Letchworth Village: The "Village Years"

This exhibition commemorates the centennial of Letchworth Village, focusing on the first fifty years of the village's history with archival photographs dating back to 1907.

Highlighting the exhibit are a series of photographs by the famed photographers Margaret Bourke-White’s and Arnold Genthe. The images captured by Bourke-White in 1933 and by Genthe in 1941 provide a poignant and fascinating look into the history of the Letchworth facilities. "Letchworth Village: The Village Years” is the first public display of these bodies of work.

In addition to the photographs, the exhibition displays panels with photos and text telling the story of Letchworth's early years of Letchworth Village, along with artifacts .

Letchworth Village was established in 1911 as an institution to care for people with developmental disabilities. It survived as a largely self-sustaining farm village for more than fifty years and ultimately closed in 1996. Letchworth now serves as the Hudson Valley regional office for the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD), supporting individuals with developmental disabilities through community-based services and operations in Orange, Rockland, Sullivan, and Westchester counties.



The exhibition was curated by Kerwin McCarthy.