Written by: Hannah Dang

Based on our visit to the Connecticut State Archives on May 6, 2025~

I was born into a line of oral storytellers. 

Ever since I was a small child and even now, my mother and her mother before her, loved to tell me stories, using their voices to transport me to universes beyond the walls of the dull town I grew up in. Other children learned about Santa Claus, who would bring presents to “good” children during Christmas Eve, and the Easter Bunny, who would hide chocolate eggs in people’s gardens to welcome the spring, but I went to sleep dreaming of faeries and dragons and kingdoms long fallen. 

For as long as I’ve known, a drought has plagued my hometown. And my mother and grandmother showered every inch of land with stories and life like the dragons of old, voices as bright and as deafening as rain and thunder. 

My younger sisters and I inherited their storytelling. Our stories were different, our voices softer than our mother and grandmother, resembling spring rain. At the same time, our stories were simply variations of what we knew and what we experienced. Most of our stories are told to make people laugh, and others cause people to shed tears. 

I’m less of an oral storyteller than a writer now. I’m sitting across from my sister at her desk, inspiration ready to dance through my fingers. Laptop on the verge of dying, crumpled sticky notes thrown on the floor, pens leaking ink, body winded, breath heavy, my shoulders feel lighter, knowing I have the whole day dedicated to writing to look forward to. 

Pages blank, there were many more stories lying in wait. The muscles in my hands release every bit of tension, stretching every finger in preparation to capture the clap of thunder and strike of lightning sparking in my brain, setting off a fire in my soul. 

The story I’m about to write isn’t a story to read during the rain. 

The fire in me is still burning. 

From the moment Professor Brenda sent her email, asking Gabby and I to spend a day with her at the archives to have a hands-on experience with the artifacts, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ve played the role of a “historian” on my own time, watching YouTube shorts on timeless paintings or becoming obsessed with another Broadway musical and making it my new personality. Going to the archives of an actual historical site is a different story entirely. 

I wasn’t the first, and I probably wouldn’t be the last person to have never heard of the Mansfield Training School until I became a student at UConn. For the past three years, I’ve only heard of the institution briefly through word-of-mouth and photos while working for the Disability & Access Collective and through Fred’s Story, a documentary I helped caption. From the little information I knew, I knew the visit to the archives would be a hard pill to swallow considering the sensitive nature of the history behind the institution’s programs for the people inducted. 

Even the trip to get there was a funny story in it of itself. I had walked twenty-five minutes to the bus stop outside Whitney’s Dining Hall only to be told I needed to pay $5 in cash to pay the bus fare, which I didn’t have as I believed the bus system was free for UConn students. I was about to make my way off the bus when the girl behind me offered to pay for my bus fare only for her to also not have $5 bills. 

In mere minutes, we were kicked off the bus. There, the bus driver left us stranded, two girls in the pouring rain. I couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity of it. There was a certain irony in heading to the Archives to study disability history only to be denied ”access” by the bus system. 

The rain didn’t deter the fire running through my veins. 

I thanked the other girl for attempting to help me, and I regret not asking her for her name or contact information. In the end, I will never forget her kindness. If the universe allows us to meet again one day, I would like to be friends.Thanks to Ashten and Persephone, I was able to make it to the Archives with everyone else.  

As soon as the door was opened for us, I inhaled the scent of fresh paint, stale air, and old books, and was welcomed with warm greetings and smiles. In seconds flat, my bad morning was forgotten in favor of the memory of seeing Brenda again and meeting Gabby for the first time. One of my favorite parts was receiving my very own ID card from Damon Munz, the Government Records Archivist, to access the Archives again (I keep it safe and flaunt-able in the outer pocket of my wallet). 

Since Brenda also asked Gabby and I to pick some boxes to look at, I remember asking to look at the files on the “items discarded” by the institution, a booklet on surviving an atomic attack, and I was curious to see what would be included in the box of scrapbooks. Among chocolate chip muffins, sweet bananas, and toasted bagels, the four of us combed through the boxes we requested. In the afternoon hours we spent excavating, there were stories waiting to be found and even more waiting to be shared. 

While the folders I picked didn’t have as many files as others, I was as drawn to the way the sterile texts and scratchy penmanship, the blank space, and the thin pages told me everything I needed to know. Something I learned over the years is the way a blank page can tell a story greater than words ever can. Just like in a painting, there’s layers underneath that we don’t see at first glance until we take the time for a second look. Over the course of history, art has been painted over and writing has been deleted and rewritten to suit the story that needs to be told. 

Most importantly, all knowledge, all collections, all history, no matter how big or small, have a purpose in the grand scheme of things. 

As I reached for the box of scrapbooking materials, I was surprised to unbox a cluster of newspaper clippings. In emboldened black and white print, I memorized the words jumping out at my eyes, I burned the photographs to memory, and there was so much, too much. Something churned in my gut, and I recognized it as unbridled rage and broken sorrow. Flipping through the pages, I wanted to burn every headline I read and cradle the embers at the same time. 

Deep down, I remember that even if it’s easier to erase such history, we have to face it. 

Perhaps that is what the world needs more of, I’m pondering as I write. The more people are exposed to the secrets of Mansfield and the rest of disability history, the more people will be willing to channel blazes of kindness, empathy, and understanding. Mansfield Training School may be closed, but the story doesn’t end there for the disability community. 

There’s much to be done, and I’m grateful to be a part of this story.

Written By Paula Mock

Arriving at the Connecticut State Library (CSL) archival warehouse was incredibly exciting for me (I’m sure if you’d told me a few years ago I’d be excited about archival documents, I’d laugh!). Meeting our MTS team that I’d only met on Zoom so far was strangely cathartic–even though we’d only met a couple of times, I felt (and still feel!) that this is a team made up of particularly kind and diligent people. The lingering anxieties that I had about failing to do the project justice were eased, especially as we entered the library and sat down in front of the boxes.

The daunting task of unearthing and methodically going through each of the thick bins of folders was one that I was fairly well-prepared for. During high school, I’d spent many of my afternoons and weekends at the Peabody Museum in New Haven, creating digestible science content for all age ranges. I’d had some practice with research and curation/selection of documents, especially when it comes to parsing out the most important and crucial information to bring out and amplify to a wider audience. These collection and research skills came in very handy in the CSL as we worked in pairs to make our way through as many boxes as we could. The experience of individually reading documents and then coming together to share particularly striking pieces was one that allowed conversation to spark at any point during the day–numerous times, we found ourselves having had  long, rich discussions about much larger-scale issues than just MTS itself.

One afternoon, I remember taking what we expected to be a “quick snack break,” all of us moving to a table away from the archival boxes and sitting around, musing over what we’d just seen. One of us (it’s hard to recall who, since we all took turns sharing out!) started the conversation with disbelief about a document they’d just looked over, and we collectively tried to wrap our heads around the implications of what we’d read and heard. Orange juice had been found to be laced with dangerous contaminants, and milk delivered from UConn’s dairy farm already spoiled and warm, and when faced with this information, UConn’s response had been to refrigerate the milk and juice cartons again, and present them later to MTS as if new.

This document and incident spurred an extensive group discussion about everything from food safety, to infantilizing members of our society who have different abilities, to  institutional responsibilities and justice–we must’ve talked for about an hour, but it felt as quick as fifteen minutes to me; I felt so immersed in what others were sharing, and it seemed like the rest of the team felt the same way. There was much jumping around from topic to topic–when one person made an observation, it jarred another person’s memory of another related experience, and then others would jump in as well. 

The energetic nature of the conversation was something that I’ve only been a part of in a few other academic settings, and it reminded me of a concept introduced to me in a sociology class at UConn last year: the “flow state,” one of complete focus that is only possible when fully immersed and concentrated on the current task. For a group of seven, I think it’s pretty remarkable that, from what I could tell, all of us in the room that day were so engaged in each other’s thoughts (and the material at hand) that we were able to completely “plug in” to the more-than-challenging conversation and feed off of each other’s ideas. 

The following is a slide show presentation of a live reading of Superintendent MacNamara’s 1994 article on the closing of Mansfield Training School. To interact with this piece, please click the embedded link below, select the audio button in the upper left-hand corner to begin the audio, and click through the piece to see the text from the readers.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQ3ZS6lgU2lUcCZ4pLl8JJ8zwiWUMFiEOm5BbOllVeGgPAYwPU3W4aVY-HIjHKcNmBR_aXV0lZC9hLV/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000&slide=id.p

Written By Ashten Carter

The floorplan was not the most remarkable thing that I saw in the archives. At first glance, there was nothing extraordinary about the basement of Knight Hospital. This was not like the documents that puzzled me, the images that startled me, and the narratives that captivated me. Yet, this blueprint was the piece that stuck with me. I suppose that is because there was no room (literal or figurative)  for interpretation. It was a floor plan. There was supposedly no reading between the lines. There was no speculating about who created it, or how they must have felt, or why. It was objective, unlike so many of the documents we had spent the summer combing through. There was the boiler room, the clinics, the bathrooms, the storage room, the lab, the corridors, wheelchair ramps, the stairways, the garbage shed all neatly outlined and labeled. Precise down to the measurements.

And then there was the waiting room right next to the mortuary. 

Holding that paper in my hand is not a feeling that I’ll soon forget. It was as though time stood still for a moment. And in a way it had. I was imagining being in a place of “waiting.” A place where time stood still. 

How would it have felt to be sitting in those chairs? 

What did it feel like coming into the hospital from the dorms? 

Would they tell you why you were there? 

How would it feel to leave the clinic, knowing no one ever returned from the door just down the hall?

How many friends had they lost while interned by the state? 

What were their names? 

Where are they buried?

Institutionalization reminds me of that waiting room. Institutions have historically been a place to hide away society’s “undesirables.”  To the general public,  there’s an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to those who are institutionalized. It’s why we find these facilities in such remote areas. It makes it easier to forget about the people that were already forgotten. However, for those who live in institutions, there is no putting it out of your mind. 

Mansfield Training School was an influential institution, a contributor to the local economy, and “the only option” for many Disabled people and their families. It was also a warehousing operation; it was a “place of waiting.” It, like other institutions of its kind, was where you went to die. 

Just as much as I wondered what it would be like to sit in that waiting room while the facility was in operation, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like now. 

What color is the peeling paint? 

What would it be like to see the records of former residents strewn across the floor? 

30 years after the closure of Mansfield Training School, Knight Hospital stands overgrown and decaying. The records stored in that same basement have been deemed ‘irretrievable.’ While institutionalized, the residents’ stories were kept hidden from the outside world. Even now that the institution has closed, their stories remain untold. 

Waiting is the very nature of being institutionalized. We wait for funding for community-based options. We wait to hear from family, if we have any. We wait for the next meal or the next way to pass the time. Sometimes, time passes us. 

Many residents spent decades of their lives at Mansfield Training School, an institution that claimed to specialize in caring for those with disabilities. In actuality, institutions like MTS specialized in waiting. 

Did the residents of MTS know the waiting room is for the clinic?

Did they fear that it just as easily may have been for the morgue?

Written By Dr. Brenda Brueggemann

I’m not a very patient person and my attention span has some challenges since I’m always thinking of (way too many) projects and ideas at any one moment.  And so:  I’m not a Good Person in the Archives.

I knew that already about myself.  I had tried it before with numerous (significant and scintillating but still abandoned) Deaf studies/history projects in the past.  Sure, I’m trained with a PhD in the philosophy, theory, and practice of the ancient art of Rhetoric,  So, in essence, I had all the “basic skills” to do this kind of work. On paper.  

But my imagination has always wanted to overtake the archives, to fuss with the fact-finding, and to dog the detailed and deliberate march through The Records in pursuit of Historical Truths.  I would always get impatient and distracted, my storytelling self taking over the driver’s seat down the archives highway, eating up the rest of the bag of chips.  

Being in and “doing” the MTS archival work was hard on me then, needless to say.

I was cold in there – all the time.  Both physically and probably also a little spiritually.  The air conditioning was overwhelming in the summer and then dead-air damp chill saturated the space in the winter. The closed-in feeling was quite claustrophobic. The Connecticut State Library (CSL) archivists were watching us all the time –and that surveillance rubbed on my edges.  My mind wandered, a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about:  the chocolate peanut butter granola protein bar I’d left in my backpack at  the locker outside the archives; or the abandoned deli in the corner of our window view at the Connecticut State Library Archives warehouse location in near-downtown Hartford, CT. (possibilities of a good grilled cheese sandwich haunted me at every visit); or the red comb someone had left in the bathroom there (that had now been there for over a year of our visits); or the Colt Gun Factory exhibit on the CSL Archives meeting room wall;  or the rickety-rickety old school rolling-fenced gate that chugged its way  back, so very slowly, to let us into the dilapidated and patchy asphalt “parking lot” at the archives; or the parents and kids at the school right next to the archives building who convened for pickup in mid-afternoon (and wouldn’t then allow us exit from the archives at that time).  I was distracted.

But then again, I wasn’t.  I was also finely focused, riveted, operating on High Purpose.  

I reveled in (and largely remembered) the remarkable details of almost every team conversation we had within the CSL Archives.  I came to know everyone’s favorite snack options.  The community we created in the archives –doing this work, together, and troubled, and important, and a little terrified – these are the things I most take away from (and with) it. 

I’m here, on and in this project, because I simply couldn’t not be.  I didn’t choose the project (like many of the fabulous undergraduate research team members did) – it chose me.

I had done some other community-related disability advocacy and activism work in Ohio (while on the faculty at Ohio State University for 21 years) and in Kentucky (while also on the faculty at the University of Louisville for 3 years). But those were more containable projects with goals and known limits and ends.  (See: Voices Together: The Art as Memory Project) 

The MTS Memorial and Museum @ UConn Project is far bigger and more unknown than any of those previous projects I’ve encountered and engaged in.  The MTS Project is a case of “research” finding me –  rather than me setting out on a predetermined research path.  It’s something like “research at first sight” (akin to “love at first sight”) where I was utterly swept off my feet and then the project just overtook me.  

And yes, that’s a little complicated and icky too.  Love and research can be like that.

I wasn’t expecting to take on such a large-scale, deep, wide, troubling, meaningful project at this stage in my fairly long academic career.  I was thinking more about coasting into a couple of grand finale style essays and invited cameos for my last years as an academic – with 25 years now in the field of Disability Studies.  But then:  Jess and I literally fell into this project with a half-hour independent study conversation in my office late in September 2021. The world kind of flipped over on that day for me.

I am a disability studies scholar – and a disabled person – for my lifelong academic career.  I am of the “first generation” of such folx in higher education.  The MTS project brings together the best of the skills and things I’ve worked on, worked towards, advocated for, and taught about in my 30-year faculty career:  

• carrying out advocacy that is based on community; 
• engaging disability rights activism that blends study with struggle, education with the public; 
• re-telling and excavating buried disability history/ies; 
• combining archival research with narrative techniques and analysis; 
• working closely with student researchers and writers to learn, create, grow through the material together

I’m home.  I’m here. 

Written By Ally LeMaster

When I think back to the archives, I think about the hazy lighting.

How the documents were lit up by sterile fixtures. The whole building seemed muted, except for the latex-free, oversized green gloves. 

After hours of pouring over archives, my hands felt like a layer of the past rubbed off on my fingers— that somehow the particles in the air at Mansfield Training School carried from all these years to end up in the present. 

I remember the smell of the old transfer paper and wondered if that’s the scent that perforated MTS too.  

Mildew and must. 

I wanted to know who touched the papers before me and what their hands did before and after. Were their hands healing? 

Did they cause harm? 

Or were their hands simply bystanders to horrors that went on there?

I remember trying to stop myself from asking questions that could never be answered. Just to stick to words written on the paper in front of me.  

But there were still questions on top of questions. 

I remember combing through every single document because I was scared to miss the important detail. Like if I read every single word, I could actually make sense of what happened.  But I couldn’t find those words because sometimes actions won’t always have meaning behind them. 

I would always catch myself looking up at the face of the archivists. How they talked firmly about the present, but the research team was sunken deep in the past. 

Mostly, I think back to the relief and worry that went through me when it was time to leave. 

In the archives, you absorb almost a decade’s worth of information in a day and have to go back home to a false sense of normalcy. I remember how my days in the archives stuck to me like the embrace of a shrunken sweater.

I’d pull up to my house exhausted. 

My dad would ask me how my day at the archives went. 

Every detail of every document swarmed my head, from the restraint logs to employee guidebooks. The sad, the grim, and the troublesome stories told in the archives were always at the tip of tongue. 

But I knew I had to pull away from the question. I didn’t want the information to haunt him like it did me. 

“My day at the archives was good, Dad.”

And I’d go to my room as if nothing ever happened.