IDEA: A Child Welfare Historical Perspective

Children without parents were separated into orphanages. The disabled were viewed as an inconvenience and the mentally disabled specifically were seen as morally lacking. The mentally ill within institutions were treated inhumanely.

The founding of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Conn., in 1817 was a crucial milestone in the way society related to people with disabilities. The time and place are significant because it was a unique conjunction of different currents which led to the school's establishment.

The experiment aroused great interest. Governor Oliver Wolcott, in an 1818 proclamation, asked the public, "to aid . . . in elevating the condition of a class of mankind, who have been heretofore considered as incapable of mental improvement, but who are now found to be susceptible of instruction in the various arts and sciences, and of extensive attainments in moral and religious truth." His words express the great change in attitude toward deaf people which had only just occurred.

In 1837 Dix discovers the treatment of those within mental institutions and begins to advocate on behalf of the population

In 1854 President Franklin Pierce vetoed proposed bill for funding to states for mental health reform due to economic feasibility and an ideology that the federal government should not be responsible for this type of funding.

Eugenics: a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed.

Supporters of this view point led to laws that forced the sterilization of of many Americans with disabilities.

It is now mandatory in all states for all children up until age 14 to attend school.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which includes limits on many forms of child labor allowing more children, especially of vulnerable populations the time to attend school.

In December, 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court had on its docket cases from Kansas, Delaware, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Virginia, all of which challenged the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools. The U.S. Supreme Court had consolidated these five cases under one name, Oliver Brown et al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka. It was found that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional

The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing, the word "sex" was added at the last moment, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions or privileges or employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." The final bill also allowed sex to be a consideration when sex is a bona fide occupational qualification for the job.

As part of President Johnson's "War on Poverty" education is now officially federally funded with emphasis on "closing the gaps."

Congress creates a Bureau of Education for the Handicapped (this bureau today is called the Office of Special Education Programs or OSEP).