Archival Pennhurst Images

Harvest Queen, 1954
Harvest Queen, 1954
The Pennhurst State School Harvest Queen's Float in the 1954 Halloween parade in Spring City.
Comments:
Add a comment:
Your Name: *
(Required)
Your Email:
(Optional. Will not be posted here)
Your Web Address:
(Optional. Will be posted here)
Your Comment: *
(Required. Limited to 300 characters)   
 
 please enter the text from the image on the left:
 
KAYLIN12/22/2017
@Amanda. I am 18. I have been to 4 residential psyciatric facilities. They do tell us to smile when we go on outings, even though they don't happen often. OF COURSE Pennhurst participated in the town parade! publicity is crucial to a business. It is fake. The smiles. The therapeutic bs
amanda2/28/2014
If you people zoom in, you will clearly see masks on them, and smiles too. ok, if it was all as bad as you women make it out to be, then they most likely WOULDNT have been in a parade.... They would have been in restraints, locked away like they were when it shut down.
Jackie11/5/2012
The eyewear is part of the costume. This was during a time when Pennhurst was still credible. The suffering then was mostly by those that were severely disabled and had no family involved. They were able to keep it hush, hush by those that believed out of sight, out of mind. Heartbreaking....
loesje5/15/2012
Maybe the eyes where just blacked out by the photographer.To keep these people's ID hidden?!
Lucius Best11/16/2011
@Melissa - I'm sure the eyewear is just part of a costume. Patients would not have been paraded about with blinders on And Johnny in Suffer The Children was masked only to hide his identity on TV.
Melissa11/15/2011
I think the mask over the eyes isn't for Halloween, but to deliberately keep them from seeing others in normal society. A similar eye covering is shown worn by the boy John during his interview for NBC's Suffer the Children.
Liliana11/1/2011
If you look closely some of them appear to be wearing masks, or some time of disguise glasses. This was Halloween parade after all, but not all of them have white eyes, try to look closer.
sandy8/7/2011
UMMMM WHY are all their EYES WHITE?? AND GLOWING?????