Shower Stall

This is an unusual, but perhaps refreshing sight after all the pictures of vast, communal toilet and shower rooms in other institutions

I agree with you Rich, It seems like Dixmont had more dignity for the residents than other facilities.

Don't judge that by this pic - the press and state were pretty harsh on Dixmont for the problems they found rampant there. My memories are that it was fairly equivalent to the other underfunded places.

Thank you Motts! I've been waiting! I was lucky enough to go on a school field trip to Dixmont when I was a youngster. I know, what a strange field trip that was, and I know I'm showing my age! The only thing I remember was that the clients were scary...I was too young to remember anything else. And too foolish to realize that the clients probably weren't too terribly scary at all.

They were probably just humiliated to be someone's field trip.

Most institutions used to allow field trips. At some point someone finally figured out it was like a trip to the zoo, so luckily they don't do those anymore.

What on earth were they thinking, taking kids on a field trip to a mental institution?

I've been on some pretty weird outings in my life (trade fair at the age of 11, anyone!?!) but that would just be too bizarre, even for my school!

rich,

It used to be a common thing back in the 50s to 70s to take school children to institutions for field trips. The intent was educational, but as soon as people with disabilities began to be seen as "people," this practice died off. Back in the 1500-1700s in both England and the US people would pay admission to go to the "lunatic asylums" on weekends and get their entertainment staring at the "inmates."

http://www.cwu.edu/~warren/addenda.html
"Public admission to the wards at Bethlehem Hospital, London, was discontinued. For at least 200 years, visits to 'Bedlam' had been a common entertainment for Londoners, but the practice became more restricted after 1766."

http://ise.uvic.ca/Lib.../society/bedlam.html
"And why visit? Not necessarily to see relatives, or to offer charity. The sight of the mentally disturbed became a spectacle, an entertainment."

http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/docs/1315card.htm
"Considerable anxiety is sometimes expressed by persons who derive a morbid satisfaction from looking on scenes of human misery, as to the propriety, safety, &c., of their visiting the Asylum. This diseased state of the sentiments is most incident to those who have been badly educated..."

http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/docs/1124.htm
This is a fascinating article from 1852 written by the Superintendent of Butler Hospital in Rhode Island. You can see that the same issues we discuss today were relevant back then as well.

http://en.wikipedia.or...sychiatric_hospitals
This is a good overview on the history of psychiatric hospitals, types of hospitals and treatments, and, most interesting to me, a discussion about how mental illness and psychiatric hospitals are portrayed in the media.

Finally, if anyone is truly interested in the history of disabilities there is probably no better source for historical documents than the Disability Library Museum, available on the Internet. I believe to profit from it you need to read more than one or two of these original source articles to get a feel for the history of the field, but I have spent many, many hours over many months going through these documents and I find them fascinating and a great backdrop to the pix Motts has taken. Some of the facilities he has photographed are discussed in these papers, so you can actually read about these places from a time when they were still in use.

http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/
Disability History Museum
"Mission: The Disability History Museum's mission is to promote understanding about the historical experience of people with disabilities by recovering, chronicling, and interpreting their stories. Our goal is to help foster a deeper understanding of disability and to dispel lingering myths, assumptions, and stereotypes by examining these cultural legacies."

the disability history website is great, it has alot of information on a wide range to topics. its worth a visit.

I worked 3-11 Sun thru Thur, as the custodian, at Dixmont, in the late 70's.
I think the residents were more SCARED than scary.
Many of them actually had jobs on the hospital grounds

Lynne, Thanks for all the links. I know its been quite sometime since u posted, but this is my first time in this Gallery. I shall investigate.

i agree

me too. thanks lynne

My neighbor is a retired nurse from here and she refuses to talk about the kinds of atrocities that were done to the patients by other patients and by the Drs. She states that the only reason she stayed the 35 years she was there is because she thought she could make a difference and felt sorry for them.

oh look! You can sit in the shower. how nice