As we round closer and closer to the day this project (or at least the idea for it) began just two years ago, I honestly still can’t believe this is just the beginning. To me, the years we spent working, researching, writing, and thinking just blurred together. Every moment leading to this blog was a learning experience—a time to sit back, listen, learn, and try to understand the history of MTS and how we can best engage with the residents who still live today. Community should always be at the center of any restorative justice project. And, there are always moments that stick out even in these very early moments. The moments that grab you by the shoulders and shake you awake: realizing how large of an impact UConn had on the lives of residents at MTS, discovering pages upon pages of documented charitable donations without seeing a single narrative from a resident themselves, and discovering just how many medical violations, malpractices, and insufficient documentation occurred at MTS.  In truth, I never knew what would spur out of this project or where we’d go from here. 

I can’t help but think, though, that despite the past year this is really just the beginning. 

On September 24^th, 2021, I scheduled my first appointment to view the Mansfield Training School files at the Dodd Center for Human Rights. Following my meeting with Brenda that served as a catalyst for this project surrounding what happened to Mansfield Training School a week prior, I went in with the mindset of if  I find anything about MTS then maybe we could see how UConn’s history with disability began to form into what we see today. 

Traditionally, higher education has always been an institution where millions of disabled students have felt discriminated against due to the lack of access, support, and acceptance of disability culture/identity in university spaces. I can personally attest to this feeling. I wanted to know, as a student, where UConn had been. At first, I wanted to see some semblance of the past, some bit of history I could see that would give me any inclination as to why so many of us faced bias and discrimination on-campus. 

What was UConn’s connection to disability historically? 

At first, I wasn’t too hopeful I’d find the answer. After combing through search after search on Google, Bing, Yahoo (you name the search engine, I tried it) I really couldn’t find much on UConn’s connection to the Mansfield Training School at all. It almost felt like any remains of the institution, prior to its closure, had been erased. It was simply a thing of the past. A memory. 

I was even less hopeful when I learned that the Mansfield Training School files at the Dodd Center only amounted to a few boxes (plus some scattered folders in other collections from the then-president Homer D. Babbidge). I still felt like there was more to the story that we can see online, which mainly consists of ghost hunters and urban explorers breaking into the site to see “ghosts.” After all, UConn was given all of the property of MTS after its closure, at which point it was renamed the “UConn Depot Campus.” So, I started digging through as many files as possible and amped up my online searches. 

If I could go back in time to talk to the very-very-new-to-research, freshman scholar version of myself (I’d classify myself as a ‘sophomore’ now…at least…maybe, not even?) I’d tell them that sometimes just one word—a name, an organization, a face—can change the entire course of your research. A single piece can change everything and uncover a vast amount of information that you could never have guessed would have ever existed. 

The reason I’m here is to not just learn more about MTS and UConn’s connection through the archives. I’m here because I hope to engage with stories from residents at MTS and learn more about their experiences there. I hope that through this project we can work to center the community and seek the sort of accountability they want to see from a government, university, and institution that was responsible for so much harm. Whether this accountability is through a memorial, reparations, preservation initiative, oral history documentation or film, writings, or any other avenue—I hope that this project can be a first step to creating the change they want to see in Connecticut. 

The largest gap across every archival collection that housed history related to MTS was the lack of perspectives from the residents. Those who lived there and spent nearly their entire lives within that campus. After checking nearly every file, folder, or box, not a single narrative came through that wasn’t under the control of administrators from the institution itself. This really made me focus on, and ask:  

How do power and privilege play a role in whose stories we see in archival documents and history as a whole?

Hi, I’m Paula! 🙂

As a long-time museum lover, when Brenda reached out with the opportunity to apply to be part of the MTS team, I was immediately intrigued. I’ve always been interested in “untold stories” and the amplification of voices who historically haven’t been heard in different fields. For museums, this was a very clear area for me to explore: when working as an interpreter in high school, my supervisors and mentors were excellent advocates, especially for people who typically weren’t represented at all in the museum sphere. One specific observation that I remember hearing from a coworker was something along the lines of, “Older white men wrote all the stuff in this museum in the 1900s and it never changes. How are we supposed to connect with the information now?” 

From there, I realized (as so many other people have before me!) that this applies to almost all areas of our lives–if we don’t have access to a wider array of people’s experiences and stories, then we are limited to an all-too-familiar narrative, which, honestly, most of the time doesn’t click with a lot of people. The MTS project is one of these opportunities to uncover and publicize the stories of people who have been mistreated and silenced, and I am more than honored to be a part of the awesome team that’s working so hard to give those stories a platform.

I fell in love with the archives after touring the university’s shelves. The vast amounts of material in particular drew me in, the amount of information held on those shelves was staggering. 

The stories hidden within the shelves fascinated me as did their preservation. As a history major I knew the importance of reading, of remembering, of recording. That is how history is passed down and preserved. 

I knew I wanted to intern this summer but I struggled to find a position that really drew me in. Then I found this apprenticeship. It had each piece I was looking for. It gave me the opportunity to explore the archives, to help tell a story that needs to be told, and to work with a great team. The fact that MTS is so close to where I go to school also drew me in, as it gave me the chance to explore the history of my own community, especially history that was not properly memorialized. 

By: Matthew Iannantuoni

Enraptured by the findings of the termination papers, I dove back into the folders of the “Dismissal and legal action regarding Elly C. Fischer, Florence M. Nichols, James P. Purcell, Dr. Helen T. Warner” where I found another shred of evidence that seems to only muddy the story I was trying to uncover.  On a yellowed piece of legal paper was, in faint handwriting “Overheard in staff dining room by patients (waiters) Dorothy Reynolds on the day of the write up in the paper (Tuesday Dec 14 1944.)” This faded note from some unknown staffer details a conversation between the three medical staff members who would be terminated less than a year later. The conversation goes as follows:

 “Dr Warner said the paper did not blame him enough” 

Mrs. Nichols replied “they’d get something on him yet.” 

Mrs Fischer said “He’s such a damn liar he’d deny it anyway”

“The next day Dr. Warner said to Dorothy Reynolds ‘you’d better look out they may send you to the Superintendent’s office’”  

She replied, “I wouldn’t go to the office and tell anything.”

Dr Warner said “That’s right Dorothy don’t go”

The girl was told not to tell anything she overheard them talking about in the dining room”   

This faded piece of paper gives so much muddying insight into how things at MTS were running at the time. It seems as though the three medical staff members, Warner, Nichols and Fischer all spoke out to a newspaper against Superintendent Neil Dayton, but that the resulting article did not cover all that they were complaining about. The conversation with one of the patients also gives some insight into how Dayton ran the institution; the threat of going to the Superintendent’s office is enough to keep the patient quiet. It really calls into question some of the more intense complaints on the termination letters. Some of the most egregious examples are in Dr. Warner’s termination letter, which states:

 “Incompetency in the service in failure to respond to a call in the case of Louise Seymour, who was suffering from a broken femur. You did not go to see the patient, but ordered her brought to the clinic in the Hospital Building. The patient, with a broken leg, was picked up and, although in great pain, was carried to the Hospital Building by another patient” 

There is also the complaint: 

 “Failure to follow an order to the point of insubordination in not writing out orders in Doctor’s Order Book in William Coursen’s case. Five hypodermics were administered by you without being recorded in either the Doctor’s Order Book or the beside notes, with the result that there is no record of the drugs given by hypodermic at these times by you, or the amount thereof.”   

While these seem like rather appalling offenses from the director of nursing, there are other shreds of evidence that sway in the direction that Dr. Warner was doing the best she could with limited resources. For example, in a letter from  Dayton to the Chairman on the Board of Trustees there is the request to hire a pharmacist because “the work of the Drug Room has been taken care of by Mrs. Nichols and the other registered nurse. However, properly speaking, this is not their work and it has not been a very satisfactory procedure,” Later stating that “We might be in a little better position to stand criticism if we had a pharmacist” of which criticism is probably referring to the newspaper article that started this controversy. 

Another piece of damning evidence is the document titled “REASONS FOR EMPLOYEES LEAVING THE: Mansfield State Training School and Hospital March 1– April 30, 1945” which details that a total of 19 staff members had resigned, retired, or left without notice all in the same short period. While there is little explanation left for this mass exodus it seems as though there was some great discontent when only 2 of the 19 left for reasons pointing toward a consensual and mutual break. 

As mentioned in my previous blog post, this is the rub in doing this kind of archival work, we are left with a few puzzle pieces that can fit together several different ways. Was it truly a bad set of staff that were not fulfilling their job responsibility? Was it poor leadership that set impossible standards in an attempt to rid the institution of workers speaking out against some cruelty in the institution? Was it some unknown third factor that has been lost to time? Given what we know about how patients were treated at the Mansfield Training School it is important to ask who is to blame, which, of course, is never a cut and dry answer. However, any shred of definitive culpability seems to be lost to time, given the documents left behind.    

Image 1: Superintendent Neil A. Dayton.

Image 2: “Overheard in staff dining room by patient.”

Images 3 & 4: The termination letter of Dr. Helen T. Warner.

Images 5 & 6: A letter from superintendent Dayton to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees requesting the hire of a pharmacist in order “to better stand criticism.”

Image 7: “Reasons for Employees Leaving the Mansfield Training School and Hospital March 1- April 30, 1945.”

By: Matt Iannantuoni

My fellow researchers, Jess and Brenda, had found in the archive inventory list a box titled “Dismissal and legal action regarding Elly C. Fischer, Florence M. Nichols, James P. Purcell, and Dr. Helen T Warner (1942-5.)” Knowing that I am eventually bound for Law School, they suggested I read through it as my entrance into this project. After reading through these folders I have found my problem with this type of archival work is that those doing the research are at once archeologists, storytellers and, ultimately, visitors peaking in on what was once someone’s career. The natural inclination is to put together a story from the documents which tends to be like putting together a puzzle without the picture on the box and with many missing pieces.  As I dug through the minutes and court documents from the Personnel Appellate hearings for four employees of Mansfield Training Schools I was trying to find the through-line of the folder, I kept asking, what did these four major staff members do in the mid-forties?

My question had been answered by a slew of new questions when I came upon a stapled set of papers titled “Termination Letters” and the through-line immediately revealed itself, “Failure to cooperate with and hostility towards, and defiance of the authority of the Superintendent duly appointed by this board.” Each of these employees, an X-Ray Technician (Fischer,) the director of nursing (Nichols,) a business manager (Purcell,) and a Senior Physician (Warner) had all been fired, at the same time, for separate and often seemingly inconsequential missteps besides this one similarity- “defiance of the authority of the Superintendent.” Perhaps this common complaint is just a generalized, boilerplate umbrella phrase, however, the explicit mention of the Superintendent (Neil A. Dayton) seems to point away from this conclusion.

 Each employee had a laundry list of missteps, such as the director of nursing being accused of “Neglect of duty and incompetency in failure to have resertilized for several months certain sterile goods held for routine or emergency use.” Or, in the case of the X-Ray technician, “Language and conduct towards personnel employed in said institution, leading to friction, dissension, and disturbance of the harmonious operation of the institution.”  It’s impossible to say with any certainty how founded or unfounded these claims are, which is the “rub” of doing this kind of work, however, taken with what we know about the overwhelming code of silence which allowed so many cruelties to go on unabated, it seems that those accused may have spoken out against the institution, “broken the code” and were fired soon after. 

Another “mask off” example of this is in the complaints levied against the business manager (Purcell) which, chief among the nine, is “Failure to carry out an order to the point of insubordination in refusing to return an ornamental metal tray left as a gift in your office in 1943 by a business concern doing business with said institution” and then hidden on the second page, at number 8 is “indulging in unwarranted criticisms, charges and accusations against the Superintendent of said institution, at public hearings, in newspapers and in other ways, in a manner tending to bring discredit upon the Superintendent of said institution.” Attempts to find records of the public hearings, newspapers and the ominously ambiguous “in other ways” proved futile, a moment in MTS history that is left open to interpretation. 

As I dug through this box of files I kept finding different documents that did not seem connected to the termination of the staff members, for example, a few patient census files that counted the number of patients at MTS, a copy of an outdated Connecticut act concerning “Training School Recommitments and Transfers,” as well as a letter from the patient’s mother, thanking the Superintendent for the treatment her son received from doctors and nurses. I’m not sure how these relate to the mass termination of 1945, but I’m also not sure why they would be in this folder if they were not. More questions than answers on this first day of research. 

Image 1 and 2: the termination letter of business manager James P. Purcell.

Image 3: Thank you note from Tommy’s Mother (name omitted for privacy.)