A Brief History of America’s Horrifying Mistreatment of the Disabled

Shortly after our forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence, it became obvious that not all Americans were going to be treated equally. In colonial days, people with disabilities were treated in a similar light as the Salem witches, either burned or hanged. Others viewed disability as a sign of God’s disapproval, and people with disabilities were treated as though they were possessed. Rejected by the majority and scorned by the masses, they were sometimes carted off to almshouses, with the poor and hardened criminals as a way of removing them from sight and from society.

In 1773, the first institution was founded in Virginia: The Publick Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds. It was closer to a prison than a hospital; patients were kept chained and shackled, physically abused, fed rotten food, and bathed in ice water. They were also sadly and very rarely released.

In the 1800s, people with disabilities were considered tragic, pitiful individuals unfit and unable to contribute to society. They were ridiculed and were sometime objects of entertainment in circuses and exhibitions. They were assumed to be abnormal and feeble-minded. People with disabilities were also forced to enter institutions and asylums, where many spent their entire lives. The “purification” and segregation of persons with disability served to keep people with disabilities invisible and hidden from a fearful and biased country.

In 1907, the Eugenic Sterilization Act was enacted in Indiana. By 1930, 30 states had passed laws that mandated eugenic sterilization for a variety of reasons. This allowed states to forcibly surgically sterilize those people that were deemed “feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed and financially dependent on the government.” California ranked number one in eugenic sterilization with over 20,000 people sterilized prior to 1964- with almost 60% considered mentally ill and 35% mentally deficient. Despite protests from various groups, an additional 1,400 more women were sterilized between 1997 and 2013 in California alone. Forcible eugenic sterilization is now mostly a thing of the past but many Americans still believes that people who are not genetically perfect are a burden to society.

In 1860, Dorothea Dixon, a passionate social advocate, forbidden to speak to Congress (because of being a woman), had another social reformer - Samuel Gridley Howe - speak for her about the conditions of the appalling institutions housing the disabled (this was her statement):

"More than nine-thousand idiots, epileptics, and insane in these United States, destitute of appropriate care and protection. Bound with galling chains, bowed beneath fetters and heavy iron balls, attached to drag-chains, lacerated with ropes, scourged with rods, and terrified beneath storms of profane execrations and cruel blows; now subject to jibes, and scorn, and torturing tricks, now abandoned to the most loathsome necessities or subject to the vilest and most outrageous violations.” Congress was appalled but this statement and both houses of congress voted for reform, only to be vetoed by President Pierce.

Late in the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century a number of cities passed what were known as “Ugly Laws”. These laws made it illegal for any person diseased, maimed, mutilated or disfigured in any way to show themselves in public view. The last city to repeal ugly laws was Chicago in 1974.

The education system in America often ostracized children with disabilities and separated them from their peers; this was more prevalent in the past but was somewhat remedied in 1975 with the passing of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act.  In 1990, it was renamed and improved into the  Individuals with Disabilities Education Act which allowed for equal access to public education for children with disabilities — meaning less segregation and more inclusion.

Justness for individuals with disabilities became less elusive with the  Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) being passed in 1990. This act ensured the equal treatment and access of people with disabilities to employment opportunities and to public accommodations. The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in: employment, services rendered by state and local governments, places of public accommodation, transportation, and telecommunications services. The ADA Act has made a tremendous difference. Buildings, busses, schools, telephones and television programming has now become more accessible for all kinds of people.

Although individuals with disabilities are the largest minority in America, they are often marginalized, ignored and/or treated as inferior. It has taken our nation hundreds of years to acknowledge their human-ness. America is not where it needs to be yet, but it is moving in the right direction.