The eugenics era (c. 1900?1930) produced a strong desire among mental retardation professionals to recognize and control "the feeble-minded." Some eugenicists believed it was possible to classify individuals visually by learning to recognize what they believed to be observable characteristics of idiocy and imbecility. In this paper I used qualitative methods to examine the visual classification scheme developed by Martin Barr and conclude that most of this classification scheme is a social construction that was reliant on modes of presentation, such as clothing and photographic style, which had very little to do with any inherent feeble-mindedness.