While people with disabilities are generally accepted in modern America, their treatment has been much more horrific in the the past.
Colonial Times/1800s
Individuals with disabilities were often forced to live in dirty, unregulated poor farms/asylums with criminals and paupers.
People generally did not try to understand disabilities and labeled all individuals with intellectual disabilities as “insane” and sent them to asylums
Asylums were institutions where patients spent their time chained to walls or beds with minimal care
Schools for the disabled were first established when Thomas Gallaudet founded the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons in Connecticut in 1817
Braille is introduced to the United States in the 1860s
1900s
Individuals with intellectual or physical disabilities are forcibly sterilized until the 1970s
Special education classes become common in schools in 1923
Lobotomies, surgeries in which the prefrontal cortex of the brain is severed, are commonly performed on individuals with disabilities until the 1960s. Lobotomies were thought to reduce aggression, schizophrenia, and insanity.
Individuals with disabilities continue to be forced into asylums under cruel conditions until the 1990s
Self-advocacy movement becomes popular among individuals with disabilities in the 1970s
Modern times
Individuals with disabilities are now able to advocate for themselves
Rosa's Law is passed in 2010, replacing the terms "mental retardation" with "intellectual/developmental disability" in medical, legal, educational, labor, etc environments
Asylums are replaced with regulated psychiatric hospitals
Advocates continue to push for increased accessibility in public places
Group homes and community living facilities are common housing options for adults with intellectual disabilities
Individuals with disabilities can and do hold jobs, although often get paid less than minimum wage
Children with intellectual disabilities are able to learn in customized, nurturing environments in schools
America still has a long way to go in the treatment of individuals with disabilities, but tremendous progress has been made in the past 300 years.
