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Note: Anti-Vaccinations groups at the turn of the twentieth century were chiefly concerned with smallpox vaccination.  

The Anti-vaccination Movement in both Great Britain and the United States was able to mobilize a small but vocal minority. They questioned the competence of the medical profession to prescribe what appeared to them a dangerous and unsanitary procedure, the authority of local or federal government to require citizens to undergo smallpox vaccination, and made accusations of corruption and collusion between the medical profession and state authorities in order to fleece ordinary citizens. 

A Zymotic Disease 

The 1880s saw the crystallization of what has become known as the Germ Theory of Disease. Based on the works of Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and Robert Koch (supported by studies by many other scientists), this hypothesis holds that disease is the result of an invasion of microscopic invaders (germs) into the body, and the body’s response to combat this invasion. As the Germ Theory itself was the product of nearly two decades of scientific research and debate, it is unsurprising that the American public did not immediately accept the new concept. Vaccination was one arena in which adherents of the old theories of disease collided with medical authorities. Prior to the discovery of bacteriology as a field, many scientists and individuals believed that illness was caused by miasmas (foul airs) that emanated from underground sources, bad water, and sources of filth. Zymotic diseases – acute infectious diseases such as cholera, smallpox, measles, and the like – were known to be infectious, but epidemics of such diseases were aided by the presence of miasmata. Proponents of miasma theory, such as the author of this pamphlet, argued that sanitation, not vaccination, was a far more effective means of preventing epidemics of disease.

Anti-vaccinationist medical men, unified in their opposition to Pasteur’s discoveries, inaugurated an International Anti-Vaccination Congress in 1880. Papers published by the organization argued for better sanitation as a surer preventative of smallpox and compared the principle behind vaccination to homeopathy, which regular medical practitioners saw as their greatest rival, an argument meant to undermine the authority of vaccine supporters.      

“Every Householder is taxed to pay Vaccinators”

In addition to listing a number of diseases that individuals had reportedly contracted after being vaccinated, Mr. Stokes provides financial figures illustrating the amount of money paid by the British government to public health officials for vaccinating citizens. The fees for these vaccinators, he noted, were funded by the country’s poor rates – taxes that were levied on property owners to pay for relief for the destitute. As Stokes also believed that vaccination was actually harmful to the individual, as it involved deliberately inserting impure matter from animals into a healthy person, it stood to reason that the practice of vaccination had become enforceable by law only to enrich doctors. Patients were much better off, he asserted, using his own plant-derived remedies. 

Harvesting Vaccine Lymph 

This illustration, from an anti-vaccination pamphlet, shows the cultivation and harvesting of variola vaccinae (cowpox virus) from a living calf. Pro-vaccinators have also used Illustrations and, later films (see for example, The Preparation of Diphtheria Antitoxin and Prophylaxis) of the use of animals in cultivating vaccine material, for the purpose of demystifying and explaining the process. Mr. Aitchbee, however, intended to shock and repulse his readers by asserting that infecting calves with cowpox virus and then harvesting the resulting lymph was inherently inhumane. He also cast the process of cultivation and harvesting as unhygienic, impure, and unsafe. 

The American Medical Liberty League 

Established in the early 1920s, the American Medical Liberty League fought against the regular (or allopathic) medical profession’s control over the practice of medicine. In particular, they opposed compulsory vaccination as an overreach of both medical and government authority. Lora C. Little, the organization’s secretary, was a strident opponent of vaccination and had been jailed in 1918 for distributing anti-vaccination pamphlets to U.S. Army recruits, in violation of the Espionage Act (enacted in 1917 when the U.S. entered World War I; it prohibited interference with military recruitment or fostering insubordination to the military command, which required all inductees to be vaccinated). 

Little was especially adept at using statistics to support her arguments that vaccination was not effective. In this booklet, she republished sections from other anti-vaccinationists to outline, as a demonstration, how other anti-vaccinationists could use data from case studies that pro-vaccinationists often cited – especially Japan, Germany, and the Philippines – to turn the argument against them. 

The “Savage Rite” of Vaccination

Charles Higgins, an ink manufacturer in Brooklyn, New York, co-founded the Anti-Vaccination League of America with John Pitcairn in 1908. Much like the American Medical Liberty League, members of the Anti-Vaccination League opposed compulsory vaccination, and Higgins especially fought against New York’s compulsory laws for school children. His lengthy work, Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated, provides a series of detailed, graphic accounts especially aimed to convince President Woodrow Wilson to repeal compulsory vaccination for military personnel. In an article on the Declaration of Independence, he asserts that the inalienable rights enumerated therein includes the right not to undergo vaccination. He also asserted that vaccination was especially cruel to children, and reprinted several letters from parents and acquaintances of individuals who allegedly suffered injury or died as a result of being forced to vaccinate. The illustration he included (above) on p. 143, is meant to demonstrate “how vaccination commences in the acts of wounding and infecting the forced, frightened, suffering and protesting children.”

Following the “animal turn” in historical research, more work has been done in the history of medicine on animals as research subjects. In the realm of vaccination, this history should be immediately apparent: it’s right there in the name. Edward Jenner in his 1798 treatise, An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, applied a Latin name to the cowpox: variolae vaccinae (smallpox + from cows), from which the noun “vaccination” is derived. Jenner developed the first vaccine against a disease after observing that dairymaids and farm hands who had contracted cowpox from livestock were not susceptible either to smallpox infection or inoculation. Jenner’s innovation, as those familiar with the story know, was not greeted with universal enthusiasm. 

For one thing, just because a substance prevented deadly disease did not make all individuals wild about having it injected into their bodies. The author of “What is Vaccine Lymph?” certainly thought lymph collected from live cows was not suitable for human use.  Referencing illustrations from a government report on the process of vaccine collection (see above), he explained that 18-month-old calves were walked alongside a rotating table, strapped to it, and then elevated into a horizontal position. This position and the restraints made it easier for the cultivators to inflict small cuts and rub cowpox matter into them, encouraging more cowpox sores to grow, and later harvested the lymph for use as smallpox vaccine. Once the cow had recovered from its cultivated cowpox, it was, according to this author, sold to the slaughterhouse. 

In all likelihood, the original intent of the photographer was to reassure officials that the vaccine was collected in a regimented manner, but the photos were spun differently by Aitchbee.

The reader was expected to conclude that cultivating vaccine lymph was not only cruel to animals, but that the matter potentially contained the germs of other diseases, such as tuberculosis – cows were also a vector for that terrible disease – and thus posed a danger to human health. Visions of filthy stockyards and the sickly cattle from which vaccine lymph was harvested abound in anti-vaccination literature. One critic argued that inoculation with “puss,” whether from animals or humans, was unnatural and compulsory vaccination, therefore, constituted “assault and a crime in the nature of rape.”

Unsurprisingly, there was a great amount of overlap between anti-vivisectionist societies and anti-vaccination societies in the early twentieth century.

Contrast with this, the story of the diphtheria antitoxin. Whereas Jenner’s discovery took advantage of knowledge from farmers confirmed through his own clinical experiments and observations, the diphtheria antitoxin was developed in laboratories in France and Germany, using then-cutting-edge scientific techniques. As the antitoxin must be generated in an animal body, horses were used as they produce large quantities of blood and generate a fairly quick immune response to the antibodies (for a short history of the New York City Health Department’s diphtheria antitoxin farm, click here). 

The antitoxin’s equine origin was not hidden from the public: newspapers coverage from 1895 included photographs of horses standing patiently, allowing their blood to be collected for use in serums that would save the lives of sick children. 

Western cultural perceptions of horses as opposed to cows – horses are beautiful and dignified and cows are clumsy and well, unintelligent (I personally do not endorse either of those positions) – may have had an influence on how the public reacted to news that the latest vaccine on the market was also cultivated in animals. Portrayals of horses nobly giving their blood for the sake of innocent children would have gone a long way towards assuaging any qualms about their use as cultivators. Adding to the image of valued service, these horses, once they had given several serum donations, were retired to rural pastures.  

Anti-vaccinationists still referenced cultivation in animals generally, but illustrated anti-vaccination sources in the MHL collections only use images of cattle for the purpose of discomforting the reader. 

A 1945 educational film produced in collaboration with the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories gave audiences a first-hand look at the conditions in which horses were kept during the process of cultivating and harvesting diphtheria antitoxin. The horse was led into a clean tiled room, the site for injections and blood draws was scrubbed and sterilized, and the veterinarians and technicians wore surgical scrubs. The horse is removed from the barnyard and becomes part of the laboratory (I will caution you that the film is overall horrendously dull, as one might expect from a 1940s-era educational film).* 

So far I have highlighted the history of perceptions of the use of animals in the production of vaccines, but what about the effects of vaccines on animals themselves? As both vectors and victims of contagious diseases, animals have been recipients of vaccines to prevent illnesses such as rabies, anthrax, and distemper. Agriculturalists early realized the potential benefits to humans from vaccinating livestock: herds would live longer, healthier lives and produce more young. 

Agricultural and veterinary historians have no doubt included vaccines in their accounts of the development of modern animal husbandry, but how have human and animal health alike been affected by vaccines? While the usual metaphor of the two-way street is an overstatement, given greater human agency, these sources indicate an inter-relationship between humans and the animals we’ve vaccinated.  

*For more on mass media and its effects on popular perception of medicine, see Bert Hansen, Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio (Rutgers University Press, 2009). 

After engaging with the materials curated for this exhibit, viewers should be able to:

1. Identify some of the key moments in the history of the development of vaccines.
2. Describe how medical understanding about vaccination and immunity have changed over time.
3. Describe the legal arguments for and against compulsory vaccination.
4. Understand how the medical profession has reacted to the introduction of new vaccines and how their responses have changed over time. 
5. Recognize the salient medical, legal, and ethical questions surrounding vaccine research and regulations. 

Vaccines and…

• …Anti-Vaccination
• …Childhood
• …Polio
• …Smallpox

Treating Clubfoot in 1839 

Dr. William John Little’s (1810-1894) extensive work on deformities of the foot was the first monograph published in the English language on tenotomy – the division of a tendon. Little went on to found the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital of London. According to the introduction to this work, his interest in this field stemmed from his own experience: Little suffered an attack of infantile paralysis as a child, which was complicated by talipes (club foot). Upon entering medical school, he found that physicians knew little about the causes or treatment of the condition, and that its care was “confined to the care of the instrument maker” (vii). After completing his medical degree, Little learned of an operation performed by Dr. Stromeyer in Hanover to correct clubfoot by dividing the Achilles tendon. Little spent 1835-1836 studying with Stromeyer and underwent the operation himself, which restored the use of his foot.  

Infantile Paralysis and its Attendant Deformities

Epidemic polio made its first appearance in the United States in 1894 in Vermont. In 1908, Viennese doctors Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper determined poliomyelitis to be a viral disease; the virus remained invisible to researchers until the invention of the electron microscope in the 1950s. Prior to the epidemics of the early twentieth century, the medical profession was familiar with a rare disease that struck children between the ages of 14 and 20 months – lending the disease its name, infantile paralysis – sometimes leaving them partially or totally paralyzed. Most cases were characterized by seized and atrophied muscles that made crawling or walking difficult. 

In this 1867 text, Dr. Charles Fayette Taylor, a prominent orthopedic surgeon, describes his theory of how the condition of infantile paralysis came about, and equipment and exercises with which to treat patients soon after the onset of infantile paralysis. Each apparatus was designed to help the patient regain strength and flexibility through small movements that were easy to direct and control. Taylor’s methods were influenced by his time as a medical student in London, where he studied the “Movement Cure,” the forerunner of modern physical therapy. 

Taylor’s theories about the causes of infantile paralysis also reflect then current theories of society and debility. He situated increasing rates of nervous diseases in young children in the specific context of American life: much like famed neurologist George M. Beard, Taylor believed that the “creative force” required of American intellect to develop the young nation had “diminished our physical endurance” (see page 7). As a result, affluent middle-class parents had children who inherited the tendency to nervous conditions and physical under-development. 

Implements for the Hearing Impaired 

Sufferers of chronic conditions and disabilities – in this case, deafness – have long been the target of purveyors of so-called “quack” cures. Quack cures and patent medicines were remedies marketed in the nineteenth through early twentieth century with colorful advertising and guarantees of cure. (For more on quack medicine, visit this exhibition by the Digital Public Library of America.) 

T.H. Stilwell’s advertisement for his Organic Vibrator is a good example of the genre: after making a long case for himself as not being a quack, he outlines his theories and proposed cures for scrofula (tuberculosis in the lymph nodes of the neck) and catarrh (inflamed mucous membranes leading to chronic runny nose), both of which, he asserted, could result in deafness. Where deafness had occurred and was not curable, he proposed the use of his patented Organic Vibrator: a metal device that fit into the ear canal, designed to conduct air directly to the eardrum.  

Training Schools for the Feeble-Minded

Institutionalization was common for children and adults with physical, mental, or developmental disabilities in the nineteenth century. Children who were blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, or who had epilepsy were often sent by their families or communities to state-run training schools. Conditions in these schools varied state to state, depending upon who was in charge and the funding available.

This 1859 annual report from the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children provides some idea of the issues these institutions faced. The inclusion of hand-written notes such as these was intended to stand as proof of the progress being made for these children and to inspire pity from governing boards and thus generate more funds. 

Schools for the Blind 

This report from the Kentucky Institution for the Education of the Blind reprinted an article published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper in July 1880 about the subjects taught at the school. In the image above, a fourteen-year-old boy, who was reportedly completely blind, had disassembled a wooden anatomical figure, described each organ, and put it back together by feel. Other illustrations show girls learning needle crafts and pupils engaged in physical exercises. The overall emphasis of the school’s program, it can be seen, was to make the pupils as independent as possible.      

Medical Studies

By the late nineteenth century, medical staff at institutions for the disabled began to implement new advances in laboratory science in order to study the causes of intellectual impairments. Often patient histories were carefully kept so that upon death, doctors could compare clinical notes to physical manifestations of disease in the body. The anatomical specimens thus collected, it should be noted, were not always taken with the patients’ (or their next of kins’) knowledge or consent. This textbook on the origins of “feeble-mindedness” uses a few photographs of such specimens to support observations on the case histories of individuals who had, for example, epilepsy. The two halves of the brain above were taken from a patient with epilepsy who died at the age of 18.  

A Feeble-Minded Family

Eugenics was a social theory, popularized in the early 1900s, based on the work of Gregor Mendel in genetics in the 1860s and the writings of Sir Francis Galton. Eugenicist advocates – among whom were doctors, social reformers, social workers, and others – believed heredity was the strongest influence upon an individual’s development, and that conditions ranging from conditions of mental disability (known at the time as idiocy, imbecility, or feeble-mindedness) to epilepsy to criminal behaviors must be inherited. From this theory, proponents concluded that compulsory sterilization of such individuals would prevent them from passing these traits onto their offspring. Eugenists were able to make strong cases in favor of compulsory sterilization to state legislatures: 28 states had passed such laws by 1935.  

Chart above shows the line of Martin Kallikak’s family through his lawful wife; the lower shows it through the “nameless feeble-minded girl”. 

In November of 1897, an eight-year-old girl was admitted to the Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls at Boys at Vineland, New Jersey. A few years later, when the school opened a research laboratory that would document each students’ background and course of development, the young girl’s whole family was scrutinized for signs of weakness or deficiency. The result of that study was later published as The Kallikak Family (not their real name). Field workers interviewed neighbors and family who were able to describe or point to sources tracing the family back to a Revolutionary War soldier, “Martin Kallikak,” who impregnated a “nameless feeble-minded girl” before marrying a woman of reputation and family. The top chart above traces this line; males are represented by squares, females by circles, and where the individual’s condition is known, N for normal and F for feeble-minded. The bottom chart shows the line of descent from his child born out of wedlock; a family tree marked frequently by the F symbol. “We find find on the good side of the family prominent people in all walks of life,” noted Goddard. “On the bad side we find paupers, criminals, prostitutes, drunkards, and examples of all forms of social pest with which modern society is burdened.”

Goddard and his colleagues believed the only solution to this “problem,” was to sterilize the mentally disabled. The story of the Kallikaks was often repeated in pro-eugenic texts, and even became short-hand for why compulsory sterilization should be law.   

Conditions in Sheltered Workshops

Changes in attitudes towards disability, court decisions that upheld civil rights, and increased federal funding for community centers all contributed towards the trend of deinstitutionalization of individuals with physical and mental handicaps in the 1970s. In response to this trend, the U.S. Department of Labor commissioned a study of conditions in sheltered workshops (or “work centers”). Sheltered workshops have their roots in the vocational and training schools that were established in the nineteenth century. By the mid-twentieth century, many had evolved into community-based workshops that, because they either primarily or solely employed workers with physical or mental handicaps, were authorized by the Department of Labor to pay lower than minimum wage. This study was meant to provide data to interested parties looking to evaluate and expand or revise such programs. The first volume of the study, published in June 1977, reported the results from surveys on hourly wages, profiles of individuals served based on type of disability, financial details, and the like. The second volume contains information based on interviews conducted with 3,400 workers representing 600 sheltered workshops. Those interviews focused specifically on the relationships between clients and their workplaces.

Defining Disability 

The National Rehabilitation Association was founded in 1923 by individuals who were interested in vocational education for people with disabilities. As the introduction to this volume acknowledges, rehabilitation as a practice was established by well-meaning individuals acting more out of a sense of moral obligation than founded on clear and consistent principles. Reflecting trends in social work, rehabilitation also became increasingly professionalized, and the National Rehabilitation Association was able to hire full time staff in the 1950s and to strengthen lobbying efforts at the federal and state levels on behalf of people with disabilities. This document, the product of a seminar attended by physicians, social workers, policy makers, and academics, represents one effort to bring more careful organization to this field: by setting uniform definitions of pathology, impairment, functional limitation, and disability, clearer research goals and policy decisions could be formulated. 

A Proposed Scheme for the Relief of Disabled Soldiers, 1863

In 1863, the U.S. Sanitary Commission – a relief agency that assisted wounded and sick Union soldiers – made recommendations to the War Department on what provisions should be made for the numerous men disabled during the Civil War. These recommendations exemplify contemporary beliefs regarding the meaning of disability, charity, and community. Of interest are propositions seven and eight, which respectively suggest the establishment of a Sedentary Corps and an Invalid Corps. On April 28, 1863, Secretary of War E.D. Townsend issued General Orders 105, establishing an Invalid Corps, to consist of soldiers who were (1) rendered unfit for active duty due to wounds or disease acquired in the line of duty, (2) fit for garrison duty, and (3) determined to be meritorious and deserving.   

A Catalog of Wounds

The Civil War was one of the first armed conflicts to be documented in photographs; medical officers also took advantage of the new technology to document clinical cases. In May 1862, US Surgeon General William Hammond ordered the establishment of the Army Medical Museum (now known as the National Museum of Health and Medicine), which would collect all morbid anatomy and surgical specimens that might be of value to medical personnel in studying physical injuries and improving on wound repair. Many of these photographs were published in an eight-volume set, Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens (links to volumes digitized by MHL below). 

The case of Private Samuel H. Decker (pictured above): Private Decker was injured at the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, on October 8, 1862, when the artillery piece he was loading went off prematurely, severing all of his right hand and most of his left. The remains of both hands were amputated below the elbow, and the stumps healed completely by January 1863. According to the catalog’s narrative, Decker began experimenting with artificial limb design and by March 1865, had created the apparatus included in the photograph. This device allowed him to write legibly, pick up small objects, carry packages, and feed and clothe himself. 

Volumes of Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens available in MHL’s collections:

• Volume I
• Volume II
• Volume III
• Volume IV
• Volume V
• Volume VI
  

Note: Some material in this source may be considered graphic or unsettling to viewers. Discretion is advised. 

Shell Shock

One of the most shocking results of the Great War (later renamed World War I, 1914-1918), was a condition then-known as shell shock. Over time, this condition has been recorded as war neurosis, combat fatigue, post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), and posttraumatic stress disorder, although as this 1917 text points out, the symptoms have been varied and difficult to quantify. The authors of this text sought to write a guide that would provide in-depth information that was accessible to non-expert audiences. They emphasized that part of the difficulty in treating and rehabilitating victims of shell shock came from Britain’s general inadequacy in providing early interventions for those exhibiting signs of mental illness and their failure to provide appropriate treatment (unless the person had the means to pay) until the individual was beyond help. 

Reconstructing the Crippled Soldier 

Improvements in antiseptic and aseptic surgical techniques improved the survivability rates for severe injuries by the end of World War I, just as mechanized war had increased the rate at which men were wounded or killed. Douglas C. McMurtrie, of the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men in New York, produced a pamphlet at the end of the war surveying re-education (known as rehabilitation today) programs across Europe to teach vocational skills to men who had lost physical abilities in the war. This photograph illustrates one such program in England, where soldiers were sent to a training school for young boys and girls with physical impairments and paired with an “orderly” – a younger boy with a similar impairment. Thus, through example, the veteran was intended to learn to cope with his new reality

They Don’t Want Your Charity 

Carry On was a magazine in circulation for a little over a year, from June 1918 until August 1919. It was published by the American Red Cross on behalf of the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, which also oversaw editing. The magazine was distributed to subscribers interested in the “reconstruction” of soldiers and sailors disabled during war service. Articles conveyed inspiring stories of soldiers who, despite physical handicaps, had gone back to their original occupations and resumed their places in families and communities. The overall emphasis of the magazine was in convincing care givers and philanthropies – and through them, the general public – of the necessity of vocational support and retraining, not charity.  

Disability Discharges among Enlisted Men 

Americans during and since the second World War have remembered the conflict as the Good War, fought to oppose fascism and racism. The popular image of the WWII veteran, therefore, was a man who quickly and easily readjusted to civilian life, and suffered no long-term psychiatric effects (unlike the veterans of World War I who came before or those of the Vietnam War, afterward). This chart, however, challenged those assumptions. One of the headlines from these findings was that nearly 45 percent of all soldiers discharged were neuropsychiatric causes, with psychoneurosis topping the list. This umbrella term was used to describe conditions that would fall under modern diagnoses such as compulsive disorders, anxiety, and phobias. In contrast, physical traumas – including amputations and bone fractures – accounted for less than one percent of those discharged disabled.  

The Invisible Injuries of War

In February 2008, seven years after the U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan and five years after the start of the War in Iraq, the US Navy established the Center for Combat and Operational Stress Control (COSC). This center for research and treatment on psychological stress and traumatic brain injury – two of the leading causes of chronic disability in 21st-century veterans – is part of the Navy’s Medical Corps. Shortly thereafter, COSC launched Mindlines, a quarterly magazine for distribution to medical personnel, sailors, Marines, and their families with information of interest regarding mental health. The Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Office of History has digitized several issues of the quarterly magazine, as well as Combat & Operational Stress Research Monthly. 

Victims of Railroad Accidents 

In President Benjamin Harrison’s first message to Congress in 1889, he noted that in the year prior, 2,000 railroad employees had been killed on the job and an additional 20,000 injured. “It is a reproach to our civilization,” he remarked, “that any class of American workmen should in the pursuit of a necessary and useful vocation be subjected to life and limb as great as that of a soldier in wartime.” In the decades after the extension of rail lines across both Great Britain and the United States, a number of authorities became concerned about the frequency and severity of railway accidents. This 1866 pamphlet, Railway Accidents or Collisions: their Effects upon the Nervous System, by a Scottish physician, outlines potential after-effects (notably hysteria) that have been exhibited by victims of rail accidents. 

Many who suffered severe accidents that left them permanently impaired were given new jobs with the same employer – almost always at a lower wage – but a number of physically disabled laborers were unable to find work, and thus became beggars. Some wrote touching poetry about their story that would inspire sympathy, as seen in these examples by J.M. Paterson, Jno W. Brady, and an anonymous man who lost his arm in a railroad accident. 

Laura Bridgman

Laura Bridgman was born to a farming family in New Hampshire in 1829. Before the age of two, a case of scarlet fever rendered her deafblind. Her case came to the attention of Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, who brought her to the institution just before her eighth birthday. Shortly thereafter, Bridgman became something of a celebrity, due to Howe’s publication of his methods to teach her communication in the institution’s annual reports, first mentioned in the 6th Annual Report for 1838. Charles Dickens also visited the school during his tour of the United States in 1842, and wrote about Laura in his  American Notes; reportedly, Helen Keller’s mother later read about Bridgman in Dickens and was thereby inspired to seek out education for her own deafblind daughter at Perkins. 

This account of Bridgman’s life, written by Howe’s daughters several years after her death, details Bridgman’s daily life, her education, and friendships with several teachers at the institute. Bridgman was also the subject of several psychological and physiological studies on the deaf and blind during and after her life, as long-held beliefs about the relationship between psychological development and the senses had led many scientists to conclude that those with deafblindness must also experience intellectual or emotional impairments (Bridgman had long served as evidence to the contrary). See for example:

• Henry Donaldson, “Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the Blind Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewey Bridgman,” The American Journal of Psychology Vol. III no. 3 (Sept. 1890), p. 293-342.
• Frederick Tilney, “A Comparative Sensory Analysis of Helen Keller and Laura Bridgman,” Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry Vol. 21 no. 6 (June 1929), p. 1227-1269.

Fraternal Societies and Disability Insurance 

In the era before Social Security and Medicaid, fraternal organizations often offered dues-paying members insurance in the event of their death or for an illness or injury that prevented them from working. The Order of the Maccabees, as this pamphlet demonstrates, recruited new members by providing statistics on the size of its membership and its record of prompt payouts for claims. Although the Maccabees was originally founded as a social organization in which members were expected to participate in meetings and rituals, attendance at these events was reportedly scarce. Membership requirements reflected late-nineteenth century notions of social hierarchies as well as medical risks: it was open to all “white persons of sound bodily health and good moral character, who are socially acceptable, between 18 and 70 years of age.” Those employed in hazardous occupations were assessed additional membership fees, and people involved in occupations such as blasting, coal mining, or as electrical linemen were ineligible. In 1962, the Maccabees reorganized as the Maccabees Mutual Life Insurance Company; they demutualized and sold to another insurance firm in the 1990s. 

The Book of Deaf-Mute Signs 

This small pamphlet with diagrams of sign language gives a small window on how deafness was popularly understood. The publisher cites authorities in Paris, New York, and Australia as sources, and introduces the reader to the Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Épée, who established the first free school for the deaf in Paris in the 1760s. This text is targeted at the hearing who might wish to communicate with the deaf, inviting them to imagine what life might be like if they suddenly lost the ability to hear. The appearance of a popular text in 1900, moreover, indicates the persistence of the use of sign languages despite on-going controversy among educators regarding the teaching lipreading and articulation over sign language (some schools went so far as to forbid students to sign during school hours). See for example: Arthur Hartman, Deafmutism and the Education of Deaf-Mutes by Lip-Reading and Articulation, trans. James Patterson Cassells (London, 1881), especially chapter XI onwards. 

American Journal of Care for Cripples

The American Journal of Care for Cripples was in publication from 1914 until 1919, by the Federation of Association for Cripples. Like many such aid societies, this was founded by interested lay people – not medical professionals. The Federation and its publication exemplified the prevailing belief that vocational training for the physically and mentally handicapped was the best form of aid. The Journal chiefly ran articles describing schools and training programs available and the methods they used, and articles reflected prevailing views of disease and disability of the day. This image shows a class on making rattan furniture at the Trade School of the Hospital of Hope; many courses offered at these institutions focused on handicrafts.

1944 Congressional Hearings on Aid to the Physically Handicapped 

Towards the end of World War II, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Labor launched an investigation into the availability of support to the physically handicapped. Across several hearings, the committee invited testimony from federal, state, and private agencies to determine the character and extent of assistance that was extended to the disabled, how widely available such aid was, and what employment opportunities existed for the physically handicapped. Five hearings on specific topics were held: aid available to the blind, poliomyelitis, the deaf and hard of hearing, federal aid programs already existent, and orthopedic impairments. Three location-specific hearings were held in New York City, Pittsburg, and Detroit – all cities with large industrial sectors. The 1,138 pages generated by the hearings contain exhibits and testimony that demonstrate the range of disability experiences and how Americans coped. The chart above, taken from the seventh session on orthopedic impairments, demonstrates a common critique: educational programs for the disabled were all too often geared specifically towards vocational education, and therefore provided little assistance to children under the age of 16. 

For researchers’ convenience, links to the eight volumes of testimony are provided here:

• Part 1: Aid to the Blind, Washington, D.C., August 29-31 and September 1, 6, & 7, 1944 
• Part 2: Aid to Victims of Poliomyelitis, Washington, D.C., September 8, 1944
• Part 3: Aid to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Washington, D.C., Sept. 12-14, 1944
• Part 4: Hearings in New York City, October 2-4, 1944 
• Part 5: Hearings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 17-18, 1944
• Part 6: Hearings in Detroit, Michigan, October 19-20, 1944
• Part 7: Federal Aid to the Physically Handicapped, Washington, D.C., November 27-30, 1944
• Part 8: Aid to Victims of Orthopedic Impairments, to Disabled Seamen, Etc. Washington, D.C., December 5-6, 1944
  

1965: Year of Legislative Achievements for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare

1965 was a noteworthy year for U.S. federal legislation: The Voting Rights Act and Medicare Amendment to the Social Security Act both passed, and President Lyndon Johnson announced his administration’s agenda, known as the Great Society, of which health and welfare was a key component. A comprehensive booklet published by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare enumerated twenty-nine new public laws that placed “vast new responsibilities” on DHEW. Five of those specifically addressed the needs of the disabiled: the Mental Health Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act; the National Technical Institute for the Deaf Act; the Captioned Films for the Deaf Act; several Social Security Amendments that expanded provisions for the disabled; and the Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments. Additionally, provisions in other bills also sought to identify and address issues of access in public services. For example, Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provided funds for supplementary services, such as hearing tests provided to elementary school children (pictured above). 

Guidebook for Parents

As the foreword to this reference points out, new parents are often unprepared for the challenges of raising children, but help and advice for them is readily available. Parents of children with mental, physical, or emotional disabilities are similarly unprepared, but historically have had fewer resources available. This volume, compiled by staff and members of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Association for Retarded Citizens, provided abstracts on hundreds of books and contact information for support services, in order to provide parents with the most up-to-date and relevant information. The work also includes illustrations by one author’s child. Like many resources for the disabled, help came from those affected, although the authors of this particular volume, published in 1976, were likely also influenced by the do-it-yourself and self-help trends of the era. 

Note: bibliographies and reference texts for those with disabilities became increasingly common in the 1970s; see for example, Barrier Free Design: A Selected Bibliography (1973) written by Peter Lassen, Architectural Coordinator of Paralyzed Veterans of America, or the 1976 Directory of National Information Sources on Handicapping Conditions and Related Services. Sources such as these may be of value to researchers as points of departure.  

Responding to Disability: A Question of Attitude 

Following along the lines of the DIY-influenced guides for parents of children with disabilities, some groups saw the need to provide better education on disabilities to the non-disabled. This instructional pamphlet was produced by the Minnesota State Council for the Handicapped (now the Minnesota Council on Disability) and was designed to help people without disabilities to consider carefully their attitudes and assumptions about those with disabilities. It presents a series of scenarios and invites the reader to choose from a set of responses they might have to a given situation – for example, how would you respond to a person using a wheelchair who offered your rejection of assistance? The answer key at the back gives the correct response in each scenario with discussion of how your actions might be interpreted.  

Statistics on Gender and Disability 

Disability is a broad category and the impairments or conditions considered to be disabilities have changed over time. The experience of disability has likewise varied over the course of modern history. As the authors of this volume note, “the new paradigm of disability emphasizes the person with a disability acting in the environment and dealing with various opportunities and barriers in making life choices and achieving individual goals” (from Forward). These researchers pointed to the ways in which gender impacted individuals with disabilities, and sought to make data available that could help to change policies and attitudes in order to ensure equality of opportunity for all. 

This is topic that is rich for exploration and requires careful contextualization. The words used to describe physical, mental, and emotional impairments have, over time, come to be used as degrading and dehumanizing terms, yet many such (including “cripple,” “feeble-minded,” “moron,” and the like) were commonly used in medical literature of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. My goal with these collections, therefore, was to provide ample specific context and to demonstrate how understandings of physical, mental, and developmental disabilities have changed over time. 

Two collection areas are organized around what historians of disabilities have called the medical and social models of disability: the former sees conditions labeled as disabling as based in an abnormal process that must be corrected, while the latter considers disabilities to be the problem of the social or built environment (to cite a common example: using a wheelchair isn’t inherently a problem, until one encounters stairs). The sources contained in the medical model collections (which I termed interventions/care), were chosen because they each give a perspective on how the medical community at a specific point in time approached care for people with disabilities. This 1867 text, Infantile Paralysis and its Attendant Deformities by Charles F. Taylor, details not only the design of various apparatuses to treat children with lingering paralysis, but expounds on the author’s theory as to why the disease developed (nervously-exhausted parents were to blame!). 

Likewise, the social model collection (policy/society) highlights items from MHL’s collections that show how individuals with disabilities coped with the challenges of their day, or how society has tried to accommodate people with disabilities. One particularly rich set of sources was produced by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Labor, which in 1944 set out to survey the prevalence and types of assistance available to citizens with disabilities (in all likelihood, for the purpose of having a list of what soldiers returning from World War II might expect). The “Hearings on Aids to the Physically Handicapped” ran to eight sessions and produced 1,138 total pages of testimony pertaining to services available to individuals with disabilities (and often on what was NOT available). The first volume in the series can be located here. 

Rather than organize around specific types of disability, I chose these classifications in order to highlight commonalities across those categories. However, I thought a sort of “case-study” approach would also be useful, as it could provide a through-line narrative. For this, I chose the topic of veterans with disabilities. This allowed me to take advantage of collections digitized by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Office of Medical History Collection. One common theme was that of rehabilitation, especially in the wake of World War I. This magazine, Carry On: A Magazine on the Reconstruction of Crippled Soldiers and Sailors, was produced by the American Red Cross as a resource for individuals and relief societies interested in veterans with disabilities. It’s oft-repeated message was “not charity, but a chance.” 

Creating this collection necessarily turned up sources that may be unsettling or disturbing to some, and where necessary I have included notes to that effect. One tendency in historical medical literature that discusses patients with disabilities is the use of images of patients (clothed and unclothed, face obscured or not) to illustrate examples. While the case can be made that these have been valuable teaching tools for medical students in the past, the question of whether the patient consented to the use of their image is not always answered. Unfortunately, it’s often safe to say that consent was not considered in the era prior to the 1970s. 

After engaging with the materials curated for this exhibit, viewers should be able to:

1. Explain how the experience of disabilities has changed over time. 
2. Explain what sorts of conditions have been labeled as disabilities and why, given changing historical conditions.
3. Describe how medical understandings of disability have changed over time, especially in light of new technologies or understandings of the body. 
4. Give examples of some of the assistive programs and technologies that have been established to help those with physical and mental impairments. 
5. Understand the legal and ethical issues that surround disability research and treatment. 

Disability and…

• …Interventions and Care
• …Policy and Society
• …Veterans