This disability rights timeline lists events relating to the civil rights of people with disabilities in the United States of America, including court decisions, the passage of legislation, activists' actions, significant abuses of people with disabilities, and the founding of various organizations. Although the disability rights movement itself began in the 1960s, advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities started much earlier and continues to the present.
18th century 1776 – Following the Revolutionary War, servicemen who had significant injuries or were unable to provide for their household were financially supported by the first pension law, which was enacted by the Continental Congress on August 26, 1776. The Continental Congress enacted the first pension law under which half pay for life or during disability was extended to every officer, soldier or sailor losing a limb in any engagement, or being so disabled in the service of the United States as to render him incapable of earning a living. The resolution allowed for proportionate relief to those who were partially disabled from earning a living. Without the power to raise money to fund the law, however, Congress was dependent on each State to execute the law.
19th century 1817 – The American School for the Deaf was founded in Hartford, Connecticut. This was the first school for children with disabilities anywhere in the western hemisphere. 1840s – The M'Naghten rule (pronounced and sometimes spelled, "McNaughton") is any variant of the 1840s jury instruction in a criminal case when there is a defense of insanity: "that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and... that to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong."Criminal Law – Cases and Materials, 7th ed. 2012, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business; John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, Guyora Binder, , The rules so formulated as M'Naghten's Case 1843 10 C & F 200 have been a standard test for criminal liability in relation to mentally disordered defendants in common law jurisdictions ever since, with some minor adjustments. When the tests set out by the Rules are satisfied, the accused may be adjudged "not guilty by reason of insanity" or "guilty but insane" and the sentence may be a mandatory or discretionary (but usually indeterminate) period of treatment in a secure hospital facility, or otherwise at the discretion of the court (depending on the country and the offence charged) instead of a punitive disposal. The insanity defence is recognized in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and most U.S. states with the exception of Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Utah, and Vermont but not all of these jurisdictions still use the M'Naghten Rules. 1850s – When Illinois opened its first hospital for the mentally ill in 1851, the state legislature passed a law that within two years of its passage was amended to require a public hearing before a person could be committed against his or her will. There was one exception, however: a husband could have his wife committed without either a public hearing or her consent. 1864 – The U.S. Congress authorized the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind to confer college degrees, and President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law. Edward Miner Gallaudet was made president of the entire corporation, including the college. It was the first college in the world established for people with disabilities and is now known as Gallaudet University. Late 1800s – 1970s: From the late 1800s until the 1970s, some American cities had unsightly beggar ordinances known colloquially as ugly laws. These laws deemed it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself to public view." 1867 - The first American ordinance pertaining to preventing people with disabilities from appearing in public was one passed in 1867 in San Francisco, California. This ordinance had to do with the broader topic of begging. The wording in the San Francisco ordinance indicates violators will be sent to the almshouse. This connects with the Victorian Era poor law policy. 1867 – The first recorded arrest pertaining to ugly laws was Martin Oates in San Francisco, California in July 1867. Oates was a former Union soldier during the American Civil War. 1867 – In 1867, the State of Illinois passed a "Bill for the Protection of Personal Liberty" which guaranteed all people accused of insanity, including wives, had the right to a public hearing."Mrs. Packard's Revenge", by Paul A. Lombardo, Book Review, Volume 11 Issue 2 of Developments in Mental Health Law, pages 35–39 (1998) (reviewing Barbara Sapinsley, Mrs. Packard's Revenge, (1991)). 1869 – State v. Pike, 49 N.h. 399 (1869), is a criminal case which articulated a product test for an insanity defense.Insanity, 2 Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice 736–40 (1983); Abraham Goldstein The court in Durham v. United States used it as the basis for what came to be known as the Durham rule. 1880 – America's National Association of the Deaf was established. 1881 – Portland, Oregon enacted an ugly law. 1881 – A Chicago ordinance of 1881 read as follows: The fine of $1 equates to more than $20 in 2018. 1881–1890 – At some time from 1881 to 1890 an ugly law was enacted in Omaha, Nebraska. 1887 – The graphic depiction of conditions at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island in Nellie Bly's book Ten Days in a Mad-House caused a sensation, which brought Bly lasting fame and prompted a grand jury to launch its own investigation, with Bly assisting. The jury's report resulted in an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections. The grand jury also made sure that future examinations were more thorough so that only the seriously ill went to the asylum. 1889 – Ugly laws were enacted in Denver, Colorado and Lincoln, Nebraska in 1889. 1894 – An ugly law was enacted in Columbus, Ohio in 1894. 1891 – An ugly law was enacted for the state of Pennsylvania in 1891. This law contained language applying to cognitive disability as well as physical disability.
1900–1939 1908 – Clifford Whittingham Beers founded the "Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene", now named Mental Health Connecticut. 1909 – Clifford Whittingham Beers founded the "National Committee for Mental Hygiene", now named "Mental Health America", to reform the treatment of the mentally ill. 1910 – State v. Strasburg, 110 P. 1020 (Wash. 1910), was a case decided by the Washington Supreme Court that held that a statute eliminating the insanity defense was unconstitutional. The court likened the exclusion of evidence of insanity to a denial of trial by jury.Bonnie, R.J. et al. Criminal Law, Second Edition. Foundation Press, New York: 2004, p. 623 1914 – Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, 105 N.E. 92 (N.Y. 1914), was a decision issued by the New York Court of Appeals in 1914 which established principles of informed consent and respondeat superior in United States law. 1915 – Harry Haiselden was the Chief Surgeon at the German-American Hospital in Chicago, and in 1915 he refused to perform needed surgery for children born with severe birth defects and allowed them to die, in an act of eugenics. Children he denied surgery included John Bollinger, the child of Mr. and Mrs. Julius Werder,Martin S. Pernick, The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 4. Haiselden was in New York on a lecture tour at the time, but authorized withholding treatment via telegram the child of William and Eva Meter, and Paul Hodzima.Martin S. Pernick, The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 4. Haiselden prescribed a narcotic to ease and speed the death of two-year-old Paul, who suffered from a constricted windpipe. Facing considerable public pressure, Paul's mother stopped administering the drugs. The boy's fate is not known. All except Paul Hodzima are known to have died due to lack of medical treatment; Paul's fate is unknown (in addition to lack of medical treatment, Haiselden prescribed a narcotic to ease and speed Paul's death, but Paul's mother stopped administering the drugs, being under pressure from the public to stop.) Eventually the Chicago Medical Society threatened Haiselden with expulsion for his decision to allow John Bollinger to die. He was acquitted by a trial jury, but eventually thrown out of practice by the Chicago Medical Board for his lecture series on eugenics and shameless promotion of The Black Stork, a 1917 silent movie that dramatized the events of the Bollinger case. 1918 - The first Cleveland Cripple Survey was published; one of the first accurate disability censuses, that measured the social and economic conditions of individuals considered. 1918 – The Smith-Sears Veterans Rehabilitation Act became law, and provided for the promotion of vocational rehabilitation and return to civil employment of disabled persons discharged from the U.S. military. 1920s: Psychiatrist Henry Cotton worked at Trenton State Hospital in New Jersey. He became convinced that insanity was fundamentally a toxic disorder and in the 1920s he surgically removed body parts to try to improve mental health. This often began with the removal of teeth and tonsils:
Andrew Scull argues that Cotton's obsession with focal sepsis as the root cause of mental illness "persisted in spite of all evidence to the contrary and the frightening incidence of death and harm from the operations he initiated". Cotton's approach attracted some detractors, but the medical establishment of the day did not effectively renounce or discipline him. 1924 – The Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 provided for compulsory sterilization of persons deemed to be "feeble-minded," including the "insane, idiotic, imbecile, or epileptic."HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 607 (HJ607ER), "Expressing the General Assembly's regret for Virginia's experience with eugenics", Virginia Legislative Information System This Sterilization Act was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Buck v. Bell 274 U.S. 200 (1927). In 1979, Virginia's Assembly repealed the Act. In 2001, the legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill (HJ607ER) to express the assembly's profound regret for its role in the eugenics movement. On May 2, 2002, Governor Mark R. Warner issued a statement also expressing "profound regret for the commonwealth's role in the eugenics movement," specifically naming Virginia's 1924 compulsory sterilization legislation, which includes though is not limited to the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924. 1927 – Buck v. Bell, , is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision was largely seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the attempt to improve the human race by eliminating "defectives" from the gene pool. The Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell.