Kenopsia in Pennsylvania, Part 2
Abandoned Reform School for Female Delinquents
June 20, 2020
Sleighton Farm School in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania was once a reformatory school for delinquent girls. It was also other things since the 1826–including a House of Refuge and a co-ed reform school. But its life from 1931 to 1975, when it was an all-girls school for unruly 12-18 year olds… when it was Sleighton Farm School for Girls, is what I find enticing.
Unruly women in history fascinate me a great deal. Perhaps because I myself (am strange and unusual) have always felt out of step with the world I am in, like I was misplaced in time… far beyond and far behind simultaneously but drawing from each, distinguishing energy to a bountiful present and an uncertain future. And myself, both illecebrous and repellant to others. It’s a solitary existence that only bothers me about half the time, though the bother may be far less burdensome that constantly having to translate myself to another. Had I been in a different time I might have been burned at the stake, institutionalized, or had other such poetic tragedies inflicted upon me. But luckily for me, and perhaps you, the nowadays give me many vessels in which to pour my desirous energy, allowing me the freedom to not conform. This includes the opportunity to pontificate on and on (like I’m doing) where once my voice would have been silenced, perhaps by my own hand, or used as evidence to my unfitness… . . . . (more dots) So, “all in all,” which I told my 5th grade writers never to use in transitioning to a conclusion, the Sleighton Farm School for Girls was right up my alley. And I deemed it far more worthy of a visit than two industrial-based relics far closer to our previous stop, the honeymoon resort. So south we’d go, pretty close to Philadelphia.
John Sergeant Administrative Building
Virginity rocks.
Vocational building
We only got to explore 2 buildings, but vowed to get back soon.
Further Reading:
What might a girl have to do to be considered a delinquent? This intriguing report on the Sleighton gals, their IQ’s and offenses, clarifies a bit. Most of them are guilty of incorrigibility, which is defined within juvenile law as repeated disobedience resulting in danger or disruption.
For some insight into the lives of the ladies of Sleighton, this post has a lot of comments from previous students and some staff. The history of the campus is detailed on this great website called Save Sleighton. And for a building by building breakdown, including the layout of the campus we’d explore, this site is very thorough.
Kenopsia: n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet