James W. Trent, Jr., Ph.D. is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Heller School, Brandeis Unversity. From 2003 to 2016 he was Professor of Sociology and Social Work at Gordon College, Wenham, MA.  His scholarly research lies in the history of marginalized and disenfranchised groups.  His most recent book is The Manliest Man: Samuel G. Howe and the Contours of Nineteenth Century American Reform (2012).  With Steven Noll, he edited Mental Retardation in America: A Historical Reader (2004). He is also the author of Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States (1994) that won the 1995 Hervey B. Wilbur Award of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. In 2017, he and Kathleen Brian edited Phallacies: Historical Intersections of Disability and Masculinity, a collection of essays focusing on disabled men who negotiate their masculinity as well as their disability.