NCJ Number
121130
Date Published
1988
Length
88 pages
Annotation
This family study focuses on an impoverished coal mining county in southeastern Ohio to discover the extent and social significance of feeble-mindedness in the genealogy of a family known as the Happy Hickories.
Abstract
Those who are unable to support themselves in a competitive environment, such as people who pay low rent, squatters who pay no rent at all, miners who work under direction, and the unemployed are considered feeble-minded. Given the author's definition of feeble-mindedness as the inability to support oneself in a demanding environment and her using this definition, the study defines a large proportion of inmates in two county institutions as mentally defective and should be transferred to State institutions. The survey of public schools reveals that rates of feeble-mindedness are higher in rural than in urban schools, and especially high in two remote districts characterized by dire poverty with three out of every five feeble-minded persons being male. The Happy Hickories live by foraging off land that belongs to others, begging, and basketmaking, although they are not criminals because their general mentality is too low to permit any crime except dependency. The family is also characterized by promiscuity. 15 tables, 8 figures.