Laurel Heights Sanatorium Photograph Album
PhotographerPhotographed by
John Patrick Carey
(American, 1918 - 1945)
Datec. 1939-1945
MediumPhotography
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineGift of Mrs. & Mr. James M. Carey
Object number2021.30.0.1-.61
DescriptionPhotograph album of Laurel Heights Sanatorium in Shelton, Connecticut, c. 1940-1950, photographed by John Patrick Carey of Bridgeport. The photographs show other patients, nurses, and doctors at Laurel Heights Sanatorium. Often the photographs are identified by name on the front, and by full name and sometimes date of discharge on the back. Those who died are marked with a cross, and Carey wrote their date of death on the back.
Label TextBefore antibiotics, tuberculosis was often treated by housing patients in sanatoriums. These residential institutions were typically located on bucolic, sprawling campuses removed from the congested air of cities and the close and often unhealthy working and living conditions that contributed to the disease’s spread. They provided fresh air, good food, and lots of rest.
At the height of the sanatorium movement, Connecticut had seven such institutions: two private sanatoriums, Wildwood, on the outskirts of Hartford, and Gaylord in Wallingford; and five public ones, Cedarcrest in Newington, Undercliff in Meriden, Uncas-on-Thames in Norwich, Laurel Heights in Shelton, and Seaside, the only institution for tubercular children, in Niantic.
John Patrick Carey, a young man from Bridgeport, spent several years living at Laurel Heights. It is unclear how John Carey contracted tuberculosis, or what the circumstances were that led to him living, and ultimately dying, at Laurel Heights. What we know is that he was born in Connecticut in 1918, the eldest of five children of Irish immigrant parents. He lived at Laurel Heights from 1939 to 1941, a period he documented photographically. It seems that he then recovered enough to return home – the 1944 Bridgeport City Directory lists his address as the family home on James Street – and work at Chance Vought Aircraft, contributing to the war effort at home. After this, he returned to Laurel Heights, presumably sometime in 1945, before dying there in early July of that year at the age of 27.
The CHS has Carey’s photo album and the scrapbook of Mass and sympathy cards, and personal letters, compiled by his family after his death, and together they present a picture of a young man whose was intensely social, kind, and faithful. Because sanatoriums isolated people from their families and communities, patients had to create their own institutional communities. Almost all the photographs he took at Laurel Heights are of the people he met there, mostly other patients, but also some doctors and nurses. Often, they are identified by name on the front, and by full name and sometimes date of discharge on the back. Those who died are marked with a cross, and Carey wrote their date of death on the back.
The scrapbook also emphasizes community and belonging. Dozens of Mass cards reveal how deeply comforted his family was by their Catholic faith. Many of the personal letters mention how kind and well-liked John Carey was, and how meaningful it was that he was with God now. Two of the letter writers consoled his mother by remarking that instead of dying in the war, as so many of his peers were doing, Carey was spared that fate. Taken together, the photo album and scrapbook give us a small glimpse into John Carey and his family’s experience of tuberculosis, institutional living, and death in the 1940s.
With the advent of antibiotic streptomycin in use by the late 1940s, sanatoriums were converted away from tuberculosis-only treatment centers or were closed entirely. Laurel Heights was the last tuberculosis hospital in Connecticut, closing in 1981. Tuberculosis is now relatively rare in the United States and other industrialized regions of the world. However, it remains a major public health menace elsewhere; in 2020, 1.5 million people died from tuberculosis, and there are now multidrug-resistant strains of the bacteria that make treating it complicated.
NotesSubject Note: John Patrick Carey was a tuberculosis patient at Laurel Heights Sanatorium from 1939-1941, and again in 1945, where is died at the age of 27.At the height of the sanatorium movement, Connecticut had seven such institutions: two private sanatoriums, Wildwood, on the outskirts of Hartford, and Gaylord in Wallingford; and five public ones, Cedarcrest in Newington, Undercliff in Meriden, Uncas-on-Thames in Norwich, Laurel Heights in Shelton, and Seaside, the only institution for tubercular children, in Niantic.
John Patrick Carey, a young man from Bridgeport, spent several years living at Laurel Heights. It is unclear how John Carey contracted tuberculosis, or what the circumstances were that led to him living, and ultimately dying, at Laurel Heights. What we know is that he was born in Connecticut in 1918, the eldest of five children of Irish immigrant parents. He lived at Laurel Heights from 1939 to 1941, a period he documented photographically. It seems that he then recovered enough to return home – the 1944 Bridgeport City Directory lists his address as the family home on James Street – and work at Chance Vought Aircraft, contributing to the war effort at home. After this, he returned to Laurel Heights, presumably sometime in 1945, before dying there in early July of that year at the age of 27.
The CHS has Carey’s photo album and the scrapbook of Mass and sympathy cards, and personal letters, compiled by his family after his death, and together they present a picture of a young man whose was intensely social, kind, and faithful. Because sanatoriums isolated people from their families and communities, patients had to create their own institutional communities. Almost all the photographs he took at Laurel Heights are of the people he met there, mostly other patients, but also some doctors and nurses. Often, they are identified by name on the front, and by full name and sometimes date of discharge on the back. Those who died are marked with a cross, and Carey wrote their date of death on the back.
The scrapbook also emphasizes community and belonging. Dozens of Mass cards reveal how deeply comforted his family was by their Catholic faith. Many of the personal letters mention how kind and well-liked John Carey was, and how meaningful it was that he was with God now. Two of the letter writers consoled his mother by remarking that instead of dying in the war, as so many of his peers were doing, Carey was spared that fate. Taken together, the photo album and scrapbook give us a small glimpse into John Carey and his family’s experience of tuberculosis, institutional living, and death in the 1940s.
With the advent of antibiotic streptomycin in use by the late 1940s, sanatoriums were converted away from tuberculosis-only treatment centers or were closed entirely. Laurel Heights was the last tuberculosis hospital in Connecticut, closing in 1981. Tuberculosis is now relatively rare in the United States and other industrialized regions of the world. However, it remains a major public health menace elsewhere; in 2020, 1.5 million people died from tuberculosis, and there are now multidrug-resistant strains of the bacteria that make treating it complicated.
Status
Not on view
2022 November 16
