A Perfect Turmoil
Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
National Book Critics Circle Awards Longlist
The rise, fall, and redemption of the doctor behind America’s first public school for mentally disabled people
From the moment he became superintendent of the nation’s oldest public school for intellectually and developmentally disabled children in 1887 until his death in 1924, Dr. Walter E. Fernald led a wholesale transformation of our understanding of disabilities in ways that continue to influence our views today. How did the man who designed the first special education class in America, shaped the laws of entire nations, and developed innovative medical treatments for the disabled slip from idealism into the throes of eugenics before emerging as an opponent of mass institutionalization? Based on a decade of research, A Perfect Turmoil is the story of a doctor, educator, and policymaker who was unafraid to reverse course when convinced by the evidence, even if it meant going up against some of the most powerful forces of his time.
In this landmark work, Alex Green has drawn upon extensive, unexamined archives to unearth the hidden story of one of America’s largely forgotten, but most complex, conflicted, and significant figures.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Green, a Harvard lecturer on public policy, debuts with an enthralling biography of Walter E. Fernald (1859–1924), a controversial doctor who shaped much of 20th-century American government policy toward the disabled. As the superintendent of what was then known as the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded (now named for Fernald), he introduced a humanizing new standard of care (insisting, for instance, that residents no longer be referred to as "inmates" but "patients," and providing more accurate diagnoses to aid in "treatment") but also became increasingly involved in promoting eugenics. Fernald stridently argued for institutionalization on the grounds that disabled people were a social "burden," laying the foundation for the mid-20th century's system of mass institutionalization; he also institutionalized women and girls for nonconformity. But later in life, Green writes, Fernald made a remarkable turn, decrying both institutionalization and eugenics, and calling for a "decentralized" system of "collective" care for the disabled—a "radical" proposal at the time, Green explains, that was also deeply prescient. Green's excellent dissection of Fernald digs into the internal contradictions and social forces that made it possible for one man—and for the modern world itself—to make such a drastic shift. The result is a gripping intellectual history of a major societal sea change. Correction: A previous version of this review incorrectly stated that Walter Fernald practiced eugenics and forcibly sterilized patients.
