Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Ladd School, By Any Other Name

On March 14, 1958, Rhode Island Governor Dennis J. Roberts signed the bill officially naming the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd School in honor of its founder, and then recently retired superintendent, Dr. Joseph Ladd.

Fifty-six years later, and some two decades since the institution was abandoned, Rhode Islanders still call it The Ladd School, even though it was renamed, in 1978, the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd Center. Little is it known, however, that even before it was called The Ladd School, Rhode Island's only public residential institution for people with developmental disabilities was called The Exeter School, with reference to its location in the rural farming town of Exeter, Rhode Island.

Rarer yet is the knowledge that before it was known as The Exeter School, the institution was originally called the Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded.