Photo: "Theatre Gold"

View fullsize

The Laurelton State Village for Feeble-Minded Women of Childbearing Age opened in 1917, with 36 patients, and was the first facility of its kind designed to segregate and care for "feeble-minded" women from puberty through menopause. The facility was established on the principles of eugenics and the premise that one’s intelect or mental deficiency was hereditary and the segregation of those individuals was crucial to ensure they did not reproduce and pass down those genetics.
 

Despite the hospital's dark history, this theatre was quite beautiful. I loved the worn texture of the wooden seats, the missing tiles on the ceiling playing a game of Tetris and the beautiful massive windows with gaudy golden draperies. 

Photo: "Through 1921 Eyes"

View fullsize

When Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital accepted its first patients in April 1874, they opened the doors to both male and female patients though the original plan was to treat only males. 

The original administration building experienced an attic fire in 1921 and though the patients were safely removed and records preserved, the building was basically destroyed. One portion of the original wings was salvaged, shown here, but the porches and ornamental architecture was removed.

Photo: "Tub"

View fullsize

Patient therapy tub in a Connecticut Psychiatric Facility. 

Photo: "Afflicted"

Draperies still hang on batons backstage inside Noble Hall, an early 1900's era theatre on the grounds of a semi-active psychiatric hospital on the East Coast.