## Milestones in the History of Intellectual Disability, 1900-2013

### What's in a name
Accepted clinical terms for intellectual disability include "imbecility," "feeble-mindedness," and "mental deficiency." Segregation & isolation are the norm. The popular belief is that intellectual disability is synonymous with poverty, sloth, crime and sexual profligacy.

- Dr. Benjamin Whitten, Superintendent, South Carolina Training School 1920

### 1904 First textbook about intellectual disability:
Martin Barr publishes *Mental Defectives*, the first text to suggest that hereditary factors play an important part in intellectual disability.

### 1907 Involuntary sterilization law:
Indiana becomes the first state to pass a sterilization law for people with intellectual disability held in state institutions.

### 1933
What's in a name: American Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded changes its name to the American Association on Mental Deficiency.

### 1937 Esterilized
Kayokeyes enteral during the Great Depression. By 1937, a reported 27,860 people with intellectual disability have been forcibly sterilized.

### 1946 "Slaves or Patients?"
An article detailing the poor conditions inside Maryland's Rosewood State Training School is published in The Catholic Worker.

> "Twelve hundred patients, many of whom should be capable of ultimate return to society, are trapped there . . . It should be to the shame of every person that such a situation can exist."
> —Gordon C. Zahn, The Catholic Worker, October 1946

### 1967
Institution census peaks, with 194,650 people with intellectual disability living in state-run institutions.

### 1930-1950 Institution overcrowding:
Number of people with intellectual disability in state-funded institutions grew from around 60,000 in 1930 to nearly 140,000 in 1950.

### 1961
"That failure should be corrected." —President John F. Kennedy, White House Statement on Mental Retardation

### Landmark court case:
Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania supports the right of all children with intellectual disabilities to a public education.

### 1972
> "Until somebody changes them.--Geraldo Rivera"

### 1975 Separate is never equal:
President Gerald Ford signs into law the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, or PL 94-142 (now IDEA), compelling schools to provide full educational opportunities to all children with disabilities.

### The Americans with Disabilities Act is passed,
protecting the civil rights of all people with disabilities.

### 1979 Community inclusion:
The Center on Human Policy at Syracuse University issues The Community Imperative, a declaration affirming the rights of all people with disabilities to live in and be part of a community.

> "In the fulfillment of fundamental human rights . . . all people, regardless of the severity of their disabilities, are entitled to community living."  
> —Center for Human Policy, The Community Imperative, 1979

### 1987
Willowbrook closes its doors.

> "Nothing about us, without us."

### 1991 Self-advocacy soars:
Self Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE), a national umbrella organization for self-advocacy, is established at a conference in Nashville. Within two years, SABE has affiliated chapters in 37 states.