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One of the deep, dark secrets of America's past has finally come to light. Starting in the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of American children were warehoused in institutions by state governments. And the federal government did nothing to stop it.

The justification? The kids had been labeled feeble-minded, and were put away in conditions that can only be described as unspeakable.

Now, a new book, “The State Boys Rebellion,” by Michael D'Antonio, reveals even more: A large proportion of the kids who were locked up were not retarded at all. They were simply poor, uneducated kids with no place to go, who ended up in institutions like the Fernald School in Waltham, Mass.

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The Fernald School, and others like it, was part of a popular American movement in the early 20th century called the Eugenics movement. The idea was to separate people considered to be genetically inferior from the rest of society, to prevent them from reproducing.

Eugenics is usually associated with Nazi Germany, but in fact, it started in America. Not only that, it continued here long after Hitler's Germany was in ruins.

At the height of the movement - in the ‘20s and ‘30s - exhibits were set up at fairs to teach people about eugenics. It was good for America, and good for the human race. That was the message.

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The children did most of the manual labor at the school.

“The kids at Fernald raised the vegetables that they ate. They sewed the soles on the shoes that they wore. They manufactured the brooms that they used to sweep the floor,” says D’Antonio, who adds that the school made sure that at least 30 percent of the kids admitted had normal or near normal intelligence.

The school needed those kids to work. “You had to have somebody with a certain level of intelligence in order to run this place,” says Boyce. “And I can remember being out in the gardens from morning until night in the sun.”

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Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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Of course, I came from Virginia, with one of the most "progressive" (*shudder*) sterilization programs in the country, so we had more reason to learn about it than most.

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California was more "progressive" than Virginia, and they only just "discovered" their eugenics and sterilization history last year.

One reason Virginia deserves such attention, though, is the role that it played in getting the Supreme Court to sanction mandatory sterilization. According to eugenics scholars, Carrie Buck didn't choose to fight her sterilization. Rather, it was the institution itself who handpicked hers as a case that could be fought on her behalf (her attorney sat on sterilization boards) and LOST.

Prior to the Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell, many states were reluctant to implement their sterilization laws, out of constitutional concerns. Justice Holmes' decision opened the floodgates.

Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged |