James W. Trent, Jr. was born in Durham, North Carolina. He received his undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University. He has masters degrees from Duke University and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. He completed his Ph.D. degree at Brandeis University. His first book, Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States (1994) won the Hervey B. Wilbur Award of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. His second book, Mental Retardation in American: An Historical Reader (2004) was co-edited with Steven Noll. A third book, The Manliest Man: Samuel G. Howe and the Contours of Nineteenth-Century American Reform (2012) is a biography of a controversial and fascinating figure in the context of rapid social and political change. In 2016, Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Intellectual Disability in the United States appeared, representing an updated and expanded edition of the 1994 book. Trent is Visiting Scholar at the Heller School, Brandeis University.