Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees and Superintendents of the Ohio State Asylum for the Education of Idiotic and Imbecile Youth, 1861-1863. Columbus: Richard Nevins, State Printer.

This report, prepared for the governor and legislature, details the services and programs of the state home, including how state funds were spent. In 1861, the superintendent made the case for why such a home was needed: “Nothing in human form, nothing in God’s image, however imperfect and degraded, should be despised or neglected, and idiots, more than all else, need human sympathies and protection. They are part of us, in our households, and we may not even indulge the wish to ignore their presence, or banish them from our minds.” The exhibit also contains the fourth and fifth report by the same body.