1 option
Inventing the feeble mind : a history of intellectual disability in the United States / James W. Trent Jr.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Trent, James W., Jr., 1948- author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- People with mental disabilities--Institutional care--United States--History.
- People with mental disabilities.
- Intellectual disability--United States--History.
- Intellectual disability.
- People with mental disabilities--United States--History.
- People with mental disabilities--Institutional care.
- History.
- United States.
- Intellectual Disability--history.
- Institutionalization--history.
- Social Conditions--history.
- Medical Subjects:
- Intellectual Disability--history.
- Institutionalization--history.
- Social Conditions--history.
- United States.
- Genre:
- History.
- Physical Description:
- xxii, 369 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2017]
- Summary:
- Pity, disgust, fear, cure, and prevention-all are words that Americans have used to make sense of what today we call intellectual disability. Inventing the Feeble Mind explores the history of this disability from its several identifications over the past 200 years: idiocy, imbecility, feeblemindedness, mental defect, mental deficiency, mental retardation, and most recently intellectual disability. Using institutional records, private correspondence, personal memories, and rare photographs, James Trent argues that the economic vulnerability of intellectually disabled people (and often their families), more than the claims made for their intellectual and social limitations, has shaped meaning, services, and policies in United States history. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- Idiots in America
- Edward Seguin and the irony of physiological education
- The burden of the feebleminded
- Living and working in the institution, 1890-1920
- The menace of the feebleminded
- Sterilization, parole, and routinization
- Remaking of mental retardation : of wars, angels, parents, and politicians
- Intellectual disability and the dilemma of doubt
- Epilogue on suffering fools gladly.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780199396184
- 0199396183
- OCLC:
- 965729551
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.