09/23/2026
This is Pennhurst, what a unbelievable location. We learned so much here, I think we are still shaking our heads.
I'll just touch on one player here at Pennhurst, his name is Dr. Jesse Fear, he was the head physician at Pennhurst. He graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1936 and was a Captain in the South Pacific in World War II. He became infamous for inflicting cruel and psychological punishments on vulnerable patients.
There is documentation where he was asking for the most painful injections available, that wouldn't cause permanent physical damage and used these shots on children for misbehaving.
He had a personal favorite way to treat patients it was called " Down grade" patients. This is when he would take patients with higher intelligence that would cause disturbances in their area and put them in wards for the most profoundly disabled. This practice was aimed to cause deep psychological humiliation, isolation and developmental repression.
Even after his practices were brought to light in an investigation in 1968 he was given a three day suspension. There are even documents with a patient where they logged him belted onto a toilet for up to 10 hours a day. Take a good look at our pictures, we have over 500 so I only selected a few. There are many more stories in Pennhurst that no one should forget.
