Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center facts for kids

The Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center was a very old institution in the Western hemisphere. It was the first publicly funded place to help people with developmental disabilities (conditions that affect how a person grows and learns). It was located in Waltham, Massachusetts.

For a time, under its third leader, Walter Fernald, it was seen as a great example for other places helping people with developmental disabilities. However, later on, some medical studies happened there that raised serious questions about how people were treated. These studies led to new rules about doing research with children.

The school was built on a large property, about 186 acres (75 ha) (which is like 140 football fields) in Waltham.

History of the Fernald Center

Starting Years

The Fernald Center began in Boston in 1848. It was first called the Experimental School for Teaching and Training Children with Special Needs. A reformer named Samuel Gridley Howe started it with money from the state of Massachusetts.

Between 1888 and 1891, the school moved to a new, bigger location in Waltham. It grew to have 72 buildings across 196 acres (0.79 km²). At its busiest, about 2,500 people lived there. Many of them were boys with intellectual disabilities.

Walter Fernald's Influence

Walter E. Fernald (who lived from 1859 to 1924) became the school's third leader. Under him, the school was thought to be a top place for educating people with intellectual disabilities. Doctors and politicians from all over the world visited to learn from its methods.

Fernald helped start the first special farm for people with disabilities. He also had early ideas about special education. However, he was also part of a movement called eugenics. This movement believed in separating people with intellectual disabilities from society. He even created the term "Defective Delinquent" for children with intellectual disabilities who also had criminal behavior.

Later in his life, Fernald changed many of his views. He started to disagree with separating most children with intellectual disabilities. He also stopped believing in IQ tests as the only way to measure intelligence. Instead, he supported helping people in their communities and through clinics. But by then, many of his earlier ideas about separating people had already become common in America. The school was renamed in his honor in 1925, after he passed away.

Living Conditions and Concerns

The Fernald institution helped many children with cognitive disabilities. However, some reports suggest that about half of the people living there actually had normal IQ scores. In the 1900s, living conditions were often very basic or even worse. For example, about 36 children sometimes slept in one dormitory room. There were also reports of poor treatment and difficult conditions for the residents.

Special Studies and Research

From 1946 to 1953, the Fernald School was involved in studies with Harvard University and MIT. These studies gave young boys small amounts of radioactive isotopes (special types of atoms) to track how their bodies used certain nutrients.

Here are some details about these studies:

• A researcher from the Quaker Oats Company helped with one study. It involved adding radioactive iron and calcium to oatmeal and milk. This mixture was then given to students at Fernald.
• Professor Robert S. Harris from MIT led the study. He was looking at how the body absorbed calcium and iron.
• The boys were invited to join a "Science Club." This club offered them bigger food portions, parties, and trips to Boston Red Sox baseball games.
• Fifty-seven club members ate cereals with added iron and milk with added calcium for breakfast. To see how their bodies absorbed these, some radioactive calcium was given to them by mouth or through a vein.
• Scientists then checked radiation levels in their stool and blood samples.
• In another study, 17 people received shots of iron supplements that contained radioactive iron.
• It was found that neither the children nor their parents fully understood or agreed to participate in these scientific studies. This is called not having "informed consent."

In 1994, a group called the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments looked into these studies. They said:

In 1946, one study exposed seventeen subjects to radioactive iron. The second study, which involved a series of seventeen related subexperiments, exposed fifty-seven subjects to radioactive calcium between 1950 and 1953. It is clear that the doses involved were low and that it is extremely unlikely that any of the children who were used as subjects were harmed as a consequence. These studies remain morally troubling, however, for several reasons. First, although parents or guardians were asked for their permission to have their children involved in the research, the available evidence suggests that the information provided was, at best, incomplete. Second, there is the question of the fairness of selecting institutionalized children at all, children whose life circumstances were by any standard already heavily burdened.

The highest amount of radiation any person received was about the same as less than one year of natural background radiation in a place like Denver. In 1995, a lawsuit was filed. In 1998, a court decided that MIT and Quaker should pay the people involved $1.85 million.

The school also took part in studies about thyroid function in patients with Down Syndrome and their parents. This study showed that their bodies processed iodine similarly to people without Down Syndrome.

Changes and Lawsuits

In the 1970s, a lawsuit called Ricci v. Okin was filed. This lawsuit aimed to make conditions better at Fernald and other state institutions for people with intellectual disabilities in Massachusetts. A judge oversaw the case from 1972 to 1993. He eventually said that the care and conditions at these places had improved greatly.

One result of this lawsuit for Fernald residents was that starting in 1993, they were guaranteed a certain level of care. This was meant to make up for many years of neglect and poor treatment.

Twenty-first Century and Closure

Into the 2000s, the buildings and grounds continued to be a center for adults with intellectual disabilities. In 2001, 320 adults lived at Fernald. Their ages ranged from 27 to 96 years old.

In 2003, the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, announced that the facility would close by 2007. However, groups of families and state employee unions started a campaign to keep Fernald open. They asked the judge from the earlier lawsuit to get involved again.

In 2007, the judge ordered the state to ask each of the 185 residents what they wanted before closing the facility. But the new Governor, Deval Patrick, appealed this decision. His administration argued that Fernald was too expensive to run. They believed that residents could get equally good or better care in private, community-based settings.

Family groups disagreed with the cost claims. They continued to argue for keeping Fernald open for its residents. They even suggested a plan to make Fernald smaller and sell off parts of the land. However, the Patrick administration did not agree to negotiate and continued with its plans to close the facility.

A large part of the Waltham campus, including buildings from Walter Fernald's time, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. A documentary film called "Front Wards, Back Wards" was made about Fernald in 2005.

As of June 2013, Fernald was still open with 13 residents. The oldest resident was 84 years old and had lived there since age 19. It was reported to cost about $1 million per resident per year. This was about four times the national average for a state-supported institution.

The last resident left the Fernald Center on November 13, 2014. This happened after a long legal and political struggle. The state of Massachusetts spent over $40 million more than planned because of the delayed closure. The remaining residents moved into community services or other state programs.

In 2014, the city of Waltham bought the land. There were discussions about building a new high school there. However, this idea was dropped due to the land's shape, possible soil contamination, and the Massachusetts Historical Commission not approving the demolition of certain buildings.

Current Status of the Site

Since its closure, the Fernald site has been used for various events and discussions about its future.

In May 2017 and 2018, the Waltham Lions Club held a fundraising carnival on the grounds. It had rides, games, and food. In November/December 2020 and 2021, the site hosted the Greater Boston Lights Show, another fundraiser for the Waltham Lions Club. Some disability rights advocates were upset by the decision to use the site for a holiday lights display.

In December 2021, the Waltham Recreation Department held a meeting to get ideas from the public about how to develop the Fernald property for recreation. Many suggestions were made for walking paths and gardens. However, most of the meeting focused on the importance of remembering and respecting the history of Fernald and how its residents were treated.

In 2022, the City Council approved plans for a large recreational area at Fernald. This plan includes an electric train, mini golf, green spaces, tennis and pickleball courts, a big athletic complex, parking lots, an amphitheater, and a playground for children with disabilities. In December 2023, the City Council approved a $9.5 million loan for the project. Construction began in early 2024, but no completion date has been announced. Many residents have opposed the plan. They feel it wasn't transparent and that it disrespects the disabled community.

In January 2024, a journalist named Oliver Egger wrote an article in The Boston Globe. He is a great-great-grandson of Walter Fernald. He reported that thousands of private patient records were left on the campus after it closed. This was a violation of HIPAA (rules that protect patient privacy). Soon after the article was published, the state removed the documents and admitted they had made a mistake. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Health and Human Services started an investigation. In April 2024, The Globe also reported that the Massachusetts State Police had left decades of confidential case files at the school for years, removing them in 2017.

On April 19, 2025, a large fire broke out at the abandoned site. Firefighters put it out. This happened less than a year after another fire at the same location.

See also

• Human experimentation in the United States
• Templeton Developmental Center, another state facility originally established under Fernald's leadership
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Waltham, Massachusetts
• Metropolitan State Hospital (Massachusetts), a state hospital located across the street
• Wrentham State School, Massachusetts' last remaining large institution for people with developmental disabilities
• Belchertown State School, a similar state institution that existed from 1922 to 1992 and was built to help with overcrowding at Wrentham and Fernald.