CSI Library: Archives & Special Collections: A Guide to Willowbrook State School Resources at the CSI Library

A Guide to Willowbrook State School Resources at the CSI Library

About the Guide

This guide is intended to help researchers identify and locate Willowbrook State School materials in the College of Staten Island Library.

Introduction

CSI has a growing collection of materials that document the history of the Willowbrook State School. Included are printed books, reports, dissertations, and manuscript materials. News clippings dating from 1947 to 2000 provide context and an idea of the public's impression of the school at various times. In addition, photographs document buildings that were either renovated or demolished to create the current CSI campus in the early 1990's.

Books

From Snake Pits to Cash Cows by Paul J. Castellani
ISBN: 9780791464397
Publication Date: 2005-03-10
The Willowbrook Consent Decree and Its Ramifications on Residential Services in the State of New York by Nancy Jean Ferguson
Publication Date: 1990
The Willowbrook Consent Decree by Paula Adrian Lambert
Publication Date: 1982
The Willowbrook Wars by David J. Rothman
ISBN: 9780202307572
Publication Date: 2004-08-31
A History and Sociology of the Willowbrook State School by David Goode
ISBN: 9781937604059
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Willowbrook by Geraldo Rivera
ISBN: 9780394718446
Publication Date: 1972-01-01

Henry Geller: A Memoir.
These memories were shared by Henry Geller at HeartShare Human Services and transcribed over the course of four months in late 2018. Geller lived at the Willowbrook State School from 1959 to 1967.

Theses/Dissertations

Ferguson, Nancy Jean. The Willowbrook Consent Decree and Its Ramifications on Residential Services in the State of New York. Master’s Thesis. New York Medical College, 1990. 42 pp. —KD 3412 .F47 1990 (Special Collections Reserve Collection)

The bulk of this work, which is primarily based on interviews with New York State employees, deals with the challenges of deinstitutionalization. The direct treatment of Willowbrook State School is brief.

Lambert, Paula. The Willowbrook Consent Decree: A Study of A Social Reform Movement. Dissertation. Yeshiva University, 1982. 330 pp (132 pp of the text are appendices). —JK 3441 .L36 1982 (Archives & Special Collections, Room 216)

Drawing upon theoretical analyses of social reform movements, Lambert analyzes the background of the Consent Decree, including legal precedents. She also examines the Willowbrook litigation, plaintiffs and plaintiff attorneys in the case, and the implementation of reforms after the Consent Decree was issued. Lambert concludes by considering the future of the deinstitutionalization movement and making observations about the nature of the Consent Decree as the basis for a social reform movement.

O’Connor, Patty. The History of Institutionalization and the National Deinstitutionalization Movement in America (with Special Focus on Willowbrook State School). Master’s Thesis. The College of Staten Island/CUNY, 1998 30 pp. —Thesis RC 443 .O36 1998 (Special Collections Reserve Collection)

This essay places the history of Willowbrook in the context of treatment in of the developmentally disabled in the United States, with a particular concentration on the twentieth century. The two-page bibliography is particularly helpful.

Reports/Narratives/Projects

Fusillo, Maureen C. The Willowbrook State School: An Oral History. Student Project. [S.I. s.n., 1994]. —HV 3006 .N7 W5f 1994 (Archives & Special Collections, Room 216)

This book is only available in the Library's Archives & Special Collections Reading Room on the second floor in Room 216. This student project includes interviews with persons who had been associated with the Willowbrook State School including educators, recreation therapists, ward attendants, parents, former residents, and a nurse, a psychologist and a social worker.

New York State. State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled. Willowbrook: From Institution to the Community. A Fiscal and Programmatic Review of Selected Community Residences in New York City. New York: The Commission, 1982. 113 pp. —HV 3006 .N69 N489 1982 (Special Collections Reserve Collection)

This post-Consent Decree study focused on the costs of small, community residential facilities for the developmentally disabled. Data was gathered and analyzed for a total of twenty-four community residences that divided evenly between those serving six to fifteen clients and those serving two to three clients in the New York City metropolitan area. In general, the study concluded that community residences provided “safe, attractive, comfortable and homelike environments capable of addressing the identified care and treatment needs of severely and profoundly disabled persons” at a comparable or lower cost than institutionalization. Problems that were discovered at some community residences were documented and a follow-up to the study found that these problems had mostly been addressed.

Reiss, Jean. They Learned to Do Without: Untold Stories from Willowbrook State School 1958-1970. Staten Island, N.Y.: s.n., 1994. 95p. —HV 3006 .N7 W5r 1994 (Archives & Special Collections, Room 216)

Jean Reiss was a member of the staff at Willowbrook for over 11 years. She originally wrote these stories in 1976. Names have been changed and chronology of some incidents altered but the children existed and the events occurred as described in the book.

Archival

Elizabeth A. Connelly Papers (date range 1974-2002)
The Assemblywoman Elizabeth A. Connelly Papers contain correspondence, news clippings, newsletters, reports, press releases, statements, bills, legislative resolutions, photographs, videos, biographical materials and memorabilia.
The Willowbrook State School News Clippings Collection (date range, 1974-2000)
The Willowbrook State School News Clippings Collection consists of news stories about Willowbrook clipped from newspapers, mostly from The Staten Island Advance and The New York Times. Researchers interested in Advance coverage will find the collection particularly useful since that newspaper is not indexed for these years.
The 1975 Willowbrook Consent Decree
April 30, 1975- Judge Orin Judd signs the Willowbrook consent decree, ending a three-year legal battle to improve conditions in what was once the largest institution in the country for the mentally retarded. The state agrees to sign the consent decree. Under the terms of the agreement, by 1981 Willowbrook will house no more than 250 patients, all from Staten Island. The cornerstone of the consent decree is that the state “would be required to spend $2 million to create 200 places for Willowbrook transferees in hostels, halfway houses, group houses, and sheltered workshops.” The consent decree also provides for the creation of a Willowbrook Review Panel “to oversee the implementation of the orders and standards.”
The Willowbrook State School Pre-Demolition Photographs
The College Archives contains approximately 60 black & white photographs taken in order to document several Willowbrook State School buildings prior to demolition. These photographs were taken as part of Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) Project No. 65102301. The photographs were taken in November 1988.
The Bernard J. Carabello Collection
Bernard J. Carabello was born on January 19, 1950 in New York City. He was born with cerebral palsy, but was misdiagnosed as being mentally retarded at age three. Carabello was placed at the Willowbrook State School in 1954, and remained there for 18 years. Carabello has since transformed himself into a major force in the movement for self-advocacy in New York and across the nation.

The collection contains Carabello's medical records from the Willowbrook State School and the first four chapters of his unfinished autobiography.
The David Goode, PhD Collection on the Willowbrook State School
Dr. David Goode is a Professor Emeritus in the Sociology Program at the College of Staten Island. He has strong research interests in the field of Developmental Disabilities and in the Willowbrook State School. The collection includes brochures, programs, and articles related to the Willowbrook State School and related issues. The collection also includes reprint copies of the text of the 1975 consent decree.
Herbert J. Grossman, M.D. Collection
The Grossman Collection relates to two main topics: Grossman's testimony in the Willowbrook State School legal case (Parisi, et.al., vs. New York) and his chairmanship of the American Association on Mental Deficiency's Terminology and Classification Committee. The Willowbrook related materials primarily consist of litigation records. In addition to the decisions in the case and the consent decree, these include Grossman's testimony and that of Frederic Grunberg, Ph.D., another expert defense witness. Grunberg was the Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene in charge of Mental Retardation and Children's Services. Although other litigation records in this collection may be readily available elsewhere the Grossman and Grunberg affidavits are probably not readily available.
Diana McCourt Collection
Diana McCourt became involved in the efforts to expose and improve the conditions at Willowbrook State School after her daughter, Nina, was placed at the institution in 1971. She was involved as a parent organizer and advocate of the institution's closure, and remains involved in promoting individualized day and living options for people who need 24 hour support. She also worked for many years as a contractor, and co-founded Womanshare, a skills and service exchange program for women, in the early 1990's. The collection contains materials related not only to these efforts but also to the hepatitis program and the lawsuits against New York State over Willowbrook and compliance with the 1975 consent order. The folders are arranged alphabetically.
Assemblyman Eric N. Vitaliano Papers
Assemblyman Eric N. Vitaliano served in the New York State Assembly from 1982 until 2001. His legislative papers include four files related to the proposed uses of the Willowbrook State School site in the 1980's, particularly to the controversy created by the proposal to build group homes in Corson's Woods.

Video

Unforgotten: 25 Years After Willowbrook. New York : City Lights Home Video, c. 2002. 1 videodisc (DVD) (56 minutes). —1446 HV

This video examines the impact on patients and their families of Geraldo Rivera's expose in 1972 of conditions at the Willowbrook State School for people with developmental disabilities. The DVD includes Rivera’s thirty minute ABC news special, “The Last Great Disgrace,” as a bonus feature.

Archives & Special Collections