All were labeled "feeble-minded", though many were not.
The school was many in a long trend of schools of the era who incarcerated the poor & uneducated.
The Eugenics movement had set forth to separate the "genetically inferior" from the rest of society.
At the time Eugenics was not strictly a movement, it was government policy.
Michael D'Antonio, author of the book "The State Boys Rebellion" argues,
"People were told, we can be rid of all disease, we can lower the crime rate, we can increase the wealth of our nation, if we only keep certain people from having babies".
Schools regularly tested children, those who failed were sent to "human warehouses".
D'Antonio says:
"Idiot, imbecile, and moron were all medical terms. They were used to define various levels of retardation or disability. Moron was coined to describe children who were almost normal".
The children were responsible for the brunt of the manual labor in these atmospheres.
"The kids raised the vegetables they ate, sewed the soles on shoes they wore, and manufactured brooms they used to sweep the floor," says D'Antonio
Schools ensured 30% had intelligence levels near normal to make sure some were fit to run the place.
One such patients "chore" was to manually cut up the brains of "feeble-minds" who had died
so they could be studied in hopes of future correction.
The children were routinely subjected to abuse by staff, & on occasion subject to experimentation.
In 1994 Senate hearings it was revealed that in 1949
under funding from the National Institute of Health & the Atomic Energy Commission,
MIT scientists conducted a study for Quaker Oats,
in which children of the school were knowingly given radioactive oatmeal.
The kids were under the notion that they were special. Receiving extra oatmeal & milk.
Of course children weren't told the milk was radioactive.
Seriously, can you even imagine the expressions on these helpless kids faces as they willingly consumed the offering?
The entire ordeal was a violation of the Nuremburg Code established 10 years earlier in the quake of the experiments of Nazi Germany.
It mandates that you do not conduct experiments on human beings without their informed consent.
A movie based upon the events which transpired in the school are currently in development.
The school was many in a long trend of schools of the era who incarcerated the poor & uneducated.
The Eugenics movement had set forth to separate the "genetically inferior" from the rest of society.
At the time Eugenics was not strictly a movement, it was government policy.
Michael D'Antonio, author of the book "The State Boys Rebellion" argues,
"People were told, we can be rid of all disease, we can lower the crime rate, we can increase the wealth of our nation, if we only keep certain people from having babies".
Schools regularly tested children, those who failed were sent to "human warehouses".
D'Antonio says:
"Idiot, imbecile, and moron were all medical terms. They were used to define various levels of retardation or disability. Moron was coined to describe children who were almost normal".
The children were responsible for the brunt of the manual labor in these atmospheres.
"The kids raised the vegetables they ate, sewed the soles on shoes they wore, and manufactured brooms they used to sweep the floor," says D'Antonio
Schools ensured 30% had intelligence levels near normal to make sure some were fit to run the place.
One such patients "chore" was to manually cut up the brains of "feeble-minds" who had died
so they could be studied in hopes of future correction.
The children were routinely subjected to abuse by staff, & on occasion subject to experimentation.
In 1994 Senate hearings it was revealed that in 1949
under funding from the National Institute of Health & the Atomic Energy Commission,
MIT scientists conducted a study for Quaker Oats,
in which children of the school were knowingly given radioactive oatmeal.
The kids were under the notion that they were special. Receiving extra oatmeal & milk.
Of course children weren't told the milk was radioactive.
Seriously, can you even imagine the expressions on these helpless kids faces as they willingly consumed the offering?
The entire ordeal was a violation of the Nuremburg Code established 10 years earlier in the quake of the experiments of Nazi Germany.
It mandates that you do not conduct experiments on human beings without their informed consent.
A movie based upon the events which transpired in the school are currently in development.
