The Dark Story of Bridgewater State Hospital — The Asylum in the Film America Banned

Bridgewater, Massachusetts began in 1855 as a poorhouse for immigrants with nowhere else to go. It became a workhouse, then a state farm for drunks and vagrants. In 1895 it became the place Massachusetts sent the men it called criminally insane. Men committed for a few weeks of observation stayed for decades: one was held 57 years for a crime with a two-year maximum. Inmates trying to escape killed five officers in 14 years. In 1966, a law professor named Frederick Wiseman filmed inside for 29 days. The state then went to court to have every copy of his film destroyed, and for 24 years Titicut Follies was illegal to show to the public in Massachusetts. The story also involves Albert DeSalvo, the confessed Boston Strangler, who escaped from Bridgewater in 1967 and left a note about its conditions. It involves Elliot Richardson, who helped Wiseman get permission to film and then, as attorney general, fought to suppress the film. It ends with Joshua Messier, a 23-year-old sent for evaluation, who died while strapped to a bed in 2009 as a surveillance camera recorded it. In this video, we tell the complete story of Bridgewater State Hospital. It covers the poorhouse years, the State Asylum for Insane Criminals, the making of Titicut Follies, and the court ban that lasted from 1968 to 1991. It also covers the deaths that followed, the investigation that finally broke the institution open, and the 2017 overhaul that took the hospital away from the prison guards. 🔔 Subscribe for more deep dives into the forgotten institutions of America’s carceral past. New videos every week. References: Commonwealth v. Wiseman, 356 Mass. 251 (1969) Baxtrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107 (1966) Disability Law Center review of Bridgewater State Hospital (2014) Contemporary newspaper and broadcast coverage, 1967–2017 #BridgewaterStateHospital #TiticutFollies #FrederickWiseman #BannedFilm #AsylumHistory #PrisonHistory #Massachusetts #CriminallyInsane