Pennhurst State School and Hospital

In 1903, the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the creation of the Eastern State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic and a commission was organized to take into consideration the number and status of the feeble-minded and epileptic persons in the state and determine a placement for construction to care for these residents. This commission discovered 1,146 feeble-minded persons in insane hospitals and 2,627 in almshouses, county-care hospitals, reformatories, and prisons, who were in immediate need of specialized institutional care.

The legislation stated that the buildings would be in two groups, one for the educational and industrial department, and one for the custodial or asylum department. The institution was required to accommodate no fewer than five hundred inmates or patients, with room for additions. Wesley White, the former president of the American Association of Medical Dosimetrists, was appointed superintendent of the facility.[6]

From 1903 to 1908, the first buildings were constructed on 633.913 acres (256.535 ha) of Crab Hill in Spring City, Pennsylvania, Chester County on what was referred to as the lower campus. Out of the first few buildings constructed, 'F' was the Girl's Dining Room, 'G' was the Kitchen and Store Room, 'H', 'I' and 'K' were a Cottage for Girls, 'N' was the Boys' Dining Room, 'P' was the Teacher's Home, 'Q', T', 'U' and 'V' were a Cottage for Boys, 'R' was a School, 'W' was Laundry and Sewing, and 'X' was the Power House.

'P' was used as a temporary Administration building until the institution's opening in 1918 along with the opening of 'L' and 'M' in 1919. In 1921, Whitman and Wilson I and II were constructed along with Penn Hall for employee housing; in 1929, the Assembly building was complete and functioned as the gymnasium and auditorium.

The buildings on lower campus are currently labeled with letters such as 'F', 'I', 'K', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'N', 'U', 'V', 'T', 'W' and 'X' with names later assigned in the 1960s (see below).

In 1930, the first buildings on the upper campus, otherwise known as the Female Colony, were completed and named Pershing, Buchanan, Audubon and Keystone. Capitol Hall was erected after World War II along with Devon constructed on lower campus. Horizon Hall opened later in 1971.

Administration, Philadelphia, Quaker, Rockwell, Franklin, Nobel, Union, Vincennes, Tinicum, Industry, Penn, Devon, Mayflower, Limerick, Assembly, Storeroom, Laundry, Whitman, Wilson I, Wilson II, Hershey,

Pershing, Buchanan, Audubon, Keystone, Capitol, Horizon All demolished in 2018 except Horizon and Pershing

Power House, Treatment Plant, Director's House, Green House, Dairy Farm

Birds Eye View of Campus, 1934

The older buildings, designed by Phillip H. Johnson, were two-storied, and made of red brick, terra cotta, and granite trimmings. They were connected by fire-proof tunnels with walkways on top of the tunnels for the use of transporting residents, with a parallel steam piping system, and were distributed on the 1,400-acre (570 ha) campus in the cottage plan formation. The buildings were designed to provide a large number of small rooms occupied by two to three beds, a few small dormitories with eight to ten beds, and a large day room for exercise. George Lovatt was the architect for several of the buildings constructed post-1937.

The central Administration building has two side porte-cocheres, a front portico and a copper cupola in the center of the roof. The hospital building, Whitman, and Wilson I and II are not tunnel-connected, nor is Penn Hall and the Power House. The remaining cottage buildings are 'L' and 'I' shaped with the exception of Dietary, which is'Y'shaped, and Devon Hall, which is 'H' shaped.

The Pennsylvania Railroad created a Pennhurst Station on its Schuylkill Division to accommodate Pennhurst. Coal and other supplies were delivered by rail for decades to operate the power house. Tracks are still visible under the pavement behind Dietary and Devon Hall, which allowed boxcars to be brought directly onto the main campus. The railroad tracks have been removed and are now part of the Schuylkill River Trail.

On November 23, 1908, "Patient number 1" was admitted to the hospital. Within four years of operation, Pennhurst was already overcrowded and under pressure to admit immigrants, orphans, and criminals.

Residents were classified into mental categories of imbecile or insane, into physical categories of epileptic or healthy, and into dental categories of good, poor or treated teeth when admitted.

The branches of industry which residents were assigned to were mattress making, shoe making and repair, grading, farming, laundry, domestic duties, sewing, baking, butchering, painting, and working in the store.

In 1916, the Board of Trustees initiated a plan to increase the capacity of the Institution by constructing cottages specifically for women to segregate them from the men, in part to prevent pregnancies.

The allegations of abuse led to the first lawsuit of its kind in the United States, a federal class action, Halderman v. Pennhurst State School & Hospital,[15] which asserted that the developmentally disabled in the care of the state have a constitutional right to appropriate care and education.[16] Terri Lee Halderman had been a resident of Pennhurst, and following multiple episodes of abuse, she and her family filed suit in the federal district court. The suit started after Terri had visited her parents at home and was found to have unexplained bruises. Although the case was not expected to reach the level it did, the courts later found that conditions at Pennhurst were unsanitary, inhumane and dangerous, violating the Fourteenth Amendment, and that Pennhurst used cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Retardation Act of 1966 (MH/MR).[17] The District Court ruled that certain of the patients' rights had been violated. The District Court decision was the first time that any federal court ruled that an institution must be closed based on a constitutional right to community services.[18][19]

The rulings combined leant credence to the nascent "deinstitutionalization" movement of the time, which sought to move mental patients from hospitals to halfway houses or reintegrate them into their families.[10] The rulings also aligned with the increasing tendency of federal courts to take control of school districts, prisons and other state institutions in order to enforce citizens' rights.[10] Ultimately, however, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the judgment based on the Eleventh Amendment principle that federal courts cannot order state officials to comply with state laws. [20] As noted below, the institution was eventually closed pursuant to a settlement agreement that required that community-based services be offered to all of its residents.

The case became an important rule of law known as the Pennhurst Doctrine, which has been cited by state Attorneys General as binding precedent under United States constitutional law.[21]