Photographer Jon Crispin has been documenting the suitcases left behind by patients at the Willard Asylum for the Insane in Upstate New York

400 suitcases were found in an attic at the asylum in 1995. They date from 1910 to 1960
Many of the patients who went to the asylum died there and were buried in graves marked not with names, but by numbers

When patients were committed to the Willard Asylum for the Insane in Upstate New York, they arrived with a suitcase packed with all of the possessions they thought they needed for their time inside.

Most never left. The mental hospital had an average stay of nearly 30 years. When patients died, they were buried in nameless graves across the street of the asylum. Their suitcases, with all their worldly possessions, were locked in an attic and forgotten.

In 1995, an employee of the mental hospital discovered the suitcases, 400 of them. They date from 1910 to 1960.

Now, photographer Jon Crispin is cataloging each suitcase and opening a window into the lives - and the minds - of the people deemed too unwell to be allowed in society.

Pieces of a past life: This suitcase belonged to Anna. Inside was a letter that was not addressed to her, a pair of toothbrushes and several gaudy belts and sashes - as well as shoes and hats

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About a Snarky Blogger

I am Charles Cranston and I curate and maintain snarkyunderclass.com . I am married and live in Fort Collins, Colorado. The Snarky Underclass website and blog was started as a project of solidarity with artistically, musically, and politically minded people and friends of mutual tastes and interests. The name 'Snarky Underclass' comes from the phrase often used to describe the idea of an educated but struggling proletariat. John Hodgeman used the phrase 'snarky underclass' in a Daily Show with John Stewart segment about the closing of Borders Books in 2011. He lemented; "America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica " The acknowledgement of these people solidified the return of growing class of people not seen since the days of the Great Depression, an educated underclass, a struggling middle-class, a Snarky Underclass.