Nestled amid the rolling hills of Chester County, Pennsylvania, Pennhurst State School and Hospital was once heralded as a progressive solution, a modern haven for society’s most vulnerable. Instead, it became a nightmarish center of neglect, abuse, and systemic cruelty.
For nearly 80 years, Pennhurst Asylum, as it’s come to be known, operated as a human warehouse. Thousands of children and adults with disabilities were hidden away from the world, and subjected to conditions that, when later exposed, shocked the nation. Indeed, reports about the rampant abuse at Pennhurst helped usher in the era of deinstitutionalization in the United States.
In the years since, some have come to believe that the spirits of those poor souls never left. And indeed, Pennhurst Asylum is haunted, if not by ghosts then by its long, dark history – one that should never be forgotten.
The Optimistic Early Years Of Pennhurst State School and Hospital
The story of Pennhurst Asylum, as it’s often called today, began in 1903, when it was first authorized by the Pennsylvania Legislature. Five years later, in 1908, the institution opened its doors as the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the Feeble Minded and Epileptic.
It was just one of many such institutions that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, meant to segregate and care for individuals deemed “defective”, “degenerate”, and “unfit” at the time. These descriptions most commonly referred to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as people with physical conditions such as epilepsy…