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The following information has been compiled from the Disability Social History Project and Chronology of the Disability Rights Movement as well as from individuals involved in the disability justice movement.
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The Rig-Veda, an ancient sacred poem of India, is said to be the first written record of a prosthesis. Written in Sanskrit between 3500 and 1800 B.C., it recounts the story of a warrior, Queen Vishpla, who lost her leg in battle, was fitted with an iron prosthesis, and returned to battle.
Aristotle said those "born deaf become senseless and incapable of reason."
Marcus Sergius, a Roman general who led his legion against Carthage (presently Tunis) in the Second Punic War, sustained 23 injuries and a right arm amputation. An iron hand was fashioned to hold his shield and he was able to go back to battle. He was denied a chance to be a priest because one needed two normal hands.
Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) was the first physician to recognize the ability of the deaf to reason.
Gotz von Berlichingen, German mercenary knight, had a reputation as a Robin Hood, protecting the peasants from their oppressors. In 1508 he lost his right arm in the Battle of Landshut. Gotz had two prosthetic iron hands made for himself. These were mechanical masterpieces. Each joint could be moved independently by setting with the sound hand and relaxed by a release and springs. The hand could pronate and supinate and was suspended with leather straps.
Lasso, a Spanish lawyer, concluded that those who learn to speak are no longer dumb and should have rights to progeniture.
G. Bonifacio published a treatise discussing sign language, "Of The Art of Signs."
Pieter Andriannszoon Verduyn (verduuin), a Dutch Surgeon, introduces the first non-locking, below knee prosthesis. It bears a striking similarity to today's joint and corset prosthesis.
Thomas Braidwood opened first school for the deaf in England.
Arnoldi, a German pastor, believed education of the deaf should begin as early as four years.
Abba Silvestri opened first school for the deaf in Italy in Rome.
In Paris, Pinel unshackles people with mental illnesses.
Rush's Medical Inquiries and Observations is the first modern attempt to explain mental disorders.
Louis Braille is born (04-Jan-1809) 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 Hauy.
Thomas H. Gallaudet departed the America for Europe to seek methods to teach the deaf.
Laurent Clerc, a Deaf French man, returns to America with Thomas H. Gallaudet.
American School for the Deaf adds vocational training to curriculum.
Louis Braille invents the raised point alphabet that has come to be known as Braille.
Alice Cogswell dies.
The Perkins School for the Blind in Boston admits its first two students, the sisters Sophia and Abbey Carter.
Dorothea Dix begins her work on behalf of people with disabilities incarcerated in jails and poorhouses.
American Annals of the Deaf began publication at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford.
The first residential institution for people with mental retardation is founded by Samuel Gridley Howe at the Perkins Institution in Boston. During the next century, hundreds of thousands of developmentally disabled children and adults will be institutionalized, many for their entire lives.
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet died on September 10.
The New England Gallaudet Association of the Deaf is founded in Montpelier, Vermont.
Laurent Clerc retired from teaching at age 73.
The Veterans Reserve Corps is formed by the U.S. Army. After the war, many of its members join the Freedman’s Bureau to work with recently emancipated slaves.
The enabling act giving the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind the authority to confer college degrees is signed by President Abraham Lincoln, making it the first college in the world expressly established for people with disabilities. A year later, the institution’s blind students are transferred to the Maryland Institution at Baltimore, leaving the Columbia Institution with a student body made up entirely of deaf students. The institution would eventually be renamed Gallaudet College, and then Gallaudet University.
The first wheelchair patent is registered with the U.S. Patent Office.
Alexander G. Bell opened speech school for teachers of the deaf in Boston.
Alexander Bell got patent for his telephone invention; exhibited it at Philadelphia Exposition that summer.
Joel W. Smith presents his Modified Braille to the American Association of Instructors of the Blind. The association rejects his system, continuing to endorse instead New York Point, which blind readers complain is more difficult to read and write. What follows is a "War of the Dots" in which blind advocates for the most part prefer Modified Braille, while sighted teachers and administrators, who control funds for transcribing, prefer New York Point.
Sir Francis Galton in England coins the term eugenics to describe his pseudo-science of "improving the stock" of humanity. The eugenics movement, taken up by Americans, leads to passage in the United States of laws to prevent people with disabilities from moving to this country, marrying, or having children. In many instances, it leads to the institutionalization and forced sterilization of disabled people, including children. Eugenics campaigns against people of color and immigrants lead to passage of "Jim Crow" laws in the South and legislation restricting immigration by southern and eastern Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Jews.
National Association of the Deaf unveiled memorial to Thomas H. Gallaudet at National Deaf-Mute College (now Galladuet University).
National Deaf-Mute College became Gallaudet College.
Progressive activists push for the creation of state Worker's Compensation programs. By 1913, some 21 states have established some form of Worker's Compensation; the figure rises to 43 by 1919.
The National Fraternal Society of the Deaf is founded by alumni at the Michigan School for the Deaf in Flint. It becomes the world's only fraternal life insurance company managed by deaf people. Through the first half of the century, it advocates for the rights of deaf people to purchase insurance and to obtain driver's licenses.
Helen Keller, the first deaf-blind person to matriculate at college, publishes her autobiography, The Story of My Life, in a serial 1903 form in Ladies Home journal in the latter part of 1902, as a book in 1903.
The first issue of the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind is published.
Clifford Beers publishes A Mind That Found Itself, an expose of conditions inside state and private mental institutions.
Congress passes a joint resolution (P.R. 45) authorizing the appointment of a federal commission to investigate the subject of workers' compensation and the liability of employers for financial compensation to disabled workers.
Henry H. Goddard publishes The Kadikak Family, the best seller purporting to link disability with immorality and alleging that both are tied to genetics. It advances the agenda of the eugenics movements, which in pamphlets such as The Threat of the Feeble Minded creates climate of hysteria allowing for massive human rights abuses of people with disabilities, including institutionalization and forced sterilization.
British Braille became the English language standard (although New York Point and American Braille were both being used in the U.S.) because of the wealth of code already available in the British empire.
The Smith-Sear Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation Act establishes a federal vocational rehabilitation for disabled soldiers.
The Fess-Smith Civilian Vocational Rehabilitation Act is passed, creating a vocational rehabilitation program for disabled civilians.
The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), a non-profit organization recognized as Helen Keller's cause in the United States, is founded.
Seeing Eye establishes the first dog guide school for blind people in the United States.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the first seriously physically disabled person ever to be elected as a head of government, is sworn into office as president of the United States. He continues his "splendid deception," choosing to minimize his disability in response to the ableism of the electorate.
Passage of the Randolph Sheppard Act establishes a federal program for employing blind vendors at stands in the lobbies of federal office buildings.
Herbert A. Everest and Harry C. Jennings patent a design for a folding wheelchair with an X-frame that can be packed into a car trunk. They found Everest & Jennings (E & J), which eventually becomes the largest manufacturer of wheelchair in the United States.
Passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act leads to an enormous increase in the number of sheltered workshop program for blind workers. Although intended to provide training and job opportunities for blind and visually disabled workers, it often leads to exploitation of workers at sub-minimum wages in poor conditions.
Amid the outbreak of World War II Hitler orders widespread "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled. The Nazi euthanasia program was code-named Aktion T4 and was instituted to eliminate "life unworthy of life."
Henry Viscardi begins his work as an American Red Cross volunteer, training 1944 disabled soldiers to use their prosthetic limbs. His work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., draws the attention of Howard Rusk and Eleanor Roosevelt, who protest when Viscardi's program is terminated by the Red Cross and the military.
Congress passes the Vocational Rehabilitation Amendments, known as the LaFollette-Barden Act, adding physical rehabilitation to the goals of federally funded vocational rehabilitation programs and providing funding for certain health care services.
Howard Rusk is assigned to the U.S. Army Air Force Convalescent Center in Pawling, New York, where he begins a rehabilitation program for disabled airmen. First dubbed "Rusks folly" by the medical establishment rehabilitation medicine becomes a new medical specialty.
Howard Rusk opens the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center. Staff at the Institute, including people with disabilities, begins work on such innovations as electric typewriters, mouth sticks, and improved prosthetics, as adaptive aids for people with severe disabilities.
Ed Roberts, "father of the independent living movement," contracts polio.
Harold Wilke becomes the founder and first executive director of the Commission on Religion and Health within the United Church of Christ General Synod in New York. In this capacity he works to open religious life and the ministry to women and people with disabilities.
The National Theatre of the Deaf is founded with a grant from the federal Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.
The Architectural Barriers Act is passed, mandating that federally constructed buildings and facilities be accessible to people with physical disabilities. This act is generally considered to be the first ever-federal disability rights legislation.
(Oct) The Michigan Council on Independent Living (MCIL) was founded. It later became Michigan Disability Rights Coalition.
Jerry's Orphans stages its first annual picket of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon.
The final federal appeals court ruling in Holland v. Sacramento City Unified School District affirms the right of disabled children to attend public school classes with non-disabled children. The ruling is a major victory in the ongoing effort to ensure enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
A mental health history including asylum and community care periods, with links to Andrew Roberts' book on the Lunacy Commission and other mental health writings, and the asylums index and word history. Centred on England and Wales, it reaches out to the rest of the world with links to the general timeline of science and society, America timeline, crime timeline, and the (embryo) sunrise, earthcor, and local London timelines. Seeks to include views from mental illness and learning disability (consumers, patients, users, clients) along with views on madness and disability.
Links to various websites regarding deaf/blind and deaf and blind history.
Michigan Disability Rights Coalition
3498 East Lake Lansing Road, Suite 100
East Lansing, MI 48823
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