The ephemera featured in this post was found in the attic of the abandoned Willard Psychiatric Center in New York's Finger Lakes. The Lives They Left Behind, a Web site created by The Community Consortium, is dedicated to telling the stories of the people who once owned these documents. The site does a wonderful job of providing the complete story of the discovery of the Willard horde, so I won't bother with those details here.
Instead, I've decided to feature a few of the more interesting pieces of ephemera that were uncovered at Willard (photographed by Lisa Rinzler). I'm certain these items will be of keen interest to ephemera collectors, especially those who specialize in medical or psychiatric documents.
These powerful pieces speak for themselves. If the patients suitcases hadn't been left, untouched, in the hospital's attic, this ephemera would never have survived to tell the stories of the patients who lived at Willard.
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