The State Boys Rebellion

by Michael D'Antonio

Book Overview

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tells the amazing story of how a group of imprisoned boys won their freedom, found justice, and survived one of the darkest and least-known episodes of American history.
In the early twentieth century, United State

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 074324513X
• ISBN13: 9780743245135
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Book About State School Horrors

The State Boys Rebellion tells the story of the Fernald State School in Massachusetts. Michael D'Antonio does a great job of telling the story through the eyes of Freddie Boyce, a child that grew up in Fernald. The story is quite chilling, specially to those of us who did not live through that time period. It is disgraceful that we, the United States actually started Eugenics, although I was taught in school that Nazi Germany was the creator. This book should remind us that as a society, we sometimes leave out the bad stuff our forefathers did, even if they meant no harm. I would highly reccomend this book to anyone, but it will touch the heart of anyone with a child who is considered "special".

The Horrors Next Door

I never gave the imposing Fernald School campus much thought, even though the house I shared with my friends was literally across the street from the large brick buildings. It was not until I researched the effects of radiation on soldiers during the Cold War that I learned Fernald's dirty secrets. I immediately bought this book, and it filled me with rage and despair. D'Antonio's style is not preachy, nor does he editorialize. He allows the recollections of those who were there to speak for him. Wherever he can, he uses several sources to shade each event, from conversations with the boys, to the memories of the staff members, to the cold, un-enlightening medical records from the school. As others have said, the story ends not in misery but in triumph. It is a cautionary tale about society's complacency and willingness to let the horrors of our past remain behind the locked doors of our crumbling institutions.

Frightening

I finished this book in just 3 nights. It is a compelling story of the lives of boys/men who endured their childhood in a state 'school for the feebleminded' in Massachusettes during the 1950's. This is a true story, and it reveals just another failed attempt by government to 'protect' Americans. The idea that sterilizing mentally ill persons (based on IQ scores) would rid America of bad genes and therefore create a more competent society, was widely supported both publicly and politically. Keep in mind that the Eugenics movement in America took place before the Nazi party in Germany had any ideas of racial cleansing. In fact, American scientists who promoted Eugenics were praised by Nazi Germany and asked to speak on the subject of creating a better human. The author gives enough detail for the reader to form a vague picture of institutional life, without including such graphic recollections that the reader is turned away. More importantly, the author focuses throughout the book on the mental anguish sustained by and the lack of proper education provided to the State Boys (meaning they were wards of the state) as the cause of numerous problems finding work and maintaining relationships during their adult lives. At the end of this book, I was left feeling disgusted: at how these boys and thousands of others were treated , angry: that the government promoted, funded, and attempted to hide the routine warehousing of children and adults into institutions that were understaffed and rampant with abuse of patients, and ashamed: that Americans have the audacity to point fingers at terrorists and social ills among other nations, when for hundreds of years we have degraded, terrorized, humiliated, enslaved, and ignored our very own citizens. The fact that few, will ever hear about these kinds of stories is even more disturbing. Even in the 50's government worked hard to cover-up and conceal unethical and controversial experiments, such as radiation testing performed on 1,000s of WWII veterans as well as numerous experiments performed on individuals who lived in state institutions (most of these were performed without informed consent). American history is not all about courageous war heros and freedom. There have been many, many shameful and cruel acts of violence performed on Americans by Americans. What is frightening is that, looking back at what is now seen as cruel and absurd, was largely publicly supported at the time..... Hmm, perhaps we (American citizens) should question what we are told rather than taking everything a President or government agency tells us as the whole truth.

An American Family ...Treated in an Un-American way.

Finally, A Book about the way we were.. or, God forbid, the way we might still be. Mr. D,antonio,s research of our Governments,s nuclear application,s was not intended to lead him right to The Fernald State School, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, and one Mr. Frederick Boyce, But it did for some strange reason, lead him there. With the resulting introduction to Fred Boyce. From his research, Mr. D, Antonio was afforded a view that few Americans are ever afforded. Mr. D,Antonio was afforded a view of just how, our system of social welfare, and social care was doled out in the middle of the twentieth century. The shame of this True story is not soley in the past believe and practice of Eugenics, but in the past believe and practice of warehousing State kids. Warehousing them in any Environement enabled the servicing Social Worker to look like he or she has done their job. This writer still believes this practice still exists today.This Book is a compelling read and I am very gratefull to the author and I am very proud of the courage and accomplishmenst Frederick L. Boyce. (...)

Triumph of the Supposed Morons

We could never have an institution today called the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feebleminded Youth. It is not just political correctness that would forbid such a name; "idiocy" and "feeblemindedness" were once thought to be real diagnosable conditions, and they are not now. The MSIFY existed, however, but even after it changed its name to the Fernald State School, it was through the 1960s still housing what officials thought were idiotic, moronic, and feebleminded young people. Sadly, huge numbers of the kids kept there (and in countless similar institutions) had no mental handicaps whatsoever. In _The State Boys Rebellion: A True Story_ (Simon and Schuster), Michael D'Antonio exposes the Fernald story, a sorry and sordid tale. The kids described here would today, it is hoped, get reliable foster homes and any special education that was necessary; at the time, they got neglect, assaults, rapes, and cruelty. Some of the boys described here forced their way out, and did fare surprisingly well, and did get their histories out in the public view, so at least in part this is a story of an inspiring victory over the system.D'Antonio has done a particularly good job at putting the Fernald story into historical context, showing Fernald as a product of the eugenics movement. The idea was that morons (a term coined as a medical diagnosis) could be segregated and prevented from breeding more morons. Among the problems was that at Fernald, plenty of the children were normal. As Fred Boyce, the main State Boy profiled here, said decades later, "Keep in mind that we didn't commit any crimes. We were just seven-year-old orphans." Boyce was of at least average intelligence; even his official record at the place said, "He is certainly not feebleminded." He was skillful at sizing up other people, and interested in science. He needed adoption, but such recommendations produced no effect. He was only released when he was nineteen. In Fernald, there was an over-reliance on IQ test scores, and once a label IQ number had been applied, it stuck. This was true even if teachers could tell just by talking to the boys that the scores were meaningless. Whatever IQ scores mean, it was true that the boys _dropped_ in their scores as they stayed in state custody, even though authorities taught that IQ was a permanent fixture. The boys were supposed to be separated from the world, but some of the world crept in, from radio and television; one of Boyce's means of learning about the outside was a crystal radio he built, using a found quartz rock for a crystal. As teenagers, they had a natural rebelliousness combined with a desire to fit in, and they gradually found that they were much more like their fellow teens on the outside than any morons. Inspired by the civil rights struggles in Little Rock, some of the boys took over one of the wards in 1957. They rioted, and some wound up in prison. The real rebellion of the state boys took place in 1995. T