Disabled Upon Arrival

Abstract

Image One. “Figures 2-5.” “Examples of Faces of Feeble-Minded Immigrants.” Manual of the Mental Examination of Aliens. Treasury Department of the United States Public Health Service, Miscellaneous Publication #18, 1918. Owned by: Department of Health and Human Services (Public Domain). Image description: There are four black and white images of faces tiled and spaced evenly on a page. Gender has not been assigned to any of these images. In the top left image, there is an eleven-year-old with close-cropped hair, wearing a striped short, labeled a “low-grade imbecile,” a hand reaching from out of the frame to hold up the chin, with eyes directed to our right; in the top right image, there is a twenty-year-old with a dark mustache, wearing a suit jacket, labeled “low moron”; in the bottom right image, a teenager wearing a heavy coat is pictured, labeled “a constitutional inferior”; in the bottom left image there is a seventeen-year-old with blond hair, labeled a “high-grade imbecile.”