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Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States
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1996
Year
Youth LawDisabilityEducationPublic InterventionUnited StatesDevelopmental DisabilitiesPsychologySocial SciencesIrrationalityIntellectual ImpairmentAbleismExceptional ChildrenSocial Policy ResearchInclusive EducationFeeble MindDisability StudyCommunity MembersMental RetardationPublic PolicyCognitive ScienceDevelopmental DisabilityForensic PsychiatrySociologySpecial EducationSocial PolicyPhilosophy Of Mind
Historically, feeble‑minded individuals were cared for by families and communities, but in the 1840s physicians and reformers began to treat mental retardation as a social problem requiring institutionalization. The study examines how perceptions of feeble‑minded people have evolved over 150 years using archival documents, letters, reports, and photographs. The authors analyze these archival documents, letters, reports, and photographs to trace the evolution of perceptions. The study concludes that economic vulnerability, rather than intellectual deficits, has driven institutional treatment, with administrators using psychological and medical paradigms to reinforce their privilege, and that while deinstitutionalization has dispersed disabled citizens, it has failed to integrate them into communities.
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.