Defectives in the land : disability and immigration in the age of eugenics / Douglas C. Baynton.

  • Baynton, Douglas C.
Date:
[2016]
  • Books

About this work

Description

"Immigration history has largely focused on the restriction of immigrants by race and ethnicity, overlooking disability as a crucial factor in the crafting of the image of the zundesirable immigrant.y Defectives in the Land, Douglas C. Bayntons groundbreaking new look at immigration and disability, aims to change this. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Baynton explains, immigration restriction in the United States was primarily intended to keep people with disabilities known as zdefectivesy out of the country. The list of those included is long: the deaf, blind, epileptic, and mobility impaired; people with curved spines, hernias, flat or club feet, missing limbs, and short limbs; those unusually short or tall; people with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities; intersexuals; men of zpoor physiquey and men diagnosed with zfeminism.y Not only were disabled individuals excluded, but particular races and nationalities were also identified as undesirable based on their supposed susceptibility to mental, moral, and physical defects. In this transformative book, Baynton argues that early immigration laws were a cohesive whole - a decades-long effort to find an effective method of excluding people considered to be defective. This effort was one aspect of a national culture that was increasingly fixated on competition and efficiency, anxious about physical appearance and difference, and haunted by a fear of hereditary defect and the degeneration of the American race."-- Publisher's description.

Publication/Creation

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2016]

Physical description

177 pages ; 24 cm

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Defective -- Handicapped -- Dependent -- Ugly.

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    JL.6
    Open shelves

Permanent link

Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9780226364162
  • 022636416X