meet a couple of the guys that were in the book "Boys State Rebellion" last year at a promotion for the book. They were very nice guys and the experiment wasn't just on the mentally handicapped as many of the children were normal that were placed there. I was proud to have them sing my copy of the book.

I have driven into Fernald and it was still in operation but on a much smaller scale and it's surprising they don't tear the rest down.

[foxie45]

this school was hell i know because my cousin was sent there because his mother did not want him after being there for a year and a half they sent him to met state where he went through more hell.  When he was finly released at the age of 18 he want to calif. where he killed himself.  this place should have been burned to the ground many years ago. and then consergrated the ground for all the many untold deaths of it's many young who really didn'ty belong there

[weasel]

I definitely remember reading a newspaper article about the radioactive cereal study. The man in the interview was sterile, and he was mentioning that he felt now that it was due to the experiments. He only discovered the truth many years after it occured. This particular man was not even mentally retarded if I am thinking correctly. I forget how he ended up in the place in the first place. Poor guy.

[Ectoplasmic Terrier]

this school was hell i know because my cousin was sent there because his mother did not want him after being there for a year and a half they sent him to met state where he went through more hell.  When he was finly released at the age of 18 he want to calif. where he killed himself.  this place should have been burned to the ground many years ago. and then consergrated the ground for all the many untold deaths of it's many young who really didn'ty belong there

Well, Jesus, Foxie, that's terrible!  I'm sorry to hear that!  I'm interested in hearing more details of your cousin's story, but I don't want to push the issue if it's too upsetting for you.

Everybody on this board seems pretty clued into the issues about mental illness/mental retardation.  A lot of us are survivors of harrowing experiences with mental illness.

I do know that before reforms, many unwanted children were indeed sent to state schools.  Some of them had only mild learning disabilities or behavioral problems.  Others just found themselves dumped at state schools with no determination of mental status.  I don't know, but I think they most egregious abuse of state schools as dumping grounds was reformed in the 1970s.

[AuntMaymeMommy]

My daughter was born in 1989.  I was 20 and single.  She had lost oxygen and her heartbeat during delivery, showed no response on hearing tests and had been determined to have an absent corpus collosum.  (membraine separating left and right in the brain) The doctors told me they had no idea what her problems would cause, mostly the brain one.  While I was dressing my daughter to take her home from the hospital the pediatrician came in and suggested I place her in an institution.   I "suggested" that she get out of my room. (in less polite terms) My daughter is deaf, has cerebral palsy and mild MR.  It has been less than easy to care for her, but I love her deeply.  I would not have traded a minute of caring for her to put her in an institution.  I know it would have been easier, but I don't think I would have seen the same look in her eyes.  The look of pure love she gives me sometimes is what makes it all worth it.  Sometimes she has violent outbursts and I get frustrated and think I am a bad mother.  Then the next thing I know she is looking me in the eyes and asking me if I am ok.  There are a lot of good people that do a really tough job of taking care of children like my daughter.  It isn't easy.  But in my eyes an institution, no matter how well run, can never be a mother.  They can take care of basic needs, but they will never create the same bond I have with my daughter.  And then on the other side of it, how do you ever know that everyone caring for your loved one is good?  Most are, but I was never willing to take that chance that even one would not be.  I can't imagine how heartbroken I would be if I ever found that someone had done something like that to my girl.  By the way, the book looked so interesting that I bought a copy on ebay.