18 Comments Posted by rusty

these images bring back a barrage of memories from my earliest childhood. We moved from Baltimore in 1958 so most of my recollections are from a 4 yr old's memory.... these are familiar even in my 'aged' haze

yeah, over this year I did a huge research project on these kinds of schools (primarily the Fernald State School), so lucky for me I got to interview both Fred Boyce and Michael D'Antonio (plus a few more.)
Talking to Fred Boyce is really depressing. Most of the people I talked to that were directly involved with the school wanted to forget what happened and never talk about it. But after he was let go from the school, Mr. Boyce spent his entire life trying to tell the world what happened to stop it from repeating its mistakes. Even when he was in the school, his goal was to shut down the institution forever. When he joined the science club (a group of children that were fed radioactive oatmeal for experimentation purposes. They did not know there was radiation in their food.) he believed that he was going to show the researchers how bad Fernald was so they could save him and all the other children. Not the case.
Two days after we interviewed him, I recieved a phone call saying that he had been moved to the hospital because his cancer was getting much worse. Now, I don't even know that he is still alive.

I got in to the rotunda. I nearly fell throught to the basement. but what was on the otherside was awesome.

I have a lot of sources on Pennhurst, Fernald and just eugenics in general, so if anyone wants some links to read up on stuff like that, you can e-mail me at tfielder_nhd@yahoo.com

I really like how the photo is clearly black and white, but the sky still looks blue.

He was the lawyer for the Pennhurst Case, here is his website, http://www.ferleger.com/pennhurst.htm

yeah, I got both of those already, and a whole lot more. And my interview with David Ferleger explained about the Lynchburg Colony.

nah, I'm doing a documentary for National History Day about the Pennhurst and Fernald State Schools in the eugenics movement and found this website while looking for interviews. I'm from Colorado.

If you go to Pennhurst now, you see names on the buildings like Quaker Hall or Store Building. But according to Mr. Ferleger, the buildings were called A, B, C etc. but they changed the names in the middle of the court case. I guess they wanted people to get the impression that they wern't so impersonal.

Hey Motts, did you find any of the rooms with viewing windows?

After the Pennhurst lawsuit, they kind of closed it down in a hurry, some of the photographs that I have seen have chalkboards with writing on them.

You lucky people, I cant go to Pennhurst because I live halfway across the country.

Pennhurst was always dirty. Because the childern were not taken care of, it was not uncommon for a patient to walk around covered in their own filth.

yes hrm, they had a barber shop, they also had a mourge pretty close to it to.

Dosnt the military own Pennhurst? Until they sell the land of course.