Customer Reviews

Christmas in Purgatory: A Photographic Essay on Mental Retardation

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This book is the first to do a photographic expose on the condition of our nation's institutions for the mentally retarded in the 1960's. This was done on the heels of Senator Robert Kennedy's visits to several of his state's institutions and revelation of the horrific state he found them in. This is not an easy book to look at especially when looking at the children and how they were housed, contained, etc. It shows first the worst conditions that the author and photographer found and then documents an institute on the cutting edge at the time. Kaplan brings us face to face with how our ignorance and expectations can be self-fulfilling prophecies for those entrusted to our care. I found it an important book to keep as a reminder of where we have been so as not to return there.

Those who would dismiss this book as overgeneralized and flawed forget that institutions were originally established not to protect disabled people from society, but society from disabled people.

Popular notion of the time held disabled people would be much more of a hindrance than help to society, and looked odd. Thus, if they were locked up, society would know where they were at all times while being able to pretend that they did not exist to begin with. Indeed, when Blatt and Kaplan's expose appeared, it set off controversy from those who had the audacity to defend the charges against very quickly turning public sentiment.

Although they are certainly free to articulate what they consider flaws with the book, it is difficult to believe that critics of this work would actually want to downplay the seriousness of these (and other) investigations if they were in those instutitions. Indeed, I strongly suspect they would want to be treated like human beings and given adequate care and a stimmulating environment.

As a diabled person myself, the contents of the book hit very close to home. Fortunate enough to be born in 1979, I realized that had I been born 20 years earlier, I most likely would have been one of the unfortunate people in the institutions investigated in this essay. While I previously had been aware of the disability rights movement's work in this area, reading this book gave me a whole new perspective on my work as a disability rights activist.

Because this book was never positioned as an indictment of all facilities, I am suprised by the rather hostile nitpicking and the blanket statement allegations. I believe this says more about the individuals reviewers than the quality of the authors themselves, and should not be weighted when looking at this book.The institutions in this essay were picked because the actual practices stood in sharp contrast to the "help and loving environment" they promised parents and relatives that patients would get. Woe is the person who even suggests that this was not as bad as people have made it out to be.

If it is difficult to believe the conditions doccumented in this book, it is because of the continued ease with which society is encouraged to view disabled people as helpless children, rather than potential Supreme Court nominees, doctors, lawyers etc...Ironically, baby and bath allegories demonstrate the urgency with which this book should be designated as required reading for anybody considering a degree in social sciences or a job in a related field.

I was introduced to Christmas in Purgatory in 1996, when I took a course at Western Washington University called Introduction to Execeptional Children. There was no introduction to the essay, it was simply named in an assignment. Needless to say, I was horrified. I'm placing an order for it today as I feel that students taking courses related to people with disabilities need to see this. The book cannot be found on the national library system (in Norway), and therefore I've decided to buy a copy and donate it to my local university.

I was told of this book in a meeting at of the company I work for.
We Provide Care to MR/DD people. This book is very disturbing and also enlighting. It makes me feel good to know that we, as a society have for the most part worked to change what these poor souls went through. A must read.

I thought Christmas in Purgatory was interesting, but it lacked depth. The photographs told the story, as did the brief essay, but instead throwing out all those quotes from historical figures, the authors could have given more information, such as biographical information on the patients, histories of some of the institutions (without naming them of course), statistics such as lifespans of patients in the backwards photographed, as well as more feedback from staff. Some of this information might not have been obtainable, but the authors could still have gone more in-depth rather than include all those quotes.

Little words are needed to accompany the pictures (taking clandestinely) of the horrors of institutionalization in this country especially around the time of Willow Brook. The entire country needs to see these photos so as to never forget lest we doom ourselves to repeat these atrocities.