WE Media's Disability History Timeline

FROM PATRIOTS TO PROTEINS:
Two Centuries in the World of Disabilities

1775-1800 Laying the Cornerstones

1776

The Continental Congress encourages military enlistment during the Revolutionary War by promising pensions for disabled soldiers. Individual states and communities provide direct medical and hospital care for veterans.

1782

Edward Alanson, an English surgeon, suggests an amputation in which tissue is cut in a hollow, conical manner using skin flaps. This technique, which heals more quickly and with less chance of infection, is the cornerstone of modern-day amputation methods.

1784

After seeing a group of blind men being cruelly exhibited in a Paris sideshow, Valentin Huay, known as the "father and apostle of the blind," establishes the Institution for Blind Children to help make life for the blind more "tolerable." Huay foreshadowed Louis Braille's work by discovering that sightless persons could decipher texts printed in embossed letters.

1793

Phillipe Pinel, a physician at La Bicetre, an asylum in Paris, unshackles people with mental illnesses. Some had been chained to walls for more than 30 years.

1797

Maryland Hospital in Baltimore is established as "a hospital for the relief of indigent sick persons, and for the reception and care of lunatics."

1800

James Potts of London designs a prosthesis that consists of a wooden shank and socket, a steel knee joint, and an articulated foot controlled by catgut tendons from the knee to the ankle. Used by the Marquis of Anglesey after he los t his leg in the Battle of Waterloo, it becomes known as the "Anglesey Leg." It has also been referred to as the "Clapper Leg" because of the noise it made with wooden foot stops, or the "Cork Leg" since it was widely used in County Cork, Ireland.

Phillipe Pinel writes Treatise on Insanity in which he develops a four-part diagnostic classification for the major mental illnesses: melancholy, dementia, mania without delirium and mania with delirium.

1801

Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard establishes the principles and methodology used today in the education of the mentally disabled through his controversial work with Victor, the "wild boy of Aveyron."

1805

Dr. Benjamin Rush, considered the father of American psychiatry, publishes Medical Inquiries and Observations, the first modern attempt to explain mental disorders.

1809

Louis Braille is born on January 4, at Coupvray, near Paris. At three years of age, an accident deprived him of his sight, and in 1819 he was sent to the Paris Blind School, which was originated by Valentin Huay.

1815

Thomas H. Gallaudet departs the United States for Europe to seek methods to teach the deaf. With Laurent Clerc, he goes on to establish the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons in 1817 in Hartford.

1818

The first patient is admitted to the Charlestown branch of the Massachusetts General Hospital, which is later named the McLean Asylum for the Insane. The hospital will become one of the best-known mental health facilities in the country, with services attracting such artists as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, James Taylor and Susanna Kaysen, author of Girl, Interrupted.

1822

American School for the Deaf adds vocational training to curriculum, which allows alumni to establish additional schools for the deaf around the country. The use of American Sign Language starts to spread.

1826-1875 Seen but Not Heard

1829

Louis Braille invents the raised point alphabet that makes him a household name today. But it doesn't become well-known in the United States for more than 30 years, after it is first taught at the St. Louis School for the Blind in 1860.

1842

Circus magnate and showman P.T. Barnum begins exhibiting what he calls "freaks" at a special museum in New York City. Perhaps Barnum's most famous "finds" is Sherwood Stratton, better known as Tom Thumb, an entertainer who becomes a huge sensation in the United States. In 1863, Thumb marries fellow little person, Lavinia Warren, in front of 2,000 guests.

1844

The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, the precursor to the American Psychiatric Association, is founded.

1855

The New York State Lunatic Asylum for Insane Convicts in Auburn is the first such facility designed specifically to house convicted criminals deemed to be insane. Previously, they were detained in prisons or hospitals.

1862

Joseph Carey Merrick, better known in later years as the "Elephant Man," is born in Leicester, England. As a result of a rare nervous-system disorder known as neurofibromatosis (which in Merrick's case was diagnosed years after his death), Merrick's head and body become covered in huge, bulbous tumors. He earns money by appearing in sideshows throughout England and is poked and prodded by hundreds of curious doctors. Merrick is the subject of an award-winning 1980 movie, The Elephant Man, in which the title character, played by John Hurt, utters the lines, "I am not an animal. I am a human being," which are now part of the popular lexicon.

1860s

The first step toward identifying cerebral palsy (CP) is made by William Little, who describes children with stiff and/or spastic muscles in their arms and legs. That condition, known at the time as Little's disease (now called spastic diplegia), is one of the major disorders included in CP. Little also correctly guesses that the condition is caused by lack of oxygen during birth.

1868

The first complete description of multiple sclerosis (MS) is published by Jean-Martin Charcot, a professor of neurology at the University of Paris. Charcot makes his discovery after examining the brain of a patient with neurological disorders who had recently died—and finding the telltale scars of the "plaque" of MS.

1872

Alexander Graham Bell opens a speech school for deaf teachers in Boston. Shortly thereafter, while experimenting with a mechanical way to make speech visible, he invents the telephone. Bell reportedly believed "that deaf children should be educated orally and in day-school situations."

1876-1925 Institutions and Innovators

1881

After researching the central nervous system, at Vienna University, Sigmund Freud, 24, qualifies as a doctor of medicine. The following year, he begins work at Meynert's Psychiatric Clinic and begins to formulate the ideas that will comprise his theories of psychoanalysis.

1887

Helen Keller, a deaf-blind seven-year-old living in Tuscumbia, Ala., meets her new tutor, Annie Sullivan.

1907

Indiana becomes the first state to enact a eugenic sterilization law for those deemed hopeless—"confirmed idiots, imbeciles and rapists"—in state institutions. The law spreads like wildfire and is enacted in 24 other states.

1913

Carl Jung breaks with Freudian thought and resigns the presidency of the International Psycho analytic Society. He be comes instrumental in a competing movement, analytic psychology.

1917

After being caught in an explosion and diagnosed with shell-shock as a result of combat in the British Army in World War I, Wilfred Owen, 24, arrives at Craiglockhart Hospital near Edinburgh, Scotland. There he meets the poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon, who later introduces him to Robert Graves. Literary works from these three men, often touching on the subject of men disabled in battle, form the literary historical record for all the countries involved in "The Great War."

1919

Edgar Allen, a businessman in Elyria, Ohio, founds the Ohio Society for Crippled Children, the group that would be renamed Easter Seals. It's considered the model of many of today's charity organizations—in its methods and some activists say, in its lack of inclusion of the community that is actually being helped.

1922

Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit is published. The story involves a boy and his favorite stuffed animal separated once the boy comes down with scarlet fever. "That? said the doctor. "Why, it's a mass of scarlet fever germs!—Burn it at once. What? Nonsense! Get him a new one. He mustn't have that any more!" Kids everywhere recognize that callousness and rejoice at the bunny's return in the finale.

1923

James Joyce begins Finnegan's Wake, his second major novel, while in Paris. His vision is becoming increasingly troubled by glaucoma. He would eventually elect several eye operations, but at intervals would become as blind as his epic counterpart Homer.

1925

Frida Kahlo, 18, is injured in a bus accident in her hometown of Mexico City. Her spinal column, along with her collarbone, ribs, and pelvis, is broken. For a month, she remains in bed. Bored, she begins to paint, the first step towards becoming one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

The Road to Activism

1927

The Supreme Court rules in Buck v. Bell that the compulsory sterilization of mental defectives such as Carrie S. Buck, a young Virginia woman, is constitutional under "careful" state safeguards. Perhaps unbelievably, this ruling has never been overturned. In his opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote:

“We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often felt to be much by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes..."

Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw develop the iron lung—a chamber that provides artificial respiration for individuals living with polio.

1932

Franklin D. Roosevelt, a wheelchair user since a bout with polio more than a decade earlier, becomes the 32nd president of the United States and will be reelected for an unprecedented four terms before dying in office in April 1945.

1934

At the age of 23, Jacobus ten Broek, blind since age 14, joins with Dr. Newel Perry and others to form the California Council of the Blind, which later becomes the National Federation of the Blind of California, a model for the nationwide organization he forms six years later.

1935

To protest the fact that their requests for employment with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) have been stamped 'PH' (physically handicapped), 300 members of the League for the Physically Handicapped stage a nine-day sit in at the Home Relief Bureau of New York City. Eventually, they help secure several thousand jobs nationwide.

1937

Ray Charles Robinson, who loses his sight completely at the age of seven due to glaucoma he' d had since birth, is born in Albany, Ga. He learns to read music in Braille and eventually drops his last name performing on the Florida blues circuit.

1939

At the onset of World War II Adolf Hitler orders widespread "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled. Code-named Aktion T4, the Nazi euthanasia program is instituted in order to eliminate "life unworthy of life."

On July 4, Lou Gehrig Day is held at Yankee Stadium in New York City. The first baseman, nicknamed the Iron Horse, had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but that day told the world, "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" a statement that resounds long after his death in 1941.

1941

John F. Kennedy' s sister Rosemary undergoes a prefrontal lobotomy as a "cure" for her lifelong mental disability and aggressive behavior that surfaced as an adolescent. The operation was considered a failure and Rosemary was permanently exiled to St. Coletta's Convent in Washington.

1948

Dr. Howard A. Rusk founds the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York City, where techniques he developed to help injured Air Force personnel during World War II are practiced. His theory of treating the emotional, psychological and social aspects of individuals with disabilities becomes the basis for modern rehabilitation medicine.

Christina Olson, who historians believe experienced either infantile paralysis or some form of polio, is painted by summer neighbor Andrew Wyeth. The result is the famous "Christina' s World."

1950s

Disabled veterans and people with disabilities begin the barrier-free movement. The combined efforts of the Veterans Administration, The President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, and the National Easter Seals Society, among others, results in the development of national standards for "barrier-free" buildings.

1953

Clemens Benda, clinical director at the Fernald School (for boys with mental retardation) in Waltham, Mass., invites 100 teenage boys to participate in a "science club" in which they will be privy to special outings and extra snacks. In a letter requesting parental consent, Benda mentions an experiment in which "blood samples are taken after&a special breakfast meal containing a certain amount of calcium," but makes no mention of the inclusion of radioactive substances that were fed to the boys in their oatmeal. In 1997, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Quaker Oats Co. announce that they will pay $1.85 million to those who were unwitting subjects of the experiments.

1957

Actor Billy Barty makes a national appeal to the little people of America to converge on Reno, Nev. Twenty answer the call, inaugurating the Little People of America organization.

1961

The American Standards Association (later known as The American National Standards Institute, or ANSI), publishes the first accessibility standard titled, "Making Buildings Accessible to and Usable by the Physically Handicapped." Forty-nine states have adapted accessibility legislation by 1973.

Eleven-year-old Steveland Judkins is discovered by Ronnie White of Motown's Miracles. White arranges an audition for the boy wonder with Berry Gordy, who immediately signs him, renaming him "Little Stevie Wonder."

1962

Ed Roberts, a quadriplegic, enrolls at the University of California at Berkeley.

1964

In California, deaf orthodontist Dr. James C. Marsters of Pasadena sends a teletype machine (TTY) to deaf scientist Robert Weitchrecht asking him to find a way to attach it to the telephone system. Weitbrecht modifies an acoustic coupler to give birth to "Baudot," a code that is still used in TTY communication.

1965

Title XIX of the Social Security Act creates a cooperative federal/state entitlement program that pays for medical care for certain individuals and families with low incomes. This program, known as Medicaid, is now the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for America's poorest people and those with disabilities.

1968

Eunice Kennedy Shriver founds the Special Olympics to provide athletic training and competition for persons with mental disability. It grows into an international program enabling more than one million young people and adults to participate in 23 Olympic-type sports each year.

The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 mandates the removal of what is perceived to be the most significant obstacle to employment for people with disabilities—the physical design of the buildings and facilities on the job. The act requires all buildings designed, constructed, altered, or leased with federal funds to be made accessible.

1970

Future Disabled in Action (DIA) founder Judy Heumann sues the New York City Board of Education when her teaching license application is denied. The stated reason—the same originally used to bar her from kindergarten—is that her wheelchair is a fire hazard. The suit, settled out of court, launches Heumann's activism and eventual career in the Department of Education.

1972

Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama is paralyzed after being shot during a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Md.

1973

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 makes it illegal for federal agencies, public universities, federal contractors, and any other institution or activity receiving federal funds to discriminate on the basis of disability. After numerous protests by disability-rights activists, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare does not enforce full regulations until 1977.

1974

Susan Sygall, currently the director of Mobility International USA, and Deborah Kaplan, now vice president of the World Institute on Disability, organize the Disabled Women's Coalition at the University of California at Berkeley. The coalition runs support groups, holds retreats, publishes articles and sponsors lectures on women and disability.

National Association of the Deaf conducts a census of deaf Americans and tabulates 13.4 million hard-of-hearing and 1.8 million deaf Americans.

1975-2000 Onwards and Upwards

1975

The Education for Handicapped Children Act of 1975—now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, is signed into law. It guarantees a free, appropriate education for all children with disabilities.

1976

Deaf actress Linda Bove, graduate of Gallaudet College and veteran of the National Theater for the Deaf, signs a long-term contract to play Linda the librarian on public television' s Sesame Street. Bove goes on to star as Fonzie's girlfriend in the hit comedy Happy Days, and becomes a founding member of the Deaf West Theater company in Los Angeles.

1978

Chanting "We Will Ride!", 19 members of the Atlantis Community block buses with their wheelchairs to demonstrate against the inaccessibility of public transport in Denver, Colo.

Fiesta Educativa is formed to address the lack of Spanish-speaking support services to families with disabled in southern California.

1980

The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) gives the Department of Justice power to sue state or local institutions that violate the rights of people held against their will, including those residing for care or treatment of mental illness.

1982

On April 9, "Baby Doe" is born with Down syndrome and an underdeveloped esophagus. Doctors advise the parents not to opt for surgery and to allow him to die. On April 15, the child dies in an incubator.

The United Nations General Assembly adopts "The World Program of Action Concerning the Disabled" to encourage full participation and equality for people with disabilities around the world.

1983

After Sharon Kowalski's car is struck by a drunk driver, she is left severely brain-damaged and a quadriplegic. Her lover, Karen Thompson, helps her with rehabilitation in the home they purchased jointly in 1979.

1987

Playboy's first visibly disabled Playmate, Ellen Stohl, bares all.

1988

Students—along with sympathetic faculty and community representatives—at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. organize a weeklong shutdown of the campus to demand the selection of a deaf president.

Stephen Hawking, who has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)—a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's Disease—published A Brief History of Time, a scientific inquiry into black holes and the collapse of the laws of physics that occur at the ends of space and time. The book is an international bestseller and is later made into a rather improbable movie.

The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 expands on the Civil Rights Act of 1968 to require that accessible units be created in all new multi-family housing with four or more units. The act applies to both public and private homes, not just those that received federal funds.

Artist Chuck Close becomes quadriplegic after a blood clot. While his subject matter remains primarily portraiture, his work style evolves to images that appear abstract at close range, but reveal an impressionistic, recognizable figure from a distance.

1989

Larry McAfee is given the right, by a Georgia court, to be given a sedative and taken off a ventilator in order to end his life. He changes his mind and becomes a disability-rights advocate.

1990

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is signed into law by President George Bush(R) alongside its "architect," Justin Dart. This magnum opus of the disability-rights movement—though it is considered a rough draft by some activists—it is designed to remove barriers to those with disabilities in public accommodation and transportation, services, and programs.

1995

Christopher Reeve's horse, Eastern Express, balks at a rail jump at a riding competition in Virginia. Reeve is thrown and sustains a severe C1-C2 vertebrae fracture that paralyzes him from the neck down. The actor known for his role as Hollywood's Superman becomes a lightning rod of affection and criticism with the repeated promise that he will walk again.

Once considered a haven for students with learning disabilities, Boston University is rocked by the crusade of its president, John Silber, against what he calls a community "trained to the trellis of dependency on their special status and the accommodations that are made to it." In the same speech, Silber pokes fun at "Somnolent Sarah"—a narcoleptic student—and wonders, "What happened? Did America suffer some silent genetic catastrophe?"

Billy Golfus' When Billy Broke His Head is screened at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

1996

The Telecommunications Act of 1996—covering computers, telephones, closed captioning and a host of up-and-coming devices—declares that services and equipment be made accessible.

1998

With their ruling in Bragdon v. Abbott, the Supreme Court extends ADA benefits to an asymptomatic woman with HIV who sued a dentist who refused to fill a cavity for fear of becoming infected himself. Sidney Abbott is considered disabled and thus eligible for ADA protection, the court declares, because HIV hinders her reproductive capacity.

A federal court rules that golfer Casey Martin—the first pro athlete to invoke the ADA to play a competitive sport—has a right to use a golf cart in PGA Tour tournaments because of a rare circulatory disorder that severely limits his ability to walk a course.

1999

In October, a nationwide class-action lawsuit is filed against Target, a department-store chain, alleging discrimination against the deaf and heard of hearing. Charges range from the refusal to provide job applicants with sign-language interpreters to telling some deaf applicants that Target was not hiring when non-deaf applicants were welcome to apply.

In November, a U.S. District Court judge issues an emergency court order telling the Lawton (Okla.) Evening Optimist Soccer League to allow Ryan Taylor, a nine-year-old with cerebral palsy, to play in the league. His walker, referred to as a safety hazard by the defendants, is padded during competition.

2000

The Human Genome Project nears completion: President Clinton and leading scientists announce the completion of a "rough draft" of the DNA sequence (linked strands of protein, the "building blocks" of life) for human life. Amid talk of cures, people everywhere—considered disabled or not—wonder what Project scientists mean by "acceptable diversity."

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