Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880 1940

What would bring a physician to conclude that sterilization is appropriate treatment for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped? Using archival sources, Ian Robert Dowbiggin documents the involvement of both American and Canadian psychiatrists in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century. He explains why professional men and women committed to helping those less fortunate than themselves arrived at such morally and intellectually dubious conclusions. Psychiatrists at the end of the nineteenth century felt professionally vulnerable, Dowbiggin explains, because they were under intense pressure from state and provincial governments and from other physicians to reform their specialty. Eugenic ideas, which dominated public health policy making, seemed the best vehicle for catching up with the progress of science. Among the prominent psychiatrist-eugenicists Dowbiggin considers are G. Alder Blumer, Charles Kirk Clarke, Thomas Salmon, Clare Hincks, and William Partlow. Tracing psychiatric support for eugenics throughout the interwar years, Dowbiggin pays special attention to the role of psychiatrists in the fierce debates about immigration policy. His examination of psychiatry's unfortunate flirtation with eugenics elucidates how professional groups come to think and act along common lines within specific historical contexts.

In a new preface to this first paperback edition, Dowbiggen (history, U. of Prince Edward Island) notes how lawsuits over past practices and new reproductive technologies keep debates over the eugenics movement relevant today. Counter to most accounts, he argues that early 20th century psychiatrists supported the movement for what seemed "progressive" reform reasons at the time rather than nefarious ideologies. Still, the link between mental health and national immigration policies are discussed. B&w photos feature leading advocates. First published in 1997 by Cornell U. Press. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Library Journal

Psychiatric historian Dowbiggin (Inheriting Madness, Univ. of California, 1991) traces the role of American and Canadian psychiatrists in the eugenics movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dowbiggin portrays these psychiatrists, especially those working in mental institutions, as neither heroes nor villains but as public servants caught up in the progressivism of the times, pressured by governments and officials to change the focus of their profession from managing custodial care to implementing cost-effective treatment of mental disorders. Focusing on the professional careers of prominent psychiatrists G. Alder Blumer, C.K. Clarke, and their colleagues and successors, the author demonstrates how psychiatrists under the influence of the eugenics movement often advocated, and sometimes protested, the regulation of marriage, reproduction, immigration, and segregation of the mentally handicapped. Recommended for medical history collections.Lucille M. Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.

"What would bring a physician to conclude that sterilization is appropriate treatment for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped? Using archival sources, Ian Robert Dowbiggin documents the involvement of both U.S. and Canadian psychiatrists in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century. He shows why professional men and women committed to helping those less fortunate than themselves arrived at such morally and intellectually dubious conclusions." "Psychiatrists at the end of the nineteenth century felt professionally vulnerable, Dowbiggin explains, because they were under intense pressure from state and provincial governments and from other physicians to reform their specialty. Eugenics ideas, which dominated public health policy making, seemed the best vehicle for catching up with the progress of science. Among the prominent psychiatrist-eugenicists Dowbiggin considers are G. Alder Blumer, Charles Kirk Clarke, Thomas Salmon, Clare Hincks, and William Partlow." "Tracing psychiatric support for eugenics throughout the interwar years, Dowbiggin pays special attention to the role of psychiatrists in the fierce debates about immigration policy. His examination of psychiatry's unfortunate flirtation with eugenics shows how professional groups come to think and act along common lines within specific historical contexts."--Jacket CONTENTS PREFACE TO THE CORNELL PAPERBACKS EDITION ABBREVIATIONS INTRODUCTION 1. An Exodus of Enthusiasm: Psychiatry in Canada and the United States, I88o-I92o 2. A Confusing Wildness of Recommendations: G. Alder Blumer, Eugenics, and U.S. Psychiatry, I88o-I940 3. Keeping This Young Country Sane: C. K. Clarke, Eugenics, and Canadian Psychiatry, I89o-I940 4. A Question of Public Health: Psychiatry, Eugenics, and Immigration in the United States, I88o-I925 Conclusion: Reflections on the History of Eugenics INDEX