My New Book Hits the Shelves!
Can you help spread the word?
Ten years ago I went looking for a Wikipedia page to learn more about Walter Fernald, the man who the nation’s first public institution for intellectually and developmentally disabled people—the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center—was named for. Nothing turned up. So I started digging and soon enough I found The Boston Globe headline from November 1924 pictured below. From that moment, I started a ten year journey that culminates on Tuesday with the publication of my book, A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled.
Today, we face the question of whether or not we believe that disabled people deserve equality—or life at all—in this society. It is a violent, ugly battle and there are lessons for us in the story of Fernald, a disabled doctor, educator, and policymaker, who shaped many of the conceptions we have about mental disabilities today. This book reveals his story for the first time and it’s a long-overdue reckoning that Publishers Weekly called “enthralling,” and “a gripping intellectual history of a major societal sea change.”
You can help make sure folks who might be interested are aware that the book is out in any of the following ways:
Share this email with your contacts. Below, there’s a bit about who this mysterious, monumentally important, and completely hidden man was…
Share about the book on social media (there’s an image of the cover and a link below that you can cut and paste!).
Review the book on all the various sites that allow reader reviews.
Share with groups you’re part of. This is a book that will be important to teachers, doctors, mental health professionals, social workers, and most of all, disabled people.
Share with media folks you know.
In the coming weeks, (Un)Hidden will feature articles, reviews, and event information about this book, and I will continue to draw from it for pieces like last week’s article about the connection between Walter Fernald’s Templeton Colony and RFK Jr.’s “Healing Farms.” Below, there’s also lots of information about the book for folks who are new to this all, or looking for images and links to share, but for now, I want to offer you my heartfelt thanks for joining me on this journey, and invite those of you in New England to join me for the following:
Book release celebration and reading
This Tuesday, April 1, Porter Square Books, 1815 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA
7:00 PM (Parking and RSVP information here)
About the Book
A Perfect Turmoil
Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled
From the moment he became superintendent of the nation’s oldest public school for intellectually and developmentally disabled children in 1887 until his death in 1924, Dr. Walter E. Fernald led a wholesale transformation of our understanding of disabilities in ways that continue to influence our views today. How did the man who designed the first special education class in America, shaped the laws of entire nations, and developed innovative medical treatments for the disabled slip from idealism into the throes of eugenics before emerging as an opponent of mass institutionalization? Based on a decade of research, A Perfect Turmoil is the story of a doctor, educator, and policymaker who was unafraid to reverse course when convinced by the evidence, even if it meant going up against some of the most powerful forces of his time.
In this landmark work, Alex Green has drawn upon extensive, unexamined archives to unearth the hidden story of one of America’s largely forgotten, but most complex, conflicted, and significant figures.
Buy the book here:
Praise for the Book
Enthralling. . . . A gripping intellectual history of a major societal sea change.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Fascinating. . . . In encompassing a life that spanned numerous scientific revolutions, this book captures a malleable, fresh sense of history being made.
— Foreword Reviews
A Perfect Turmoil is a riveting examination of not just the life of Fernald, but the rapidly changing political and social attitudes of his time. With a historian’s eye for detail and a novelist’s skill for storytelling, Green never loses sight of the mercy and humanity of his controversial subject, as he explores a lost chapter in American history that continues to shape our lives today.
— Ann Leary, author of The Good House and The Foundling
America has a tragic history of mistreating the intellectually and developmentally disabled, full of Dickensian institutions, barbaric procedures, and malevolent eugenic programs. Much of it remains untold. Alex Green has made an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of this history by tirelessly digging through the archives and eloquently telling the story of Walter E. Fernald.
— Adam Cohen, author of Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck
Growing up in Waltham, Massachusetts, we kids were all afraid of the Fernald School. By shedding brilliant new light on the institution’s history and its namesake, by bearing witness to the horror, Green shows us a tortured past so that we can ensure that it never, ever repeats.
— Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You and Days of Wonder
Rescuing Fernald’s story from obscurity, Green gives us insights into education, medicine, American eugenics, and disability over more than a century of transformation. From its beginning through to its blazing conclusion, A Perfect Turmoil is an impeccably researched and humane book that tells us so much about our eugenic, ableist, but still changeable present.
— Adam Rosenblatt, author of Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming the Past and Working for Justice in American Burial Grounds
Until recent years, disability rights were considered a secondary concern, even in the human rights community. The serious attention they deserve will be amplified by this superb book. Drawing skillfully on newly available material and highlighting the stories of persons who lived with disabilities, Green illuminates a history never told before. It is a gift to us all.
— William F. Schulz, former executive director of Amnesty International USA and author of Reversing the Rivers: A Memoir of History, Hope, and Human Rights
Amazing reportage about a remarkable man. . . . Anyone interested in medical history will want to add this biography to their library and tell others about it as well!
— Linda Bond, Auntie’s Bookstore (Spokane, WA)