The woman I spoke to at the birthday party yesterday told me that her brother had been institutionalized at the Cambridge State Hospital. Originally called the Minnesota Colony for Epilectics, it became a state hospital for the developmentally disabled and for those with “mental deficiencies” in 1949; it reached its peak population of 2008 in the 1960s. In 1972, a class action suit was filed against the state’s six State Hospitals by the parents of some of the residents ” who felt that the conditions, care, treatment and training did not meet constitutional standards” (this photo says why). …read more