Portal:Featured Article Of The Week

From Asylum Projects
Revision as of 04:39, 11 August 2014 by M-Explorer (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search

Featured Article Of The Week

Mansfield Training School


mansfield.png

The Mansfield Training School was established in 1917 with the merging of two institutions, the Connecticut Colony for Epileptics and the Connecticut Training School for the Feeble Minded (previously known as the School for Imbeciles) "to provide for the care, custody, education and employment of mental defective (feeble minded) and epileptic persons." On its opening on July 1, 1917 there were 402 students in residence.

The population and campus steadily expanded for the next fifteen years. By 1932, there were 1,070 residents, 559 males, 511 females. However, the next decade was a trying time as the depression and World War II affected Mansfield Training School. Even as the institution reached and maintained its projected maximum population, the waiting list for entry increased to over a thousand prospective people, prompting the state to open Southbury Training School in the 1940s. Cuts in the operating budget, no construction on urgently needed buildings, the lack of adequate maintenance on contemporary equipment and buildings and insufficient staff strained the quality of the services.

The next few decades following the war were marked by changes at the school. The 1950s saw an increase in construction, which included the Longley School and four new dormitories with 152 beds each. However, chronic overcrowding continued to be a problem. The number of residents and the types of education and training increased. Residents worked in the print, wood working, weaving, and industrial shops. As the number of people who worked outside of the school increased they were also provided with more realistic job training. Click here for more...