Description
Book SynopsisAmerican history is full of examples of discrimination in all forms, but never before has the wreckage from America’s infatuation with eugenics and its state-sanctioned policy of hate toward the mentally ill been put in such personal terms.
In this extraordinary debut book, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Erickson answers the questions that have long haunted an immigrant family: Why was a mother in her early twenties imprisoned and then sterilized? What caused her three children to be taken from her and placed in an orphanage that later preyed on children? What led her oldest son to commit an unspeakable act of violence? And, finally, whatever happened to her youngest son who disappeared from her life and was never seen by the family again?
This is a tragic story, yet strangely an uplifting one. Because just as officials believed immorality and mental illness were as genetically linked as eye and hair color, various family members would prove them wrong. In a story that will make you seethe with anger and well with tears, When Mortals Play God shows how valuable life is, and how grit and determination can sometimes relegate evil and injustice to a back seat.
Table of ContentsTable Of Contents
Cover Page
Dedication
Table Of Contents
Foreword
Author’s Note
Feebleminded Definition
Prologue
Chapter One: Brainerd
ChapterTwo: Mary
ChapterThree: Rose
ChapterFour: ‘Feebleminded’
ChapterFive: Orphans
Chapter Six: Transition
Chapter Seven: Ernie
Chapter Eight: Michael
Photos
ChapterNine: Robert
ChapterTen: Questions
ChapterEleven: Survivors
Acknowledgements
Dates
Bibliography
About The Author
