The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic -- A Digital Project Review

The Willard Suitcase Project is an online digital project which accompanied the 2005 traveling exhibit, "The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic." It is unclear if the traveling exhibit is a partner of the New York State Museum's exhibition in 2004; "Lost Cases, Recovered Lives: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic," seen by more than 600,000 visitors during its nine-month run. The traveling exhibit was curated by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny for the Community Consortium; an organization dedicated to fighting for civil rights for those with psychiatric disabilities. Learn about the Consortium HERE. According to the digital project's website, the exhibit was designed and produced by The Exhibition Alliance, which handled rental and scheduling. The goal of the exhibit is to bring the stories of the suitcase owners and a patient-centered view of the history of psychiatry to a wider audience. 

"Mlle. Madeline"
Courtesy of The Willard Suitcase Project {http://www.suitcaseexhibit.org/index.php?section=thesuitcases&subsection=madeline}

The Willard Suitcase Project is centered around a collection of patient suitcases found in the attic of Willard Psychiatric Center, formerly Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane, in Willard, NY. Willard Psychiatric Center began admitting patients in 1869, and closed in 1995. The suitcases were discovered by former Willard employee Beverly Courtwright, and she immediately contacts the New York State Museum who then sought custody of the suitcases. The Willard Suitcase Project chose nine suitcases to digitally exhibit alongside a profile of the suitcase owner.  When the user clicks on the patient name and ID number, they are taken to the profile of the patient with photos of the patient and their belongings. This is interesting because the suitcases tell a lot about the patients' lives before Willard through the examination of their personal belongings. The New York State Archives were used to find additional photos of the patients, as well as for the profile information.

There are some unfortunate drawbacks to the digital project which make it lack the backbone of a scholarly project. First, the intended audience is clearly anyone interested in Psychiatric hospitals, and not students. There are no citations under the patient profiles or archival photos. The patients chosen for the project are also suspect. There are over 400 suitcases to choose from to spotlight, and it seems that the patients that were chosen were all people that led "normal" lives before either being forcibly institutionalized, or having a mental breakdown out of the blue. This leads the reader to believe that the majority of the patients at Willard were held there against their will and were not in need of medical care. I am not arguing that forced institutionalization was not a large issue prior to 1950 - it was! However it would have been better to show a wider variety among the patient profiles. 

Additionally, it would have been a more scholarly project if the background information was written more objectively and with the use of historical evidence. There are many sides to history, and when writing about the history of institutionalization it is important to discuss the political and medical climate of American in the early twentieth century that led to the strong investment in institutions. This project paints institutions as horrible places which held normal people, mainly misbehaved women and immigrants, captive. This was not always the case, and there is more to the story than the abuses which took place in many mental facilities in the twentieth century. This project has the potential to be a great source of primary sources and photographs pertaining to institutionalization. The visual dimension of the project works very well - it captivates the audience and leaves you wanting to look at more suitcases, and the fact that the online project can be paired with the traveling exhibit and the New York State Museum's exhibit is great! I think when a physical exhibition uses digital tools, a wider audience can be reached and people with different learning styles can participate in the exhibit. However, I think the project would have been much better if it was taken a few steps further.

One idea I have for making the project more interactive is to give a historical "profile" for each of the objects inside the suitcases. The user would be able to click on an object in the suitcase, and be brought to a page giving information on the object and some historical context for why the patient would have chosen these few objects out of all of their possessions to bring with them - or why these were their only possessions at all. For example, one of the photos of suitcases shows a military uniform, a miniature American flag, and a baby shoe. It would have been interesting to explore why the patient would hold onto his military uniform and what experiences he might have had in the military during that era. Learning about the history of the popularity of certain brands of beauty products or popular books found in suitcases would also be enlightening. It seems to me like there is a huge material culture project waiting to happen with the suitcases, and once we start to look into the material culture, we would discover even more about the patients' histories and personalities.

Finally, another confusing aspect of the project are its connections to the New York State Museum and/or the website willardsuitcases.com. I am unsure why the digital project was developed, or if it is connected with the New York State Museum or archives at all. The previously mentioned website was developed by photographer Jon Crispin to exhibit his professional photographs of the Willard Suitcases in great detail. He also sells prints of his photography and has worked in collaboration with the New York State Museum. His website has better quality and a larger quantity of photographs of the suitcases than the Willard Suitcase Project, but lacks the information about the patients and any patient full names, identification numbers, or photographs. If the two projects could be combined, I think we would be getting somewhere.  Overall, I think these projects are a foot in the door to talking about and exhibiting psychiatric materials, but they both lack in content, interpretation, and proper citation.