Written by Madison Bigelow

By the time I arrived at the Connecticut State Archives warehouse for the first time to begin my work on the MTS Memorial Project, I had already formed a number of expectations as to what I might see kept in those boxes (which included, but were not limited to: government proceedings regarding the institution’s closure in 1993, lots of grainy, black and white photos, and tons of carework guidelines for the facility’s employees). What I didn’t expect, though, was to be handed a box filled with several hundred donation receipts that were maintained throughout the 60s.

In reality, these receipts took the form of letters. In each document, the letter addressed the donor, thanked them for their contribution(s) to Mansfield, explicitly made note of each item and its quantity that was received, and assured the donor that their gifts will be greatly appreciated by the ‘boys and girls’ of MTS. 

These thank you letters offer an interesting window into the life of an MTS resident during the 60s at first glance. However, the more receipts I uncovered, the more questions arose. For instance, I am still attempting to understand why we – historians, archivists, scholars – have these documents. Why were these letters kept by the MTS administration in such detail? And only for these years? Why do these letters seem to only have been written in a very small time frame? And what does this mean for the legacy of MTS? For institutional legacies at large? 

Perhaps the archivists that went on-site at Mansfield to collect these ‘lost’ documents in ~2010 were only able to salvage a portion of the donation receipts that were produced by the MTS administration. We do know for certain that there are still many artifacts left on the floors of the Mansfield campus buildings deemed forever ‘irretrievable’ as per the state of Connecticut. Considering that the archived letters we do have access to, though, were all written within the same X YEAR span with no temporal outliers, it feels safe to assume that this clerical venture was only a short blip in MTS’ much longer history.

Despite this being such a small blip in MTS’s greater legacy, the insights that these documents offer are potentially quite valuable to understanding institutional functionality in the 20th century. 

As Paul K. Longmore writes in Telethons: Spectacle, Disability, and the Business of Charity, “in order for givers to have regular occasions on which to ritually reassure themselves of their moral health and social validity, it was necessary to perpetuate the social and moral invalidation of people with disabilities” (83). I do not seek to diminish the kindness of the said ‘givers’ in question, nor the assumed benefits that residents of MTS reaped as a result of these donations, but I rather aim to question: why do these records exist to such minute specificity? One possible answer to this question is promoted by Longmore’s observations about the American Telethon; the paper trail of charitable donation aims to continually affirm differences that exist between members of an institution and its counterparts on the outside. In other words, letters built a paper bridge that connected the interior world of MTS and the town of Mansfield on its periphery. 

By this logic, these “thank you” notes are a physical receipt of performed benevolence. Since residents were regarded as incapable, incompetent, immoral, or otherwise just underserved by their institution, giving becomes an act of distance. The donation of used goods creates space between residents and community members and subsequently justified social, economic, and spatial power dynamics that further insulate training schools, writ large, from the greater towns they are a part of. 

Thus, understood in Mansfield’s context, Longmore’s argument that “perennial [objectification] of charity in order to reassure putatively normal Americans of their own individual moral health, [and] of the continued vibrancy of the American moral community” rings true (83). This distance validates feelings of moral superiority and indicates that, as a part of this performance of benevolence, such tight recordkeeping was encouraged by Mansfield’s administration, if only for a small window of time. 

In addition to items of ‘utility,’ like clothing, bedding, and toys, there was definitely an element of absurdity present in some of these donations. For instance, there was more than one letter that detailed large quantities (usually in the triple digits) of Hostess cupcakes being received by MTS for the ‘boys and girls.’ Surprisingly, there were also many fur coats received by the institution. 

Writing these ‘thank you’s’ to Mansfield’s donors indicates a few things. For one, there was one point in time that this clerical gratitude was valued so highly at Mansfield as to itemize each component of a person’s donation (however, we have little knowledge as to how these donations were distributed or shared). Additionally, we know that at least some of these letters were read to members of an organization if the donation was made in the name of a group.

As is general knowledge, Mansfield, like most public institutions, were severely underfunded. To some extent, it is safe to assume that MTS was partially reliant on donations. Again, this piece does not aim to argue that the donations made were not valuable, but rather examine the underlying motives and implications of a person to donate to MTS, and for MTS to record those details in (cheerful) extremity. 

So… what do we do with this information? Frankly, box no. 31 raised more questions than answers for me about the underbelly of MTS. How were these items actually used by residents? Were these all of the donations? Did donations to MTS cease in the years following this recordkeeping? Or do these letters indicate the origins of the UConn Foundation?

As we continue this excavation, hopefully the rhyme behind the reasoning for keeping records like these will become more clear.