Includes bibliographical references (pages 453-466) and indexes.

"Work of national importance under civilian direction" -- "Religious training and belief" -- "An experiment in democracy" -- "A significant epoch in your life" -- "Detached units" -- "A working compromise between church and state" -- "Out of sight, out of mind" -- "A mind that found itself" -- "They asked for a hard job" -- "Bughousers" and "conchies" -- "The exposé as a progressive tool" -- "They were fighting everybody" -- "Mental hospitals are again under fire" -- "Another growing pain" -- "Scandal results in real reforms."

In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation's mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities. Bringing the abuses to the attention of newspapers and magazines across the country, they led a reform effort to change public attitudes and to improve the training and status of institutional staff. These young men were among the 12,000 World War II conscientious objectors who chose to perform civilian public service as an alternative to fighting. Acting on conscience a second time, they challenged America's treatment of its citizens with severe disabilities. Acts of Conscience brings to light the extraordinary efforts of these courageous men, drawing upon extensive archival research, interviews, and personal correspondence. --from publisher description.

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