Lorie Conway

Well done story of the public health service hospitals on the Ellis Island complex. The treatment of immigrants showing physical illness was generally humane and professional. This was not so much the case for persons suspected of being mentally defective. I have an interest in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century and the shameful treatment of people who were deemed mentally deficient. This misguided policy certainly reached the matter of immigrants, especially those from countries considered, for racist motivations, to be undesirable and who were thought to be diluting the "Anglo-Saxon" stock of the nation. Amazing and sad to note that such prejudice against "others" persists still today.… (més)