America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor – Worcester Name Survey

Worcester, MA (February 18, 2025)―

Dorothea Dix. Sigmund Freud. Henry David Thoreau. John Kabat-Zinn. Aaron T. Beck. Solomon Carter Fuller. These are Mount Rushmore figures in the realm of mental health and the pursuit of happiness. Each one connects to Worcester County and the region that has been called America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor.

Plans are in place to bring the America's Mental Health & Wellness Corridor story into the public eye in time for America's 250th birthday in 2026. The name America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor may be good enough to describe the region’s unique history, culture, and creativity at the crossroads of the mental life and the pursuit of happiness. Or, perhaps there is a better one.

The name America's Mental Health & Wellness Corridor was first discussed publicly in 2022 at a National Park Service event and is intended to describe a uniquely American history of leadership and empowerment. For 200-300 years, the region outside Boston – especially Worcester County - has exported ideas, innovation, and invention to the rest of America relative to the pursuit of happiness, mental health, and freedom.

Early research into America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor concentrated on Worcester County. Since then, the region’s geographic contours have been rounded out to include MetroWest, Essex County, and Rhode Island. More research has connected the region’s leadership in mental health back to the days when getting away from Colonial Boston and into the country provided emotional rest and relaxation from the stresses of city life – and was sometimes even prescribed.

America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor has been discussed publicly in the major newspapers of the region, and in forums with community leaders and collaborators from Boston to MetroWest to Worcester County to Rhode Island. A presentation about America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor was made at the New England Museum Association meeting in Newport in November 2024. Even Google AI recognizes the term America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor.

The National Museum of Mental Health Project is proud of its history of academic research and peer-reviewed journal publication. Yet, this name research is informal and invites candor and creativity. The name America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor may be good enough to describe the region’s unique history at the crossroads of the mental life and the pursuit of happiness. Or, perhaps there is a better one.

Your survey response will serve as a last-whistle-stop before the America’s Mental Health & Wellness Corridor name is put into wider use. Please reply by 3/31/25.

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About the National Museum of Mental Health Project

The National Museum of Mental Health Project is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization and virtual museum whose mission is to strengthen mental health through creativity, culture (including sports), and the arts nationwide by bringing the museum to you. The Project seeks a community to host the first small museum of a national museum of mental health, and to lift up its walls in a barn-raising on America’s 250th birthday - July 4, 2026.