Insane Asylum Patients, Case files

The New York State Museum has an exhibit which features ex-patients' suitcases recovered from the attic of the Willard Psychiatric Center. The suitcases feature patients' belongings and case files, offering a unique insight into their lives:

Madeline C.
She was sent to the New York Psychiatric Institute in upper Manhattan, and after claiming that she could read minds, was shipped off to three more hospitals. "I want to get out of here immediately," Madeline said when she arrived at Central Islip Hospital. "I think it's an outrage I have been brought here."

In 1939, she arrived at Willard. More than three decades later, she was still trying to regain her freedom. "I don't like this hospital," she said, according to a note in her records. "I resent being detained and wasting my time." The items found in her suitcase hint at what her life was like before she was locked up, and what she might have been doing with her time had she been released. Her trunk contained a pink silk dress, a pair of long white gloves, a stack of sheet music, a copy of Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis, and a bulletin listing philosophy and psychology courses at Columbia University.

In 1971, Willard staffers decided not to set Madeline free because of her "continual fidgety movements, rigid stances, and facial grimaces." At the time, they did not know that these were the side effects of the psychiatric medications they had prescribed for her. She was sent to "attitude therapy" to get her to stop grimacing. By the time she finally got out of Willard, she was 79 years old. She was moved to a private facility and died 11 years later.

Frank C.
An incident at a restaurant in the summer of 1945 changed the course of Frank C.'s life forever, propelling him into the mental health system. After he was served a broken plate, he got mad and began kicking garbage cans outside. The police picked him up, and he was taken to Kings County Hospital. "I am not sick," Frank told a staffer. "I got excited on Fulton Street and I was throwing garbage. My blood temper. It went up. I was angry. In the Virginia Restaurant I got a broken plate. I did not understand the broken plate. I thought that someone planned to kill me."

Dmytre Z.
Dmytre's mental health quickly deteriorated, and he began to complain about feeling persecuted. He became convinced that he was engaged to Margaret Truman, the president's daughter, and he went to Washington, D.C., to see her in 1952. The Secret Service nabbed him, and that's when he entered the mental health system. He passed through two hospitals before arriving at Willard in 1953.