Recovered Suitcases From an Insane Asylum (Pictures)

Out of the 400 suitcases found, Crispin has shot around 80-100, stopping primarily to prepare for an exhibition at San Francisco’s Exploratorium* that opens April 17.
Crispin said that about half of the suitcases found didn’t have any items in them and not everything he looked at was as serious as the project implies.

“Some of the stuff is funny. You see odd things: false teeth out of context, for example. It wasn’t all heavy-duty, serious stuff. I think the pictures are successful because they do convey a sense of time and the struggle people had to deal with.”

Crispin said the fact that so many things were left in relatively good condition has a lot to do with the town of Willard, N.Y. “Willard was a unique place,” began Crispin.
“Small town, nothing else there but the asylum. Multiple generations of staff worked at the facility, and the staff and patients developed very close personal relationships. When the patients died, the staff just couldn’t bear to throw their possessions away, so they set up this system of storage, never really knowing what to do with the cases.”

Its a bit strange but interesting to look at all the personal stuff from people that died long ago.
There are way more photos on her his blog.

I stumbled across those very interesting photographs and thought I share it on ATS, I did a search and nothing came up. As I found out, she he has tons more of interesting pictures on his blog. Mostly antique things but I recognize some from my own youth.

Here is a news article to get the story: BEHOLD
Here is her his blog -> website, enjoy: Jon Crispin´s Blog
Finally the BLOG (where the most pictures are located)

Have fun and enjoy

Edit: confused the gender several times, I think it finally fits now


After several comebacks for edits, FINALLY I managed to add a link that includes the tag so that everyone will find the pictures more easy, as they are a bit scattered.
LINK WITH TAG

reply to post by verschickter


Thats awesome. Thank you for sharing this. Very interesting to me. I will check it out.

Old pictures are so neat to look at, old items as well.

peace and love
~nat

Cool. I dove in dumpsters once upon a time. When people grow old and die, their grown children come and clean out the house to sell it and most of the stuff winds up in a debris box in the driveway, on the curb, or they take it to work and throw it out. The neatest thing is to sort through exactly this kind of stuff. Its like a history book from their lives. Photos, keepsakes, mementos from wars, vacations, jobs. People have a life and they save odd bits from it during their journey that don't usually hold any intrinsic value (thats why they are thrown away) but are a marvel to review and wonder about. Its like doing forensics on the human race.

You know these things are pure and unadulterated. In the case of these photos, they probably died there at the homes and so this was their last stop before passing on. These would have been the most important items they still kept with them.

Every picture tells a story, like the 3rd one I posted. It has a German-English / English-German translation book AND some soviet looking booklet. American spy?
Then there is a anal-douche and such things....

I see I posted the wrong link to her his blog, the link above is actually her his website. I´ll edit. Here is her his BLOG

I edited her -> his so often now, her has started to loose its meaning

Serious question here...

That glass/plastic tube and rubber hose in the second photo. Is that... an antique penis pump?

But yeah this is really cool. I have a fascination with insane asylums, and insanity in general. I'd love to explore an abandoned asylum someday. There is one thing I have always wanted. You know how decades ago some doctors used to interview mental patients and record it on cassette tapes so they didn't have to write it down? Or reel-to-reel tapes if it was the 50s/60s. I've always wanted to hear those, even though they would most likely be lost or destroyed by now. I've heard a few audio recordings so far of severely demented people pretty much going off the deep end on tape and was inordinately fascinated/slightly amused. I wonder if there are more audio clips on the internet somewhere

reply to post by Xaphan

That glass/plastic tube and rubber hose in the second photo. Is that... an antique---

Syringe kit visible. Might be to tie off the arm for injections of ... coc aine or heroin. Back then it was still legal and sold outright. In an era when what you put into your body was ones right guaranteed by the constitution (personal liberty)?

Not a good idea as has been discovered. A heavy drug addiction could have been what brought this particular person down. An asylum might have been the only recourse back then for that "ailment".

reply to post by Xaphan

Before Willard, Flora was a nurse and was over 100 years old when she died there
....
But I am not sure about her use of injectable strychnine sulfate. I looked around the net for information as to its use, but didn’t have much luck. At some dosages it could be used as an anti-convulsant, so it is possible she had epilepsy.

Just found that