Main description:

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.

Contents:

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One Idiots in America
Chapter Two Edward Seguin and the Irony of Physiological Education
Chapter Three The Burden of the Feebleminded
Chapter Four Living and Working in the Institution, 1890-1920
Chapter Five The Menace of the Feebleminded
Chapter Six Sterilization, Parole, and Routinization
Chapter Seven Remaking of Mental Retardation: Of Wars, Angels, Parents, and
Politicians
Chapter Eight Intellectual Disability and the Dilemma of Doubt
Epilogue On Suffering Fools Gladly
Notes
References
Index