Bult in 1911, the Ladd School's first school building was called Gleason House, named for William F. Gleason, chairman of the Providence School Committee and de-facto founding father of the institution.
Except for a few classrooms in the basement, in practice, it was more dormitory than school, and an industrial facility used to house the necessities to operate an institution of its size and nature, such as the scullery and the sewing room.
Between 1920 and 1924, the first wave of significant construction added two wings to Gleason House. Among these glass plate negatives, we find the only known photographs of that construction. So too do we find Rhode Island's earliest and only known photo of a schoolroom for the feeble-minded.
Other highlights include photographs of the Ladd School's first men's dormitory, women's dormitory, power plant, and original laundry building, the latter of which is also the only known image of the clapboard shanty.
:JRC
Six genuine glass plate negative photographs of the first buildings at the Ladd School.
