Abandoned Union Asylums and Institutions of Massachusetts

Massachusetts duck boat tours visit early asylums and children's institutions, from unwed mothers to radioactive oatmeal experiments. Massachusetts is known for many things, including the Boston Tea Party, the Salem Witch Trials, the Red Sox, and its famous clam chowder. It is also significant for having some of America's earliest asylums and institutions. Photographer Dave Snook invites you to join him on a duck boat tour of an island that once housed unwed mothers, the sick, and the poor in institutional care facilities. Afterward, we'll head to the mainland to explore some of the first asylums in America, where individuals deemed insane were confined. Finally, we will visit America's first children's institutions, particularly a well-known state school recognized as the birthplace of Special Education, which also has a dark history involving the feeding of radioactive oatmeal to children as part of a science experiment. So, grab a coffee, because this duck boat is about to depart for a tour of the abandoned asylums and institutions of the Bay State.