Tworzenie Amerykanów. Zdrowie psychiczne jako składnik budowy społeczeństwa Stanów Zjednoczonych na przełomie XIX i XX wieku
Making Americans. Mental Health as a Component of the Formation of the US Society at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Summary/Abstract: The case of a Jewish Romanian immigrant to the USA in 1916, presented in this article, reveals the treatment of people with mental disabilities wishing to remain in the United States. Assessed through the prism of social suitability based on eugenically defined criteria, Fanny Berkovic was to be deported to her country of origin in order not to burden the American health service with her stay and because of her negligible social and economic suitability and the likelihood of having offspring similarly mentally disabled. The article demonstrates why and how, through medical criteria, the usefulness of immigrants was defined, what dangers were seen in them, and why their deportation was understood as strengthening the vulnerable American social fabric that built America.

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