From displays of so-called defectives and primitives at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, early 20th-century authorities shaped a definition of abnormality that they showed to a curious public. Complementing these displays were discourses about disability that proposed schemes for education, custody, sterilization, and even extermination. Like the displays of defectives, the discourses about defectives paralleled discourses about primitive races that appeared at the turn of the century to rationalize American imperialism. Together, the displays and discourses of defectives and primitive races shaped an understanding of science and education. In so doing, they also provided American elites a way of distinguishing between improvable and unimprovable inferiors (see Note).
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