Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States

Abstract

Half-wits, dunces, dullards, idiots: though often teased and tormented, the feeble-minded were once a part of the community, cared for and protected by family and community members. But in the 1840s, a group of American physicians and reformers began to view mental retardation as a social problem requiring public intervention, which often meant institutionalization. This study uses public documents, private letters, investigative reports and rare photographs to explore the changing perceptions of feeble minds over the past 150 years. Trent contends that the economic vulnerability of mentally retarded people (and their families), more than the claims made for their intellectual or social limitations, has determined their institutional treatment. He finds that superintendents, social welfare agents, IQ testers, and sterilizers have utilized psychological and medical paradigms that insure their own social privilege and professional legitimacy. More than simply moving from care to control, state schools have become places where care is an integral part of control. In analyzing the current policy of deinstitutionalization, Trent concludes that it has been more successful in dispersing disabled citizens than in integrating them into American communities.