People with Disabilities
People with Disabilities Standards
Standards' Sources
Series: Disability History. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/series.htm?id=88713887-1DD8-B71B-0B40487E6097176E
Early and Shifting Attitudes
Content Statement: The Founding and Early Republic era in the United States individuals with disabilities were excluded from society.
CONTENT ELABORATION:
During the late 1700s and the early 1800s, people who were identified as disabled were deemed wards of the state and were excluded from society in almshouses and poorhouses when their families did not have the means to care for them. In these facilities, the poor, criminals, and people with disabilities sometimes lived together in crowded and unsanitary conditions. As cities developed in the 1800s, to combat the crowded conditions those with mental and/or physical disabilities were moved into government-run asylums.
EXPECTATIONS FOR LEARNING:
Analyze how individuals with disabilities were treated in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Materials for Lesson Plans
An online article from the Social Welfare History Project at Virginia Commonwealth University authored by Dr. David Wagner (2005) describes the history of poorhouses and almshouses beginning with colonial policies set in British North America In the 1620s.
Webpage describing the 17th and 18th-century histories of people with disabilities. This is from a larger collection of history resources titled Parallels In Time: A History of Developmental Disabilities created by The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities featuring information about disability history spanning from 1500 BCE to the modern era.
Archive of disability history primary sources in the United States from the Social Welfare History Project at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Unit plan from the Reform to Equal Rights Curriculum describes the establishment of schools and asylums in the mid-19th century in the United States which coincided with other reform movements affiliated with trends related to the Second Great Awakening.
History.com page describing the original purposes of almshouses and poorhouses. This page features an overview featuring some of Anne Sullivan's observations of these late 19th-century institutions in Massachusetts.
Archive of primary sources connected to the history of intellectual disabilities In the United States from the Social Welfare History Project at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Access to Education and Healthcare
Content Statement: In the 1800s, educational opportunities were expanded to people with disabilities due to the establishment of specialized schools. Also during this time period, healthcare focused on curative treatments for disabilities.
CONTENT ELABORATION:
The first specialized schools established for people with disabilities include the Perkins Institution for the Blind and Gallaudet University.
Reformers like Dorthea Dix advocated for changing the societal treatment of people with disabilities in the mid-19th century. While opportunities for psychiatric treatment and education increased for people with disabilities, some methods used for “curing” ailments in the 1800s to mid-1900s were sometimes inhumane. Treatments included:
Electroshock therapy
Hydrotherapy
Forced sterilization due to influences from the Eugenics movement
Lobotomies
During the 1900s and 2000s, perceptions of how to provide education and medical treatment shifted from curing the individual and treatment as “other” to advocating for individual rights and societal inclusion.
EXPECTATIONS FOR LEARNING:
Compare how the education and treatment of individuals with disabilities changed from the 1800s to the 1900s and 2000s.
Materials for Lessons
Webpage describing the movement towards Institutionalizing people with disabilities from the 19th to mid-20th centuries. This is from a larger collection of history resources titled Parallels In Time: A History of Developmental Disabilities created by The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities featuring information about disability history spanning from 1500 BCE to the modern era.
Unit plan from the Reform to Equal Rights curriculum featuring the Civil War from a disability history framework by analyzing the experience of veterans disabled as a result of the conflict, primary sources featuring the experiences of veterans and nurses, rethinking the role of the government in relation to those who have served, and examining the experiences of disabled veterans today.
Disability History article from the National Parks Service from the Telling Americans' Stories series about the treatment of veterans disabled due to war ranging from the Civil War to the modern day. Special emphasis Is placed on concerted efforts made by the National Parks Service to assist in efforts to provide care to veterans.
Webpage describing "The Reawakening" of parents and advocated demanding the government provide changes for better services for people with disabilities that led to the organization of parent advocacy groups and the creation of government policies focusing on allocating funds, resources, and civil rights protections for people with disabilities. This is from a larger collection of history resources titled Parallels In Time: A History of Developmental Disabilities created by The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities featuring information about disability history spanning from 1500 BCE to the modern era.
Timeline from Gallaudet University's website provides an overview of the institution's history beginning with the establishment of the "Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Dumb and Deaf and the Blind" in 1857 and the 1964 approval of Edward Miner Gallaudet's charter to offer collegiate degrees signed by President Lincoln to the University's Sesquicentennial celebration in 2014.
Curated deaf history resources from Gallaudet University's National Deaf Life Museum. These resources include videos, exhibits, archives, and Information about organizations advocating for deaf rights and inclusion.
Archive of disability history primary sources in the United States from the Social Welfare History Project at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Disability Rights Movement
Content Statement: Laws enacted by Congress have expanded civil rights and equal protection to Americans with disabilities due to the advocacy of disability activists and rights groups in the 1900s.
CONTENT ELABORATION:
The legal definition of disability according to the U.S. Code states that a disability is “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual.” Throughout the 1900s, the work of the disability rights movement fought for rights, self-advocacy, and societal accommodations. Advancements as a result of this advocacy range from education, employment, and building accommodations to removing homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Disability rights advocates fought for recognition, equality, and inclusion In the United States. Leaders of the disability rights movement in the 20th and 21st centuries Include advocates like Judy Heumann, who fought against discrimination in education, advocated for Section 504 In the Rehabilitation Act by leading the 504 Sit-In, is one of the founders of the Independent Living Movement, worked for the Clinton and Obama administration, and influenced advocacy for people with disabilities at on international level.
Legislation that expanded civil rights and equal protection to Americans with disabilities include:
1973 Rehabilitation Act
1975 Education of All Handicapped Children Act
1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
1990 Americans with Disabilities Act
2008 ADA Amendments
EXPECTATIONS FOR LEARNING:
Explain how rights for individuals with disabilities expanded in the 1900s and early 2000s as a result of advocacy and federal legislation.
Materials for Lesson Plans
Webpage describing "The Independent Living Movement" that began in the 1970s, where efforts began to advocate against institutionalizing people with disabilities and to instead create conditions in society that would eradicate assumptions and lessen barriers for people with disabilities. This is from a larger collection of history resources titled Parallels In Time: A History of Developmental Disabilities created by The Minnesota Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities featuring information about disability history spanning from 1500 BCE to the modern era.
Historical timeline of Americans with disabilties created by the Anti-Defamation League. According to the resource, "Around 40.7 million Americans with disabilities lead independent, self-affirming lives, defining their personhood beyond their disability above and beyond their ideas, beliefs, hopes, and dreams. Since the mid 1900s, people with disabilities have pushed for the recognition of disability as an aspect of identity that influences the experiences of an individual, not as the sole-defining feature of a person.
Website featuring disability history lessons developed by the Disability History Museum that include topics about disability history In relation to law, government, advocacy, policy, institutions, physical environment, media, and culture.
Website of the Washington State Governor's Office for the Education Ombuds featuring One Out of Five: Disability History and Pride Project providing resources and lesson plans about understanding the experiences and diversity of the community of people with disabilities. This lesson set also Includes the history of people with disabilities in the United States and ways to show allyship and solitary for disability rights and inclusion.
Collection of teacher-created lessons from Emerging America that range from early America to the modern day. This page also features links to primary source collections curated for teaching disability history In the classroom.
Disability history web exhibition from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. This digital exhibition presents an in-depth narrative of disability history In the United States with the interpretation of artifacts connected to themes related to disability history.
In this lesson from National History Day, students will determine how citizen activism among the disabled community led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act In 1990 and the advocacy and activism efforts that continue to today.
Videos
Video clip from the Netflix series "Crip Camp" describing how the Americans with Disabilities Act changed the physical landscape of the world.
Video created by the Disability & Philanthropy Forum presenting a history of the disability community through the lens of civil rights activism In the United States.
PBS News Hour clip featuring activist Judith Heumann describing her life experiences with ablism and her observations of the status of the treatment of people with disabilities today.
Curated videos from the PBS Move to Include series promoting inclusion for people with disabilities.
Video clip from CBS Sunday Morning Interviewing the creators of the "Crip Camp." This video also includes a brief history of activism and civil rights victories for people with disabilities in the United States.
Further Reading
Heumann, Judy and Joiner, Kristen. (2020). Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist. Beacon Press.
Heumann, Judy and Joiner, Kristen. (2021). Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Rebel Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution. Beacon Press.
Kim, E. Neilson. (2013). A Disability History of the United States. Beacon Press.
Wong, Alice (Ed.). (2020). Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. Vintage Books.