Believing is seeing: visual conventions in Barr's classification of the "feeble-minded".
The eugenics era (c. 1900-1930) produced a strong desire among mental retardation professionals to recognize and control "the feeble-minded." Some eugenicists believed it was possible to classify individuals visually by learning to recognize what they believed to be observable characteristics of idiocy and imbecility. In this paper I used qualitative methods to examine the visual classification scheme developed by Martin Barr and conclude that most of this classification scheme is a social construction that was reliant on modes of presentation, such as clothing and photographic style, which had very little to do with any inherent feeble-mindedness.
Elks
Martin A
MA
Bucks County Association of Independent Support Brokers, 1282 Estate Dr., West Chester, PA 19380, USA. MartinElks@aol.com
D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000145:classification*; D010781:Photography; D014796:Visual Perception