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Lost Cases, Recovered Lives: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, an exhibition examining the lives of early 20th century patients at a former New York State psychiatric hospital, opened at the New York State Museum in Albany on January 17th and runs through September 19.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Further information is available by visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov. The exhibition emanated from the discovery of about 400 suitcases in the attic of a building at the Willard Psychiatric Center when it closed in 1995. Through research, based on the suitcases and their contents, and information provided by the New York State Office of Mental Health, much has been learned about the suitcase owners and the history of the New York State mental health system. Assisting the Museum's curators have been Darby Penney, former director of recipient affairs at the New York State Office of Mental Health and Dr. Peter Stastny, a psychiatrist with the Office of Mental Health.

The exhibition focuses on 12 suitcases of the 400 that were found because of the rich variety of objects that were found inside them and the compelling histories of their owners. Many of the patients spent decades at Willard and most of them died there. Curators hope their stories will restore a human dimension to a group of people who have been hidden and forgotten. They are asking visitors to not only imagine these dozen lives but also the 50,000 "patients" who lived at Willard from 1869 until its closing.

If there is one common thread through these 12 lives, it is the seemingly accidental way they ended up at Willard and other mental institutions. There were few, if any, psychiatrists during Willard's heyday. Thus, a person was as likely to be diagnosed crazy by a neighbor or an employer as by a relative or policeman. In fact, for many years Willard was designated as the state institution for incurable patients. They were the forgotten of the forgotten, which is why so many of them lived out their lives there.