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Editorial note: In this piece, the author uses antiquated, outdated language when necessary for legal and historical accuracy.

Disability from 1776 to 2026: From Confinement to Community

The history of disability in the United States is a 250-year crawl from confinement to community. For the first century of the nation’s existence, the prevailing narrative was one of “charity” or “something to be fixed,” where disabled people were often hidden away in state-run institutions or subjected to laws that criminalized their presence in public. The timeline of the American disability movement is not only a list from a gruesome and terrible past; it is a record of a persistent and increasingly organized demand for independence, self-determination, and the opportunity to thrive. Below is a timeline of some (but far from all) of the key moments in U.S. history that signaled shifts in the American conceptualization of disability. From the early establishment of specialized schools to the activism of the twentieth century, this timeline tracks the shift from medical pity and criminalization to protected civil rights.

Civic exclusion, institutionalization, and eugenics marked the first 150 years of our nation, dotted with bright spots of innovation.

• Post-Revolution: States defined who had a right to full citizenship in the new nation and excluded people from voting based on disability, often intersecting exclusion criteria with race and gender.
• 1817: The American School for the Deaf in Connecticut was founded as the first disability-specific institution in the United States.
• 1840: First developed for people who are blind at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind in Massachusetts (now called ).
• 1864: Gallaudet University founded in Washington, DC, originally called the National Deaf-Mute College. Renamed in 1986.
• 1865: Racially “insane asylums” opened across the country.
• 1867: First “” passed in San Francisco, which allowed police to arrest and jail people for being “disfigured” or demonstrating some type of disability.
• 1883: The term “eugenics” coined by in a book of essays. The pseudoscientific movement was embraced with laws passed to keep disabled people from moving to the U.S., marrying, or having children. Forced sterilization was used on adults and children in institutions.
• 1903: opened in South Dakota, labeling hundreds of indigenous people “insane” and forcibly institutionalizing them if reservation and boarding school leaders and white Bureau of Indian Affairs agents deemed them disorderly or resistant to assimilation. (Closed in 1933.)
• 1907: Eugenic sterilization law for people with disabilities enacted for “confirmed idiots, imbeciles, and rapists” in state institutions. In 1927, compulsory sterilization was ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in and has never been overturned.
• 1917: Braille was standardized in the United States, helping to end the .

Wartime highlighted the need for better disability policy.

• 1918: After World War I, rehabilitation and vocational programs for disabled veterans proliferated.
• 1935: Social Security Act signed into law, providing permanent assistance to adults with disabilities. Social Security Disability Insurance later added in 1956.
• 1940: First national cross-disability activist organization formed, the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped, which focused on unemployment and economic insecurity due to discrimination and an inadequate federal-state disability program.
• 1941: Labor shortage on the home front during World War II led to a in hiring disabled workers for critical jobs, but job access after the war.
• 1946: signed into law, beginning the long, slow shift to deinstitutionalization.
• 1950: National Standards for Barrier-Free Buildings developed, largely in response to activism by WWII veterans with mobility-related disabilities.

Civil rights and disability rights movements intertwined and accelerated change.

• 1954: Black students with disabilities played an important role in litigation that for the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision and were plaintiffs in the case. The decision for legal arguments for equal participation of students with disabilities in U.S. public schools.
• 1965: Medicaid assistance for people with disabilities and those with low income established.
• 1968: First Special Olympics World Summer Games held in Chicago.
• 1968:  signed into law.
• 1970: Developmental Disabilities Act created (revised in future years).
• 1972: Center for Independent Living founded by in California.
• 1973: Rehabilitation Act signed into law, with as a key element.
• 1974: Last “Ugly Law” repealed.
• 1975: Education for All Handicapped Children Act (later renamed the ) signed into law.
• 1977: Landmark lawsuit Halderman v. Pennhurst led to 1987 closure of , one of the largest state-run institutions for people with disabilities.
• 1977: led the occupation of the San Francisco Department of Health, Education, and Welfare offices to demand enforcement of Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act.
• 1978: National Council on Disability established.
• 1982: U.S. Supreme Court decision established that a free appropriate public education is satisfied if it provides just above the bare minimum (de minimis) educational benefit.
• 1988: protest at Gallaudet University.
• 1990: protesters demanded passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
• 1990: The signed into law.
• 1996: Telecommunications Act signed into law, including requiring accessible products and services.

Disability justice and pride drove policy progress.

• 1999: U.S. Supreme Court decision held that services must be provided in the most integrated setting and reinforced the right of people with disabilities to live in the community.
• 2005: framework launched by Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, and Stacey Milbern.
• 1990: Disability Pride Month officially established.
• 2008: West Virginia became the first state to public schools to teach disability history.
• 2010: enacted that replaced the term “mental retardation” with “intellectual disability” in federal law.
• 2017: U.S. Supreme Court decision determined that an individualized education program (IEP) must provide more than a minimal (de minimis) educational benefit.

Today, themes of our nation’s first 250 years echo in disability policy.

• and of disabled Americans persist.
• Eugenics of disabled people through forced sterilization is still .
• Civil rights of disabled Americans remain threatened through federal actions affecting , , and other key areas.

Sources: , , ,