1817
The American School for the Deaf is founded in Hartford, Connecticut.
This is the first school for disabled children in the Western Hemisphere.
1832
The Perkins School for the Blind in Boston
admits its first two students, the sisters Sophia and Abbey Carter.
1841
Dorothea Dix begins her work on behalf of
people with disabilities incarcerated in jails and poorhouses.
The American Annals of the Deaf begins publication
at the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut.
1848
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.
1854
The New England Gallaudet Association of
the Deaf is founded in Montpelier, Vermont.
1860
Simon Pollak demonstrates the use of braille
at the Missouri School for the Blind.
The Gaffaudet Guide and Deaf Mutes' Companion becomes the first publication
in the United States aimed at a disabled readership.
1861
Helen Adams Keller is born in Tuscumbia,
Alabama.
1862
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.
1864
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.
1869
The first wheelchair patent is registered
with the U.S. Patent Office.
1878
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.
1880
The International Congress of Educators
of the Deaf, at a conference in Milan, Italy, calls for the suppression of
sign languages and the firing of all deaf teachers at schools for the deaf.
This triumph of oralism is seen by deaf advocates as a direct attack
upon their culture.
The National Convention of Deaf Mutes meets in Cincinnati, Ohio, the
nucleus of what will become the National Association of the Deaf (NAD).
The first major issue taken on by the NAD is oralism and the suppression
of American Sign Language.
1883
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.
1887
Anne Sullivan meets Helen Keller for the
first time in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
1890s-1920
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.
