The Ladd School was once recognized as a state-run facility providing residential, vocational, and medical services for youth and adults with developmental disabilities. But over a century ago, it was better known as a feeble-minded school — an institution more closely resembling an almshouse and reformatory.
This collection of nearly 1,000 photographs provides a broad, candid, and intimate look at life behind and beyond the walls of the Ladd School.
More than 15 hours — over six miles — of reel-to-reel film of the Ladd School, recorded between about 1960 and 1972.
Professional photographs of public events at and about the Ladd School in the 1960s and 1970s.