The Boy Who Changed the World: Ohio and the Crippled Children’s Movement

Our Club in Toledo was started along the same lines as other Rotary Clubs about that time, with the main idea of exchanging business. We found that this was not going to keep the Club alive for any great length of time, and started to think about getting into philanthropic work. At this time one of our members discovered Alva Bunker. He was a boy, or I might say, a piece of humanity, about 14 years of age, with no arms or legs, who lived in a hovel with this family, which consisted of father, mother, and a number of children. His father was a drunkard and mistreated his family horribly. Alva in some way constructed a board on a roller skate on which he managed to propel himself about the alley. When we found him, he was supposed to be feeble-minded as he only knew a few slang words and did not even know how to smile. . . . Finding this boy gave our Club the idea of going into the crippled children’s work.

—Letter from William Roemer of the Toledo Rotary to Nathan Howard Gist of the Massachusetts Rotary, 1930

What came to be known as the Crippled Children’s Movement began in 1917 in Toledo, Ohio, with one severely disabled boy. Through the efforts of the Toledo Rotary and other Rotary clubs throughout the state, the movement evolved into a national and international one. Ohio led the country in efforts to assist disabled children, and the “Ohio Plan” enacted by the state legislature in 1921 became a model for programs in other states. The plan focused on orthopedic surgery for disabled children followed by convalescent care and education, all funded by state taxpayers. At a time when many intellectuals believed that assisting the disabled would ultimately damage society and instead advocated for “survival of the fittest,” Ohio’s progressive system of care was unique, and its influence on other states undoubtedly changed the lives of thousands of disabled children across the country. Today, Rotary International continues these efforts by working to eradicate polio worldwide. And it all began with a young boy named Alva Bunker in Toledo.

Nineteenth-Century Care of the Disabled

For most of the nineteenth century, children born disabled were secluded in their homes because their families bore a social and moral stigma as a result of their disabilities.¹ The bad behavior of parents, including alcoholism or “abnormal” sexual activity, was believed to cause birth deformities, so families felt ashamed of and embarrassed by their disabled children.

Many influential intellectuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries discouraged providing assistance to the disabled. Influenced by Charles Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of Species, English sociologist Herbert Spencer proposed applying the “survival of the fittest” theory of biological evolution to societal evolution in a concept known as social Darwinism.² Spencer’s ideas were expanded on by Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin. Galton became concerned that the upper class in England was producing few children, while the underclass was producing many, and if this trend continued, it would lead to a society overburdened by “defectives.” He coined the term “eugenics” in 1883 to describe his theory of societal improvement through selective breeding. As expressed in his book Essays on Eugenics, published in 1909, Galton stated that fit couples should have more children and “defectives” should be prohibited from reproducing at all.³ Over time, such breeding would lead naturally to a stronger, fitter, better society, he asserted. As a corollary to Galton’s ideas, many believed that helping the disabled by providing medical care and education misdirected assistance to those least likely to succeed and could lead to perpetuation of the “defect” in later generations.⁴

Eugenics had a following among many of the educated middle and upper classes and academics of the time who, while seeing the need to reform society, believed the most efficient way to do so was by improving the quality of offspring.⁵ Scott H. Nearing, appointed dean of the College of...