Eugenics in Rhode Island

Ida was committed to Exeter for having 2 children with a man to whom she was not married. She was at the Ladd School for fewer than 4 months before falling ill with pneumonia and died at the age of 27 in March, 1929. There are no records to indicate that she received any treatment.

There are scores of cases in which young women, their chief "defect" being in the "moral sphere," as the doctors put it, were committed to Exeter for being cast as undesirable characters. But in the Ladd School's history, where the ugly and grave are mundane, Ida's situation stands apart from the others; what seems to be a relatively healthy, albeit troubled, young woman died after six days of evidently no medical treatment of any consequence so as to be recorded.

How many people at the Ladd School died from neglect? It is impossible to know. Until 1935, the institution had no hospital. It's an understatement to say that medical record keeping during this time was lax; it was in many cases non-existent. One death after another is attributed to pneumonia, tuberculosis, and inanition of idiocy, sometimes called "wasting disease" - in other words, malnutrition, or starvation. But what occurred in the final hours, days, weeks or months? The folder is empty; a question mark hangs in the dusty air.

If, as it appears, so many did expire as the result of neglect, it begs the question: was the cause accidental or deliberate? To put it another way, was this fatal neglect the outcome of lacking funds, facilities, and personnel - or was it a willful act of euthanasia?