ABSTRACT
Scrapbooks tell stories. The story told by Emily and Bernhard Kress originated with their son, Bernhard Jr., who was born with intellectual disability. During the period covered by the scrapbook (1944–1966), physicians told families like the Kresses that their “retarded child” would ruin their family life, and for that reason, it was best that they institutionalize their child. The Kresses placed their son in a state institution in New Jersey when he was 11 years old. They produced a scrapbook of around one-hundred pages devoted to their son, their involvement in a parents’ group, and the institution itself. The scrapbook substituted for him a compilation of material that responded to his institutionalization, and thus became a kind of material substitute to an embodied son. In the process of this reassurance, the scrapbook also revealed mixed messages given to intellectual disability. The Kresses were both involved in advocating for the institution but also were disturbed by its periodic inhumanity. This schizoid relationship with the institution was also present in their feelings for their son and for his disability. This chapter examines how the scrapbook illustrates the contradictions of attitudes toward intellectual disability among parents.
