17th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest The American Experience
Silent Music

This is the music room in the abandoned chapel (built in 1965) of the abandoned Sleighton Farm School. Sleighton Farm School started as the co-ed Philadelphia House of Refuge in Philadelphia in the year 1826.It was built to handle juvenile delinquents separted from adults. Then in 1889, the boys department moved to Glen Mills, becoming The Glen Mills School Boys Department. The girls school followed in 1911 and The Glen Mills School Girls Department. In 1931, the latter separated from the Glen Mills School and became Sleighton School after Henry Sleighton who originally owned the land in the 1600s. The school continued as a farm school for juvenile delinquent girls until the 1960s when the farm status was removed and until 1975 when it became co-ed. Sleighton Farm School went under financial difficulty in the 1990s, finally closing down in 2001.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 01.2017
Date Uploaded: 10.2019
Photo Location: Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Camera: SP600UZ
Copyright: © Alayna DeMarco