The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation

Chronology

Chronology 1817 The first school for deaf students in the United States is established in Hartford, Connecticut. 1829 Louis Braille invents the raised dot system for the blind known as Braille. 1841 Dorothea Dix begins her efforts to improve conditions for people with disabilities incarcerated in jails and poorhouses. 1864 The National Deaf-Mute College—known as Gallaudet College in 1954 and later Gallaudet University—is established. 1880 The Congress of Milan bans the use of sign language in schools for deaf people. —— The National Association of the Deaf is founded. 1903 Helen Keller publishes her autobiography, The Story of My Life. 1904 Winifred Holt Mather establishes Lighthouse No. 1 for blind people in New York City, the first of many throughout the world. 1909 Clifford Beers, author of A Mind That Found Itself, organizes The National Committee for Mental Hygiene, later known as The National Mental Health Association. 1914 The War Risk Insurance Act becomes law. 1917 The Smith-Hughes Vocational Education Act becomes law. 1918 The Smith-Sears Veterans Rehabilitation Act becomes law. 1920 Disabled American Veterans of the World War is founded—later known as Disabled American Veterans. —— The Smith-Fess Vocational Rehabilitation Act becomes law. 1921 The American Foundation for the Blind is founded. —— Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracts polio. —— The United States Veterans Bureau is established—later known as the Department of Veterans Affairs. 1922 Edward F. Allen establishes the National Easter Seal Society in Elyria, Ohio. 1923 Henry Kessler, a pioneer in rehabilitation medicine, initiates surgical techniques that allow muscular control of artificial limbs. 1927 Franklin Delano Roosevelt co-establishes the Warm Springs Foundation. 1929 Dorothy Harrison Eustis and Morris Frank found Seeing Eye, the first guide dog training school in the United States. —— National Easter Seal Society establishes Rehabilitation International. 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected President of the United States. 1935 The League of the Physically Handicapped is organized; it disbands in 1938. —— The Social Security Act, providing federal old age benefits and grants to the states for assistance to blind people and children with disabilities, becomes law. 1937 The March of Dimes is founded. —— The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis is founded. 1940 Jacobus tenBroek organizes the National Federation of the Blind in WilkesBarre , Pennsylvania. 1943 The Barden-LaFollette Act dealing with vocational rehabilitation becomes law. 1947 Paralyzed Veterans of America is organized. 1948 Tim Nugent initiates services and a sports program for students with disabilities at the University of Illinois, and the university institutes a paratransit system on its wheelchair-accessible campus. 1949 United Cerebral Palsy Association, uniting all local cerebral palsy organizations in the United States, is founded. 1950 Elizabeth Boggs forms a parents’ group working for improved services for children with developmental disabilities. —— Gunnar Dybwad and others organize the Association of Retarded Citizens, which later develops branches throughout the United States and the world. 1951 Howard Rusk opens the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University Medical Center in New York City. 1955 Jonas Salk develops the first successful polio vaccine. 1956 A law is enacted enabling people aged fifty or older to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance. 1960 The Social Security disability program is amended to allow people under fifty to quality for Social Security Disability Insurance. —— William Stokoe’s paper on Sign Language Structure legitimizes American Sign Language and ushers in the movement of Deafness as culture. 1961 Former members of the National Foundation for the Blind found a new organization, the American Council of the Blind. 1962 Edward Roberts sues to gain admission to the University of California, the same semester that James Meredith requires a lawsuit to become the first black person to attend the University of Mississippi. 1964 The Civil Rights Act, which will impact significantly on subsequent disability rights legislation, becomes law. 1965 The Social Security Act is amended, establishing Medicare and Medicaid. 1968 The federal Architectural Barriers Act becomes law. —— Prodded by Harold Willson, the California state legislature guarantees that the Bay Area Rapid Transit system will be the first rapid transit system in the United States to accommodate wheelchair users. 1970 Judith E. Heumann organizes Disabled In Action in New York City. —— The Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act becomes law. 1971 The Mental Patients Liberation Project is initiated in New York City, and similar projects begun by “psychiatric survivors” emerge throughout the nation. 1972 Amendments to the Social Security Act allow recipients of disability benefits under the age of sixty-five to qualify for...