The Willard Asylum of the Insane was founded in 1869 in Willard, NY — a small town about 45 minutes from Ithaca. More than a century later, in 1995, the state closed the facility for budgeting reasons. Employees, like Beverly Courtwright, were given the task of cleaning out all of the facility’s numerous buildings, which may seem like a humdrum task to most, but to Courtwright, whose family had been involved with the hospital for generations, it was bittersweet.
“People who worked at Willard had parents who worked at Willard, who also had parents who worked at Willard,” photographer Jon Crispin, who has been capturing images of mental institutions since the 1980s, told me in an exclusive interview. “There was a really close relationship between the staff and patients there.” Some patients even lived in homes in the community as they were transitioning from the mental facility to the real world.
Courtwright eventually made her way into the attic, where she rediscovered something very special — 400 suitcases brimming with secret contents that revealed the passions and personalities of patients’ pasts.
When patients arrived at Willard, there was often a suitcase in tow. If a patient died and no one in their family claimed their belongings, that suitcase would be stored in the attic for safekeeping. The staff didn’t have the heart to throw them away.
Upon discovering the suitcases, Courtwright decided to contact the New York State Museum. The museum catalogued each of the cases’ contents and then kept them in a permanent collection. They were eventually featured in an exhibit, in which Crispin discovered them. Due to his past experience photographing institutions, he was granted access to the cases in March of 2011, and has been snapping beautiful images of the them ever since.
“My goal is to give a life to these people outside of being identified as mental patients,” Crispin said. “The objects in the cases reflect the lives they had before…”
“More than half the cases are basically empty,” Crispin said.
“The only thing in the case is a little label with day of admission and some brief information of where the patient came from.”
“But a few very special cases are filled with intimate possessions patients left behind.”
This case belonged to a Joseph A.
“I see amazing things in a lot of the cases.”
“I have great respect for these items. I hope that my strong feelings about these objects is evident in my photographs.”
Freda B.
“I see this thing as a body of work. All these cases are so different.”
See more shocking opened suitcases after the jump!!
“I approach the whole thing with a respect for the objects and patients.”
Anna G.
“Even in the empty cases, I’ll see a name and a date, and I think ‘this was someone’s life.’ ”
Mary W.
“I find everything about them interesting, even the sounds of the locks on the suitcases whenever I open them are completely compelling.”
Maude K.
“I never know what I’m going to find. Sometimes its mind-boggling, sometimes it’s funny.”
You'll wonder why someone would bring these items to an asylum after the jump!!
“You’ll see something silly and think, ‘why would someone bring this or that to an asylum?’ ”
John C.
“Some of the objects are so cool. Some patients came with entire sets of cutlery.”
Dmytre Z.
“And I wonder why, but I never question their decision.”
“I think people had no idea what they were in for [when they came to Willard]. That’s an element of the project I find so interesting.”
Leroy B.
“I’m not looking for the answers, it’s a question that can’t be answered. I respect the decisions people make when they packed these things.”
Carlos F.
"People can look at these photographs and wonder ‘well, why did this person bring a miniature baseball bat?’ "
Mary R.
“I just want people to look at the photographs and react to them honestly.”
Charles L.
“There are amazing old books, many people came with newspaper clippings.”
“I come across personal items like letters written from family members. Those are always very emotional.”
Eleanor G.
“You can spend hours and hours just reading the letters.”
“A lot of the patients have diaries, so you can read their life at Willard.”
“I’ll find an object like a bottle of perfume from France and I’ll photograph it…”
“…And then I’ll Google it and find out it’s a very expensive bottle of perfume only owned by really rich people.”
“Which tells you something about the owners of these cases.”
Anna B.
“I like really old things. There are some objects I’m totally blown away by.”
"In one case, there was a beautiful Big Ben wind-up alarm clock. I found myself photographing it a lot because I just really liked it."
Steffan K.
“It was like having object lust.”
“I get responses from this project of people saying…”
Ausbourne G.
“…It makes them want to cry.”
Joseph A.
“Others are jazzed to see these old items.”
Thelma R.
“There’s a whole range of reactions.”
LaVerne W.
“And I don’t care how people react. I just want a reaction.”
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