Experiences inside institutions varied widely.
Bonds formed around shared routines. People might learn a trade or a language, receive an education, and make lifelong friendships. At other times, there might be forced treatment, punishment, sub-standard care, and abuse.
Image Gallery
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A group of students—Anglo, Latino, and Native American—pose with a teacher.
The New Mexico School for the Deaf opened in Santa Fe 1887. The school provided a homelike environment. This community room has art on the walls, Indian-patterned rugs, flowers, and a piano.
On a sunny day, students line up outside an adobe building.
Kentucky School for the Blind students showed “Wildcat” spirit with this red and white pennant.
These boys and girls from the Kentucky School for the Blind have their class picture taken.
Boys playing in the school yard; one digs in a dirt table and the other sits in his wheelchair.
These four teenagers and their attendants gather for a photo, in either a dorm or classroom building.
The name “Lemuel Jones, ICHS” on this snapshot goes with a smiling boy seated in a wheelchair beside a dirt play-table.
A group of disabled veterans in pajamas and military uniforms exercise on a courtyard bench.
A group of children dress up for Halloween as hobos, witches, and clowns, at the Convalescent Home for Hebrew Children.
A group of children pose on a porch, with wheelchairs and crutches, at the Convalescent Home for Hebrew Children.
Boys in band uniforms play drums and brass instruments at the Convalescent Home for Hebrew Children.
Women inmates in this drawing wander about the yard at Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum.
A group of orphaned children play baseball in the school yard at the Good Shepherd Home. A sliding board is behind the children who await turns at bat. The batter and pitcher either kneel on the ground or are double amputees.
A group of grade school students pose with toys in their classroom.
The pools at Warm Springs, Georgia, were the center of a polio rehabilitation facility started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. These men exercise in the warm mineral waters.
Students and teachers from the Eastwood School smile and laugh for their class photo. Before the 1975 IDEA law, students with disabilities were segregated in “special education” schools and classrooms.
Children swing, teeter-totter, jump rope, and gather for circle games.