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

by Ian Robert Dowbiggin

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.

Genres: Eugenics, History, Disability, Nonfiction, Psychology

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a much needed scholarly insight into the Eugenics Movement in Canada (the United States has endless works written about the Movement here). While I did not always agree with Dowbiggin's choice of making Clarke the central character for Canada's Eugenics Movement (he dies halfway through it!), it was an interesting read.