“There is nothing that can be done more effectively toward the prevention of feeble-mindedness, crime and poverty and toward the promotion of our best citizenship, than to segregate the feeble-minded and properly care for them. … Segregation is the most humane and ideal remedy for providing for the defective.”
– Dr. Frederic J. Russell, superintendent of the Brandon School (1916)
In the 1830s, Vermont began to turn to institutionalization as a way to provide care for the mentally ill and juvenile care—but the new institutions soon exploded in size. Officials believed the root cause was heredity, overlooking or underplaying the complex issues they actually faced. Town aid had worsened existing health issues while restraining socioeconomic recovery and success. Municipalities began to blatantly abuse the new system, sending their unwanted citizens to avoid fiscal responsibility.
Limited advances in medical care made the possibility of recovery unlikely, particularly as the institutions soon faced overcrowding, understaffing, and funding issues. These issues did not allow for an environment that supported the personalized treatment so greatly needed. Early records point to clear caregiver burnout, creating a dangerous situation. Dehumanizing mass institutionalization also attracted people who thought of those under their care as little more than animals.
Over the late twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, the institutions were slowly shut down due to local reform advocates and a national push for deinstitutionalization.
Institutionalization and eugenics
Interested in heredity, early institutional officials started to keep short records of families. This simplistic tracking system did not document environmental context and was highly predisposed to show that certain families were contributing to Vermont’s issues. With a nearly immediate explosion in institutional population, leading citizens and state officials began to fear that Vermont was in the midst of a severe crisis of human quality.
Institutional staff became strong supporters of eugenics. During the 1912 campaign and the Eugenics Survey of Vermont, they served as advocates and volunteering information. Public superintendents sat on the Eugenics Survey’s advisory committee and volunteered to turn over all of their medical and family records to the Survey’s fieldworkers.
Both eugenics and the general system of mass institutionalization as an answer to societal issues led to widespread labor practices at the institutions and their colonies to meet high costs. American eugenicists intended that eugenical segregation alongside sterilization would eliminate “poor” heredity by cutting off the bloodline. Until that ending, however, eugenicists intended that their subjects would be put to work as part of a menial class—that’s why eugenicists often described their targets in both medical terms and trainability. When the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1966 banned the so-called therapeutic practice of largely unpaid labor, Vermont’s state-run institutions lost up to 90 percent of their workforces.
Segregation and sterilization
Eugenicists looked towards institutionalization—the forcible restriction of “undesirable” people from society to prevent their procreation—as a key cornerstone of eliminating bloodlines. Although officials spoke widely about institutional segregation by the 1910s, determining eugenic cases is difficult. Courts typically had to order a commitment for institutionalization for medical or criminal causes and institutional officials had discretion in determining releases, negating the need for new eugenical laws. As eugenicists targeted people on the basis of ability, background, health, perceived behavior and morals, and socioeconomic status, someone could be committed for a legitimate medical reason and receive treatment while also being considered a eugenical case.
Institutional officials were major advocates for sterilization, particularly in light of skyrocketing costs and overpopulation. Due to widespread issues with sterilization records, however, it may be impossible to know the scale of sterilization at the institutions. Determining the scale and timeline of eugenical segregation is likewise difficult, as eugenics was not a diagnosis nor was segregation an official policy. Determining cases typically requires additional informal notes that refer to a eugenics reason, such as threat of procreation.
The institutions
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Founded as the Vermont Asylum for the Insane.
In 1834, Vermont’s Anna Marsh founded the first large institution for mental health in the state (the Brattleboro Retreat), intending it provide the treatment with therapeutic settings, a home-like environment, and healthy stimulation. The opening of the institution coincided with Dorothea Dix’s Reform Movement of the 1840s and the push for the moral treatment. Horrified by the treatment of the poor mentally ill, the American nurse and others successfully lobbied for more state institutions over a 40-year campaign.
While a private institution, the Brattleboro Retreat received funding from the state in return for taking in charitable cases. This system was prone to abuse and financially unsustainable. Due to a lack of state-wide resources outside of the Retreat and increasing demand, the Brattleboro Retreat was soon overcrowded and unable to provide the level of care intended; it also faced allegations of mismanagement and abuse, leading to state intervention.
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Also known as the Vermont Industrial School and the Weeks School.
Following the Civil War, the nation faced great demand for juvenile care homes. A number of private organizations sprang up, including the Burlington Home for Destitute Children and the Kurn Hattin Homes. In 1866, the state government opened the Reform School, following a national turn away from treating juveniles as adults. Town officials often committed homeless and dependent children under criminal charges; case records are limited, making it difficult or impossible to determine the scale. Charges of gross lewdness—a leading cause of commitment for girls especially—could actually point to rape and sexual abuse as well as behavior deemed immoral, such as homosexuality and premarital sex.
The Reform School closed in 1979 after more than a decade of legislative action and study.
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Founded as the Vermont State Asylum for the Insane and also known as Waterbury, the Vermont State Hospital, and the Waterbury Asylum.
The legislature created the Waterbury Hospital in 1888 in response to overcrowding at the Brattleboro Retreat and originally intended to house the criminally insane. When it opened in 1891, however, it became an institution for the mentally ill and unwanted poor—housing people with mental illnesses as well as the elderly, people with mental and physical disabilities, and social misfits. From the beginning, the state failed to address towns’ known abuses of the commitment system or adequately prepare for overcrowding that would drastically impair treatment and recovery.
The Waterbury Hospital was shut down in 2011 following de-certifications, skyrocketing costs, widespread discharges, and unfavorable reports.
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Founded as the Vermont State School for Feeble-Minded Children and also known as Brandon and the Brandon Training School.
The legislature created the Brandon School during the 1912 legislative campaign following the governor’s call for the “segregation of defectives.” Opened in 1915, the school was designed to segregate the state’s “feeble-minded” children. “Feeble-mindedness” was both a diagnosis and a catch-all term; school records point to a wide range of cases beyond just what we consider today mental disability, including malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, and autoimmune conditions. Many families in crisis and orphanages—alongside towns—tried to have their children sent due to limited resources. Due to immediate overcrowding at Brandon, officials were soon torn between promoting eugenical segregation and “training” those institutionalized for release. The Brandon School’s records provide some of the only insights into Vermont’s sterilization.
Brandon housed 2,324 people over the years until its closure in 1993. Following a lawsuit from four residents (which resulted in the Brace Decree) and various court orders, the Brandon School closed in 1993; Vermont became the second state to close its only public institution following New Hampshire in 1991.
Resources
Allen, Holly, and Erin Fuller. “Beyond the Feeble Mind: Foregrounding the Personhood of Inmates with Significant Intellectual Disabilities in the Era of Institutionalization.” Disability Studies Quarterly 36:2 (Spring 2016). 10.18061/dsq.v36i2.5227.
Gallagher, Nancy L. Breeding Better Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999.
de Guardiola, Mercedes. “Vermont for the Vermonters”: The History of Eugenics in the Green Mountain State. Barre: Vermont Historical Society, 2023.
Kenneally, Christine. Ghosts of the Orphanage: A Story of Mysterious Deaths, a Conspiracy of Silence, and a Search for Justice. New York: PublicAffairs, 2023.
Kincheloe, Marsha R., and Herbert G. Hunt Jr. Empty Beds: A History of the Vermont State Hospital. Barre, VT: Northlight Studio Press, 1989.
McGovern, Constance M. “The Insane, the Asylum, and the State in Nineteenth-Century Vermont.” Vermont History 52:4 (Fall 1984): 205–24.
The Vermont Asylum for the Insane: Its Annals for 50 Years. Brattleboro, VT: Hildreth & Fales, 1887.