The state's disability system has a horrific past, advocates say path forward unclear

In 1956, a documentary titled “Help Wanted” placed viewers inside the Laconia State School, which from its founding in 1903 as the New Hampshire School for Feeble-Minded Children to its closure in 1991 housed people with disabilities.

So disturbing were the visuals that the Portsmouth Herald compared the institution to images of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.

Overcrowding plagued the New Hampshire facility, with over 1,000 residents by 1942, according to a historical account from The Laconia Daily Sun. There was no privacy or personal space in the group bedrooms — and in one building a single toilet was shared among 80 people. Many residents were forcibly sterilized, and beatings were routinely given as punishment for bad behavior.

For nearly a century, the institution served