Feature Issue on Disability Rights, Disability Justice

Clear-language summary

Some closed institutions have been transformed into Halloween attractions and haunted houses. Some people might say this should never be done. It trivializes the important history of these institutions and may make people afraid of those who once lived there. But many of these attractions are now well attended and making money.

Perhaps the best known of the disability-related venues is at Pennhurst in Spring City, Pennsylvania, which opened in 1908. Before closing in 1987, it became a symbol of the tragedy of America’s treatment of citizens with developmental disabilities. Underfunding, overcrowding, understaffing, and incompetent medical and mental health care all led to more than 70 years of shame. But a key lawsuit establishing the right to education for all children was won at Pennhurst.

The Halloween attraction opened in 2010 and was met with opposition from local advocates for the next eight years. In 2017, a group of investors purchased the property and changed the tone and imagery of the exhibits. Revenues climbed.

The potential for degradation and insult is obvious, but is it possible to offer entertainment without disrespect? Is there a chance to teach something important? Now that people with disabilities themselves are contributing significantly to telling the story, might we find something worthwhile in these attractions?

What more can be done to ensure that the legacies of the 10,600 people who lived at Pennhurst are remembered? We must ground our efforts in human rights and social justice frameworks, and make them accessible to audiences across abilities, classes, and ethnic, racial, geographical, and sexual backgrounds. Collaborating with diverse members of the disability community to influence this work will create ways to engage with Pennhurst’s history that best honor the residents who once lived there.

Some of our nation’s shuttered institutions have been transformed into Halloween attractions and haunted houses. How can we place this phenomenon into a framework of historical memory, values, and integrity? This is a story about one such case, its slow but important transformation, and a hopeful way to look at such activities in the Restorative History framework.

The issue may seem to have a simple response: Don’t ever do that. It trivializes the important history of these institutions, some observers say, and may tend to cast the people who lived in them into roles as objects of fear. A parallel question has often been raised: Would we allow such a thing at a European concentration camp? Of course we would not.

But now we are confronted with a thriving nationwide industry of Halloween attractions and venues, many of them situated on the grounds of closed prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and state institutions for people with developmental disabilities. They have joined together in a Haunted Attraction Association that includes worldwide members, at hauntedattractionassociation.com. One of the most famous is at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, at which the annual Halloween “Terror Behind the Walls” capitalizes upon the ugly history of the place. It earned the entire annual operating budget for the facility and its museum from just a few weeks of ticket sales.

Perhaps the best known of the disability-related venues is at Pennhurst in Spring City, Pennsylvania. It opened in 1908 as the Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, and later was renamed the Pennhurst State School and Hospital. Before closing in 1987, it became a symbol of the tragedy of America’s dismal treatment of citizens with developmental disabilities. Underfunding, overcrowding, understaffing, and incompetent medical and mental health care all led to more than 70 years of shame. But Pennhurst also became a symbol of triumph. PARC v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the lawsuit establishing the right to education for all children, with and without disabilities, began and was won at Pennhurst. The shock and vicious abuse detailed in another lawsuit, Romeo v. Youngberg, became a U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a right to treatment according to professional standards. Another series of cases of abuse and neglect brought about a third case that rose all the way to the Supreme Court (Halderman v. Pennhurst). That case resulted, indirectly, in widespread acceptance of a policy and principle of a right to live in the community.

In this still photo from a 1967 film about Pennhurst that was narrated by Henry Fonda, residents and staff walk through the grounds. Photo courtesy of the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance.

Pennhurst, the Halloween attraction, opened in 2010 and was met with opposition from from local advocates for the next eight years. Known as the “Pennhurst Asylum,” the venue’s history is a case study amid a global rise in attractions with a “haunted” theme. It has become, surprisingly, a vessel for raising awareness about the damaging, insulting, and demeaning depictions of people who lived and died in these institutions. The Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance (PMPA) was one of the fervent critics of the original attraction. The organization used litigation, zoning, picketing and other methods to try to stop or curtail the attraction, with no success. The attraction offered income, taxes, and jobs to local communities. This is a common experience with similar haunts.

The Pennhurst Asylum got off on the wrong foot, to say the least, when the owners met with PMPA officers before the opening. They promised scrupulous avoidance of stereotypes and horror-inducing imagery of people with disabilities, and pledged their respect for the history of the site. The very day after that meeting, the owners advertised for “actors” to perform at the asylum with an advertisement featuring disturbing images.

The first version of the haunted asylum was as bad as anticipated. The fictional Dr. Chakajian and his minions were shown experimenting on asylum inmates. In a minor nod to the history of Pennhurst, patrons could view artifacts retrieved from the property (notably, a dentist’s chair and electroshock therapy machine). Yet, historical fact and shock fiction were poorly separated, and visitors were left to wonder which was which. The deplorable approach of these original owners continued for seven years, in spite of negotiations and opposition.

PMPA members were not the only ones to protest the misrepresentation and disrespect of Pennhurst’s history in the haunted attraction. Disability studies historian Sarah Handley-Cousins reflected on the continuing fascination with such sites.

“I like a ghost story as much as anyone, but the patients who lived in institutions like Pennhurst weren’t spooky spirits–they were human beings with complex lives,” Sarah Handley-Cousins wrote in a 2015 Nursing Clio blog. Editorials in local newspapers and segments on local television decried the disrespectful nature of the Pennhurst Asylum.

In those years, buildings on the property were being torn down. Their roofs had decayed during two decades of state neglect, violating historic preservation laws. Some buildings could not be reclaimed, even in theory. No money was available to preserve them. Lacking intervention, all of them would be lost.

In 2017, a group of investors purchased the property and began to alter the backstory, the imagery, and the exhibits. The actors and performers became scary creatures, with no more attempts to imitate the people who once lived there. The imagery was revised to remove articles and exhibits that focused on disability. In sum, the attraction changed from overt degradation of the Pennhurst people, toward a simple Halloween attraction full of scary things – housed within some undeniably spooky buildings and underground tunnels. Revenues continued and climbed. There was, evidently, no need to debase the memory of the place and the people in order to succeed financially. The changes were led by an operations manager who had family members who experienced disability.

Because of the very different attitudes of the new owners, the haunted attraction changed, and so did the treatment of the entire property. Roofs were replaced, one building was repurposed as a new Pennhurst Museum, and the PMPA was invited to assist with museum exhibits, talks, and online materials. The owners also began history tours on weekends year-round. At long last, the PMPA was able to vote to work with the owners to further its own mission – to preserve the history and the memory of what happened at Pennhurst, and how it changed the world.

While the haunted attraction was transforming, and the property was being utilized differently and preserved, a doctoral student from the University of Minnesota did his dissertation research on the Pennhurst Asylum phenomenon and what it meant in the context of disability rights and dignity. Nathan Stenberg “embedded” himself within the culture and work of the Pennhurst attraction. He soon learned that new questions were being posed, particularly, “Who should tell the story of Pennhurst, and how should they tell it?”

Stenberg learned that more than 80% of the performers (called haunters) identified themselves as living with a disability. Some even had personal histories of institutionalization. Several of the haunters learned the Pennhurst history in detail, and began working as volunteers giving historical tours of the campus in daylight hours. In this way, the haunted attraction began to generate a new and welcome impact: accurate public education. Most people coming to the Pennhurst Asylum came for thrills and chills and entertainment – but more and more were leaving with an unexpected awareness of a civil rights movement they never knew existed.

Historical marker. Photo courtesy of the Pennhurst Memorial & Preservation Alliance.

In 2020, PMPA established the Pennhurst Memorial Fellowship and several intern positions to continue the historical work on site. Autumn Werner, a psychology major at Westchester University, was the first Pennhurst Memorial Fellow; she is a person with a disability and performed in the attraction as a haunter.

“To me, being on the site and performing, and building a community as we have, has given the disabled population here the power back. We have reclaimed the space and seek to perform, educate, and welcome others into it,” Werner wrote in a personal email to a PMPA board member.

Werner also staffs overnight paranormal tours of the Mayflower building (which houses the museum), the grounds, and the underground tunnels. She approaches her work with a deep sense of respect and protectiveness of the residents’ stories.

“Oftentimes, paranormal investigators may seek to invade sacred spaces, like the Pennhurst cemetery. The Pennhurst Asylum staff will not share the location of the cemetery unless we are certain that the guest has nothing but respect in mind,” Werner wrote. “The (Pennhurst) site itself is a sacred one.”

Pennhurst’s evolution as an attraction is instructive. It highlights a national trend of using other former institutions for entertainment. Even The Arc of Loudoun County, Virginia uses a former orphanage for an annual Halloween horror attraction. The potential for degradation, insult, and palpable harm is obvious and potent. In fact, such harm happened demonstrably in the early years of the Pennhurst Asylum. But can the story change? Can it ever be possible to do it right and offer entertainment without disrespect, and with a chance of learning about something important? Now that people with disabilities themselves are contributing significantly to telling the story, might we find something worthwhile in the attraction phenomenon?

Restorative History, as defined by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, is a theory, a method, and a practice that draws on the principles of restorative justice to address the needs of historically harmed communities. The museum’s Center for Restorative History says the practice works with “diverse voices to make public history a practical tool for justice that confronts the past and ongoing impacts of systemic harm.” This trend can help us rethink the issue.

PMPA’s mission is to preserve the memory of what happened at Pennhurst and promote an understanding through education of the civil rights of people with disabilities. Raising complex questions about who should tell the story can help in our search for both a method and a practice that goes beyond simply telling the story alone. By implementing a restorative history approach, we can diversify the voices telling Pennhurst’s story.. Historians and advocates might emphasize collaboration with communities of people with disabilities across the country to imagine a more just and inclusive future. Restorative history asks us to reflect on our shared past by asking ourselves who has been harmed, what their needs are, and what our obligations are to meet their needs. It also asks us to name the root causes of harm, past and present.

In her 2014 doctoral dissertation, Kelly George reflected that the Pennhurst story, as told by the advocacy community for the past 50 years, was one of unmitigated horror. That story helped close institutions, where horrors really did happen to people. Perhaps paradoxically, George notes the similarities of this rhetoric with the horror-themed attractions. “In contrast, other community members shared memories that showed Pennhurst had long been a symbol of the community’s goodwill, service, and genuine caring,” George wrote.

Many of us wonder what more can be done to ensure that the legacies, histories, and stories of the 10,600 people who lived at Pennhurst are remembered, revered, and told. This should include the overwhelmingly well-intentioned people who worked there, trying to offer compassion in an impossible situation, grossly under-funded by public ignorance and political apathy. To do this, we must ensure our discourses are not only grounded in human rights and social justice frameworks, but are also accessible to a wide variety of audiences across abilities, classes, ethnic, racial, geographical, and sexual backgrounds. Collaborating with diverse members of the disability community to inform this work will generate new ways to engage with the history of Pennhurst that best honor the residents who once lived at the institution.

As one Pennhurst performer told Stenberg in 2020, they didn’t want visitors to walk through and only think about it as something scary.

“We preserve the property, and we’re doing our best to educate people about what happened here,” the performer said.

Their work may offer one answer to the complicated question of how best to tell the story of how we confined so many people with disabilities in large, isolated, segregated institutions in America. Let it be told by people with disabilities themselves.

Note: Parts of this article appeared previously on the National Council on Public History website.