Indiana Institutions

Fort Wayne State School

Institutions were woven into the fabric of Indiana’s founding as a state. The original Constitution provided for “one or more farms to be an asylum for those persons, who by reason of age, infirmity, or other misfortunes, may have a claim upon the aid and beneficence of society.” The 1816 document pledged to offer these Hoosiers employment and “every reasonable comfort,” promises that would not be kept. It was almost two centuries later when the last of Indiana’s state-run institutions for people with disabilities closed its doors. Disability rights advocates, disturbing media exposes, and evolving social attitudes ended a troubled chapter of Indiana’s history.