History of Psychology 2014, Vol. 17, No. 4, 271-281 © 2014 American Psychological Association 1093-4510/14/$ 12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0036123 CLARA HARRISON TOWN AND THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST INSTITUTIONAL COMMITMENT LAW FOR THE “FEEBLEMINDED” Psychologists as Expert Diagnosticians Ingrid G. Farreras Hood College The first law providing for the commitment of “feeble-minded” individuals in the United States was passed in 1915, in the state of Illinois. House Bill 655 not only allowed for the permanent, involuntary institutionalization of feeble-minded individu- als, but it shifted the commitment and discharge authority from the institution super- intendents to the courts. Clara Harrison Town, a student of Lightner Witmer, and the state psychologist at the second largest institution for feeble-minded individuals in the country, was instrumental in this law passing and in ensuring that psychologists, for the first time, be viewed as court “experts” when testifying as to the feeble mindedness of individuals. Keywords: Clara Harrison Town, feeble mindedness, institutionalization, eugenics, intelligence testing In 1922, Leta Hollingworth published an ar- ticle in the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology Journal, in which she ex- cerpted portions of bills from six states wherein psychologists were considered legal experts in the determination of “feeble mindedness.” The six states were Illinois, California, Kansas, Ore- gon, Wisconsin, and New York, and the bills had all been passed between 1915 and 1919. These bills were the first state-sponsored nega- tive eugenic1 laws for the institutionalization of feeble-minded individuals, and for the first time, psychologists were allowed to testify to the feeble mindedness of individuals, alongside physicians. Within the context of intelligence testing and eugenics, I will argue that psychol- ogist Clara Harrison Town, a student of Light- ner Witmer, and the state psychologist at the second most important institution for the feeble minded in the country at the time (the Lincoln This article was published Online First June 2, 2014. The author thanks Deborah J. Coon for her comments on an earlier draft of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to Ingrid G. Farreras, Department of Psychology, Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD 21701. E-mail: farreras@hood.edu State School and Colony in Lincoln, Illinois), was instrumental in passing the first commit- ment law for feebleminded individuals in the nation.2 The term “feeble-minded” is no longer used and even at the turn of the 20th century was used pejoratively to represent a conglomerate of ill-defined developmental and learning disabili- ties, as well as socially stigmatized behaviors. Seguin provided the first scientific classification for feeble mindedness in 1846, as a function of conditions of the nervous system. Esquirol, Howe, and Hoffbauer followed suit with classi- fications that were dependent on speech, judg- ment, and signs of delusions and insanity.3 Since then, scientists, physicians, reformers, and laymen alike used the term “feeble-minded” interchangeably with mentally deficient or de- fective, morally deficient or defective, moral or criminal imbecile, criminal defective, defective delinquent, sexual delinquent, idiot, dull, back- ward, retarded, and unfit. That these labels often came with qualifiers such as Mongolian, Cretin, hydrocephalic, paralytic, epileptic, syphilitic, alcoholic, and tubercular, only added to the confusion.4 At a time when morality was linked to decency and orderliness, individuals who were perceived and feared as mentally unfit, 271