Organizations by and for people with disabilities
have existed since the 1800s. However, they grew in popularity
during the last century and now include people
with a wide variety of diagnoses. The disability rights movement
continues to work hard for equal rights even today.
A BRIEF HISTORY IN AMERICA...
1776: American Revolutionary War.
Some of the first citizens with disabilities to receive help from the government were wounded soldiers after the Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress passed the first military pension law providing "one half of your military service salary for life" to veterans that had lost limbs or become disabled during service to the country.
1800's: Schools & Asylums
Specialized schools, hospitals, development centers, and farms were created to house, educate, and assist citizens with disabilities throughout the nineteenth century. Many of these facilities were overcrowded and used as a place to send members of society who were simply too different or difficult to help at home. Abuse and mistreatment of people with disabilities inside many of these places went unchecked. The daily life for a person sent into one of these human warehouses was scary and often times unsafe or even deadly.
1800's: Helpful Leaders
Dorothea Dix was a woman of fine character who created original stories and schools to provide education to children all across the country. She traveled throughout the U.S. to note the living and educational conditions of the deaf, blind, and otherwise disabled population. She lobbied the government to improve conditions inside asylums and advocated for more moral treatments to be established.
The Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane was proposed legislation that would have established asylums for the "indigent insane", and also blind, deaf, and dumb, via federal land grants to the states. The main provision of the bill was to set aside 10 millions acres for the benefit of the insane, and the remainder to be sold for the benefit of the "blind, deaf, and dumb", with money distributed to the states to build and maintain asylums. This bill was the signature initiative of activist Dorothea Dix, and passed both houses of Congress in 1854. However, it was vetoed in 1854 by President Franklin Pierce. |
Thomas Story Kirkbride was a physician, advocate for the mentally ill, and founder of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane. Dr. Kirkbride's ideas brought about mixed feelings in both patients and peers. He pioneered what would be known as the "Kirkbride Plan", to improve medical care for the insane, as a standardization for buildings that housed the patients. Kirkbride was an advocate of building hospitals for the mentally ill in a style which he believed promoted recovery and healing through more moral treatments.
Dr. Kirkbride's designs were meant to promote healing of the mentally ill by adding natural light and air circulation to the living quarters of patients. The foliage and farmlands on the hospital grounds were sometimes maintained by patients as part of physical exercise and/or therapy. These ideals began to be adopted by asylums, farms, and hospitals housing people with disabilities all across the country. |