The University of Iowa History of Medicine Society invites you to hear Douglas Baynton, PhD, Associate Professor of History, University of Iowa  speak on

Defectives in the Land: Disability and American Immigration Policy, 1882-1924
on Tuesday, February 23rd, 5:30 to 6:30, room 2032 Main Library.

Professor Baynton notes: The chief goal of early immigration law in the late-nineteenth-century United States was the exclusion of “defective” persons and races.  The advent of immigration law can be best understood in the context of the institutionalization of disabled people, sterilization of the “unfit,” euthanasia campaigns, sign language proscription, “unsightly beggar” laws, and a growing desire to keep disabled people out of sight.  The larger context, in turn, was a cultural transformation in the understanding of history, time, and progress.  

Light refreshments will be served