You'll Like it Here
Author : Ed Orzechowski
Publisher : Levellers Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 24,77 MB
Release : 2017-05-13
Category :
ISBN :
Unsilenced: A Teacher's Year of Battles, Breakthroughs, and Life-Changing Lessons at Belchertown State School
Author : Howard C. Shane
Publisher : Brookes Publishing Company
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 25,92 MB
Release : 2021-11
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781681255156
Book Description
The year is 1969, and fresh-out-of-college smart-aleck Howard Shane has just landed his first teaching job--at Belchertown State School, a bleak institution where people with disabilities endure endless days of silence, tedium, and neglect. Howard is stunned by the conditions at Belchertown and the challenges of his new job, but as he gets to know his diverse, endearing, and intelligent students, he becomes consumed with a mission: to unlock their communication skills and help them reach their full potential. Pitting his youthful idealism and passion against the rigidity of a rule-bound administrator, Howard battles his way to small joys and victories with his students--and, along the way, learns just as much as he teaches. A stirring and spellbinding memoir from internationally renowned AAC expert Howard Shane (Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School), Unsilenced is a candid look at a pivotal era in disability history and a deeply personal account of how all human beings can flourish when we care for each other and fight for change. Hear an Excerpt Read by Howard Shane, Ph.D.
The Girls and Boys of Belchertown
Author : Robert N. Hornick
Publisher : Univ of Massachusetts Press
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 22,95 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Education
ISBN : 155849944X
Book Description
During much of the twentieth century, people labeled "feeble-minded," "mentally deficient," and "mentally retarded" were often confined in large, publicly funded, residential institutions located on the edges of small towns and villages some distance from major population centers. At the peak of their development in the late 1960s, these institutions--frequently called "schools" or "homes" --housed 190,000 men, women, and children in the United States. The Girls and Boys of Belchertown offers the first detailed history of an American public institution for intellectually disabled persons. Robert Hornick recounts the story of the Belchertown State School in Belchertown, Massachusetts, from its beginnings in the 1920s to its closure in the 1990s following a scandalous exposé and unprecedented court case that put the institution under direct supervision of a federal judge. He draws on personal interviews, private letters, and other unpublished sources as well as local newspapers, long out-of-print materials, and government reports to re-create what it was like to live and work at the school. More broadly, he gauges the impact of changing social attitudes toward intellectual disability and examines the relationship that developed over time between the school and the town where it was located. What emerges is a candid and complex portrait of the Belchertown State School that neither vilifies those in charge nor excuses the injustices perpetrated on its residents, but makes clear that despite the court-ordered reforms of its final decades, the institution needed to be closed.
Crimes Against Humanity
Author : Benjamin Ricci
Publisher :
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 21,31 MB
Release : 2004-05
Category : Law
ISBN : 9780595661633
Book Description
An accounting of the celebrated, historically significant and precedent-setting class action suit, Robert Simpson Ricci et. al., plaintiffs v. Milton Greenblatt, M.D. et. al., defendants was authored by Benjamin Ricci, retired professor emeritus, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, father and next friend of Robert Simpson Ricci principal plaintiff.
Belchertown State School
Author : Katherine Anderson
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 11,62 MB
Release : 2020
Category : History
ISBN : 1467105015
Book Description
In the first decade of the 20th century, the state of Massachusetts established itself as a leader in the education of individuals with disabilities. The third state school for the feebleminded was built in rural Belchertown, in the western part of the state. Opened in 1915, Belchertown State School would eventually encompass almost 900 acres of land and would become the largest employer in town. For nearly 60 years, the state school educated individuals with disabilities who were otherwise excluded from public education, training the "residents" to become independent members of their families and of society. The model was a success until reports of abuse and neglect began to surface, culminating in the landmark 1972 Ricci v. Greenblatt case, which ultimately led to the state school's closure in 1992. The state school's rich history, maintained and curated by the late Donald LaBrecque, chronicles the rise of special education and developmental services and the ultimate collapse of the state school system.
Environmental Evaluation
Author : Ervin H. Zube
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 166 pages
File Size : 26,44 MB
Release : 1984-07-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780521319720
Book Description
Thsi book describes ways of evaluating environments; based on users' perceptions and experiences.
The Lives They Left Behind
Author : Darby Penney
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
Page : 374 pages
File Size : 27,2 MB
Release : 2010-02
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1458765989
Book Description
More than four hundred abandoned suitcases filled with patients' belongings were found when Willard Psychiatric Center closed in 1995 after 125 years of operation. In this fully-illustrated social history, they are skillfully examined and compared to the written record to create a moving-and devastating-group portrait of twentieth-century American psychiatric care.
Keeping Lucy
Author : T. Greenwood
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 32,44 MB
Release : 2019-08-06
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1250164249
Book Description
"This story will have readers not only rooting for Ginny and Lucy, but thinking about them long after the last page is turned." -- Lisa Wingate, New York Times Bestselling Author of Before We Were Yours PopSugar's 30 Must-Read Books of 2019 Good Housekeeping's 25 Best New Books for Summer 2019 Better Homes & Gardens 13 New Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer The heartbreaking and uplifting story, inspired by incredible true events, of how far one mother must go to protect her daughter. Dover, Massachusetts, 1969. Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. That they should grieve for their daughter as though she were dead. That they should try to move on. But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth--its squalid hallways filled with neglected children--she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines—turning Ginny into a fugitive. For the first time, Ginny must test her own strength and face the world head-on as she fights Ab and his domineering father for the right to keep Lucy. Racing from Massachusetts to the beaches of Atlantic City, through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a roadside mermaid show in Florida, Keeping Lucy is a searing portrait of just how far a mother’s love can take her. "A heartrending yet inspiring novel that kept me reading late into the night.” —Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of Sold on a Monday and The Edge of Lost
Abandoned Asylums of the Northeast
Author : Rusty Tagliareni
Publisher : America Through Time
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 21,10 MB
Release : 2019-01-28
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781634990998
Book Description
"Abandoned asylums are undeniably captivating things. These were once proud places of great beauty, founded of noble intent and crafted with the utmost passion, left to wither away, succumbing to time and reclaimed by nature. Literal cities sprawled upon hundreds of acres, formed around the care of the mentally and physically in-need, now forsaken and left to rot. Though disused, they are not without purpose. Within these crumbling walls and darkened wards, we may yet glean some truths, not only of what life was in an era long past, but a better understanding of our own place and time. At times it is within darkness which we may see most clearly."--Provided by publisher.
Northampton State Hospital
Author : J. Michael Moore
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 19,89 MB
Release : 2014-10-27
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1439648069
Book Description
Northampton State Hospital, established in 1856, was built with the optimistic spirit of humanitarian reform. For many years, it was run by Dr. Pliny Earle, a champion of treatment that combined individualized care with manual labor, religious worship, recreation, and amusement. This vision was overwhelmed as the hospital was called upon to care for ever-larger numbers of people with varying needs. By the mid-20th century, the hospital was an isolated small city, with hundreds of employees caring for more than 2,000 patients in overcrowded and inadequate conditions. It became a nationally important center of political and legal struggle over the role of state hospitals in the care of the mentally ill. After being gradually phased out, the hospital was closed in 1993, and the buildings, though listed in the National Register of Historic Places, were demolished in 2006. This volume brings to life the 135-year story of Northampton State Hospital through beautiful and haunting photographs drawn from the collections of Historic Northampton, the citys local history museum.
