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Journal of Disability Policy Studies

DOI: 10.1177/104420730001100111 2000; 11; 36 Journal of Disability Policy Studies

Paul K. Longmore Disability Policy and Politics: . Considering Consumer Influences

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Disability Policy and Politics:

. Considering Consumer Influences

Paul K. Longmore, San Francisco State University

Note. Copyright 2000 by the National Rehabilitation Association.Used with permission.

This historical case study of the League of the Physically Handicapped, a disability-rights activist groupin Depression-era New York City, examines some of the ways in which people with disabilities havecontested and endeavored to alter the public policies and social values that have affected their socialidentities and social careers. It also explores the interconnections among policies, values, and disabledand nondisabled identities. In addition, it suggests that there may have been an implicit disability-based political tradition.

The dominant ideology of disability during the modern erahas been-and continues to be-a medical paradigm. Thatmedical model defines disability as the inability to performexpected social roles because of chronic medical pathology. Itpresents disability as a social problem, but it makes deviantindividual bodies the site and source of that problem. This for-mulation inevitably prescribes as the solution individual med-ical or quasi-medical treatments to cure or correct deviantbodies and deviant behavior. By locating the causes of allegedsocial incapacity within &dquo;afflicted&dquo; individuals, the medicalmodel thereby reduces disability to a series of individual casehistories and largely excludes consideration of cultural, social,and political factors in the construction of &dquo;disability.&dquo; Thisproduction of disability as a medicalized and individualizedsocial problem occurred largely during the late 19th and

early 20th centuries, as policymakers and health-care, charity,social-service, and educational professionals institutional-ized the medical model in both public policy and professionalpractice.

In contrast, proponents of sociopolitical models of dis-ability question the explanatory power of the medical model.They reject as simplistic the medicalized perspective that phys-iological impairments in and of themselves determine thesocial experience we call disability. Instead, they see the dis-ability experience as shaped by the interaction between peo-ple with such impairments and sociocultural environments,architectural/technological designs, and-especially relevant

for this seminar-public policies. From this perspective, dis-ability is not an array of pathological clinical entities situatedin individual deviant bodies. It is not an objective thing thatis-most important for policy purposes-readily measuredand verified by medical or quasi-medical methods. Disabilityis, instead, an elastic social category. It is formed and re-formed by public policy and professional practice, and under-lying them, by societal arrangements and cultural values.Thus, disability is a series of changeable, indeed unstable, cul-turally constructed identities and roles. In addition and of cen-tral importance, during the modern era people with a diverseassortment of disabilities have encountered a standard set of

stigmatizing cultural values and social hazards. Those biasesand dangers have been reflected and reinforced in public poli-cies (Gliedman & Roth, 1982; Hahn, 1985; Longmore, 1985,1987; Oliver, 1989; Roth, 1983).

My purpose is to examine some of the ways in which peo-ple with disabilities have contested and endeavored to alter thepublic policies and social values that have affected their socialidentities and careers. I also want to explore the interconnec-tions among policies, values, and disabled and nondisabledidentities; and I want to suggest that there may have beenan implicit disability-based political tradition. I will do this

through a historical case study of a long-forgotten group thatcalled itself the League of the Physically Handicapped.

In New York City in the early and mid-1930s, a num-ber of physically disabled young adults yearned for the self-dependence and dignity supplied by employment. However,when they sought work, they encountered bias. Some em-ployers required job applicants to take physical exams un-related to the tasks of those jobs. Florence Haskell, who

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walked with crutches, recalled a job interview for a secretarialposition:

The man told me ... &dquo;I’m afraid you’ll have to takea physical.&dquo; ... I was really hit between the eyes. Inever visualized that [my handicap] would be areason for me not to get a job.... He disqualifiedme.... I was very hurt, upset, and mad.

Sylvia Flexer used crutches and wore a leg brace. She wantedto teach English or be a librarian but found she &dquo;couldn’tget a job. But not because there was a Depression. I found Icouldn’t get a job because I was handicapped.&dquo; So she enrolledat the Drake Business School, excelling at stenography andtyping and on the adding machine. &dquo;In my naivete, I figured,’I’ll graduate from the Drake Business School and they’re allgoing to grab me.’...Well, nobody grabbed me.... Some peo-ple who graduated got jobs who weren’t, they didn’t begin tobe as good as I was.&dquo;

Rejected by private businesses, Flexer and other handi-capped people took jobs in charity-run sheltered workshops.&dquo;And finally I got a job,&dquo; she remembered, still indignantdecades later, &dquo;at the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, who onlyhired handicapped people. It was a mail-order, and it was theBrooklyn Bureau of Charities.... What a terrible name towork for.... It was a great injustice. And I didn’t know whatto do. I didn’t know what to do.&dquo;

Disabled individuals who managed to find work mightobtain only part-time or temporary jobs, and at lower pay. LouRazler, for example, had mild cerebral palsy. After graduatingfrom high school, he spent a year at a business college and then5 years vainly searching for a permanent job. Workers with dis-abilities from then until now have also complained that theyfaced wage discrimination. Jack Isaacs had lost his left leg inan industrial accident. In 1927, he worked as a linotypist. Hesaid he &dquo;turned out just as much work&dquo; as the men alongsidehim but was paid only $15 a week, while the other men werepaid three times those wages. Isaacs claimed his lower pay wasbecause of his disability. In the 1980s, the economists Wil-liam Johnson and James Lambrinos confirmed that late-20th-

century workers with disabilities continued to experiencewage discrimination (Johnson & Lambrinos, 1985).

Blocked by bias in private industry, these and other phys-ically handicapped young adults turned to New Deal workprograms, expecting to get work-relief jobs just like non-handicapped workers. The unprecedented crisis of the GreatDepression compelled many Americans to rethink their ex-pectations of the federal government’s proper role in ensuringtheir general welfare. Millions of working-class citizens con-cluded that the national state must provide adequate welfareand work relief. Many handicapped job seekers also came toexpect government action on their behalf, but they found thatthe professedly reformist WPA was designed to create jobs for&dquo;able-bodied&dquo; unemployed persons, and handicapped work-ers were categorized as &dquo;unemployable.&dquo; The latter would be

relegated to local relief. New York City’s Emergency Relief Bu-reau (ERB) had been offering jobs with the city to some home-relief recipients, but in the spring of 1935, adhering to WPApolicy, the bureau began automatically rejecting handicappedpersons for municipal work-relief jobs. When a group ofyoung adults who frequented a Manhattan recreation centerfor people with disabilities discovered that their governmentwould willingly aid unemployed &dquo;able-bodied&dquo; Americans butclassified out-of-work persons with disabilities as unemploy-able, they decided to take action.

On Wednesday, May 29, 1935, these six young adultsfrom the rec center entered ERB headquarters and demandedto see Director Oswald W. Knauth. One of them was Florence

Haskell, who had been &dquo;disqualified&dquo; for a secretarial job be-cause of her disability. Told that Mr. Knauth would be un-available until the following week, the six sat down and saidthey would stay there until Knauth met with them or, vowedtheir leader Hyman Abramowitz, until &dquo;hell freezes over.&dquo; Thenext day a large crowd gathered to support them and to de-mand jobs for themselves. The turmoil in the street alertednewspaper reporters to the protestors upstairs. Abramowitzcharged the ERB with discriminating against persons withhandicaps in assigning relief jobs. The &dquo;strike&dquo; would continuefor another 8 days, drawing extensive coverage in New York’snewspapers and even the Washington Post.

By Saturday, the fourth day of the sit-in, the number ofnondisabled demonstrators on the street had dropped dra-matically, but nine physically disabled picketers walked theline. Lou Razler, the former business college student, readabout the protest in the Daily News. &dquo;As soon as I read aboutit I went down,&dquo; he recalled. &dquo;I joined the line. I figured, ’I gotnothing to lose: &dquo; That evening, the picketers strategized andcalled for &dquo;mass support and mass demonstrations.&dquo;

&dquo;

On Monday, June 3rd (Day 6), Knauth finally met withthe strikers. Abramowitz demanded 50 jobs immediately for&dquo;League&dquo; members and 10 more each week thereafter. Theymust get wages of at least $27 a week if they were married,$21 if single. Furthermore, disabled workers must be inte-grated with nondisabled workers, not placed in special seg-regated projects. Knauth rebuffed these demands but saidhe would &dquo;investigate.&dquo; &dquo;That’s not a good enough answer,&dquo;Abramowitz exclaimed. &dquo;We want jobs and we’re going to getthem.&dquo; We are &dquo;not just as any other group. We are all handi-capped and are being discriminated against.&dquo; But Knauth re-sponded that the city owed unemployed disabled peoplenothing beyond home relief. &dquo;This is not an organization togive work to those who are permanently unemployable,&dquo; hesaid. Then he offered contradictory advice: If they wanted jobs,they should go to private businesses. Abramowitz ended theconfrontation by blasting those who offered handicapped peo-ple charity instead of work.

For another 3 days, Abramowitz and two other protes-tors continued to occupy the ERB office. And each day, picket-ers on the sidewalk, most of them handicapped, supportedthem. By Thursday, June 6th, the ninth day, the shouting and

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singing on the sidewalk had become unbearable to the officebuilding’s occupants, so Knauth had the police called in. Theyarrested 11 protesters, 8 of them handicapped. One was JackIsaacs, the amputee ex-linotypist. ERB officials persuaded thestrikers upstairs to end the sit-in, but later that day &dquo;abouttwenty-five crippled protesters and 300 sympathizers&dquo; demon-strated at 54th Street and Eighth Avenue and then at theWMCA radio station on Broadway.

On Friday evening, June 7th, the leaders met once morewith Knauth. This time Knauth said he could not promise jobsright away but hoped additional WPA funds would go for thatpurpose. On Saturday, 10 to 12 handicapped picketers andperhaps 50 nonhandicapped supporters circled in City HallPlaza. Unsuccessfully demanding an interview with MayorLaGuardia, they moved on to Foley Square, heard somespeeches, and went on their way. Thus ended the first actionsof the League of the Physically Handicapped. For 11 days, theyhad seized New York’s attention and compelled relief officialsto deal with them.

The budding activists formally organized themselves andbegan to recruit members among their acquaintances. Re-called Sylvia Flexer Bassoff, &dquo;Pauline Portugalo [one of theoriginal six strikers] came to me at the Brooklyn Bureau ofCharities. She says, ’There is a group of handicapped peopleorganized for jobs. Suppose you come to the meeting tonight.’And I said, ’Jobs! Anything to get out of here:

&dquo;

Half a year later, in November 1935, the League evidencedgrowing political shrewdness as it set up a picket line in frontof the newly created New York City WPA. Jack Isaacs directedthis better planned protest. Their flyer declared, &dquo;The Handi-capped still are discriminated against by Private Industry. It isbecause of this discrimination that we demand the govern-ment recognize its obligation to make adequate provisions forhandicapped people in the Work Relief Program.&dquo; Leaguemembers had learned to use their personal stories to explainthe issues to reporters: &dquo;The Physically Handicapped ... can-not get regular jobs as teachers or librarians in New York State.... Even a typist must pass a physical examination.... In pri-vate business the Physically Handicapped invariably are dis-criminated against. They work harder for less wages.&dquo; Threeweeks of picketing prodded the local WPA to hire approxi-mately 40 members.

That success spurred the activists to agitate about localand federal policies regarding all physically handicapped jobseekers. By January 1936, they were again marching in front ofNew York City’s WPA. This new action induced the New YorkWPA in April to promise still more jobs. During the next year,it would hire some 1,500 handicapped New Yorkers. But localWPA officials advised that only Washington could address theLeague’s concerns about the policy of categorizing workerswith disabilities as &dquo;unemployable.&dquo; In an audacious series ofmoves in late April and early May 1936, League leaders wroteand telegraphed WPA chief Harry Hopkins and PresidentRoosevelt and maneuvered themselves into an appointment atWPA headquarters.

So, on Friday evening, May 8,1936, 35 delegates (14 womenand 21 men) rode all night on a borrowed flatbed truck to thenation’s capital. At WPA headquarters, Labor Relations Direc-tor Nels Anderson told them not only that Hopkins was away,but that the WPA offered work relief only for &dquo;employables.&dquo;New York City’s local relief would have to address their prob-lems, he said. The delegates exploded. Sylvia Flexer, 21 yearsold and the League’s president, announced: &dquo;We are going tostay here until Mr. Hopkins does see us. Until then, nothingcan make us leave.&dquo; The next day she said that league memberswere &dquo;sick of the humiliation of poor jobs at best [and] oftenno work at all.&dquo; They wanted &dquo;not sympathy-but a concreteplan to end discrimination ... on WPA proj ectsl’ Harry Fried-man, the League’s press spokesman, demanded that the WPAset nationwide quotas for hiring workers with disabilities. Theprotesters occupied the offices that entire weekend. At last, onMonday morning, Hopkins met with five leaders. They de-manded 5,000 WPA jobs for handicapped workers in NewYork, &dquo;a permanent relief program for the physically handi-capped... and a Nation-wide census of the physically handi-capped&dquo; paid for by the WPA but managed by the League.Hopkins rejected the charge that the WPA discriminatedagainst people with disabilities. He did not believe that therewere 5,000 employable handicapped people in New York, butif they came back with proof, &dquo;a thesis ... show[ing] such dis-crimination,&dquo; he promised to &dquo;correct those conditions at once.’As Harry Friedman became more confrontational, Hopkinsabruptly walked out. The delegates left for home, pledging toreturn with a &dquo;thesis.&dquo;

As League leaders prepared that thesis, they struggled tosafeguard the hard-won WPA jobs in New York and to openmore. In September 1936, the local WPA director promised toset aside a minimum of 7% of all future WPA jobs for work-ers with disabilities. But that achievement was reversed in

spring 1937 when WPA offices nationwide began massive lay-offs. In New York City, more than 600 handicapped WPA em-ployees lost their jobs. In late June, League leaders telegraphedHarry Hopkins, warning of &dquo;drastic actions unless all cuts[were] stopped and dismissed persons reinstated.&dquo; But the fir-ings continued. So, in mid-August, another League delegationwent to Washington, hoping to meet with Hopkins or Roo-sevelt. They did see Hopkins, issuing to him both their earlierdemands and some new ones. They now wanted the WPA topledge to hire all handicapped workers. This lobbying effortfailed. And, in about another year, the League of the PhysicallyHandicapped itself folded. In the end, the League failed tochange federal policies affecting citizens with disabilities, butit did have some success in opening public-sector jobs to work-ers with disabilities. Most of the core leadership ultimatelypursued civil service careers.

The historical significance of the League of the PhysicallyHandicapped stems from its perspective on disability and dis-ability policy and from comparing the League and its per-spective with other disability-based political movements andwith the views of policymakers and professionals. Who were

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the members of the League? Why did they become political ac-tivists about disability?

Most of the individuals who formed the League had hadlow-spinal polio in childhood. As a result, many of them woreleg braces and used crutches or canes. A few members hadcerebral palsy, tuberculosis, or heart conditions. At least twowere amputees due to injuries. No members used wheelchairsor were deaf or blind. More important than their similar phys-ical conditions, they shared similar backgrounds and experi-ences that engendered a sense of solidarity among them. Mostcame from working class, Jewish, Southern or Eastern Euro-pean immigrant families. The parents of some had urged themto pursue education and employment. With high school diplo-mas and, in some cases, additional vocational or college study,they were better educated than most physically handicappedpeople. In addition, some League activists had met in ele-mentary school special education classes. After high school,they enlarged their network of disabled friends through &dquo;base-ment clubs&dquo; organized by handicapped young people and atsummer camps and recreation centers run by social serviceagencies for handicapped people. League members’ similardisabilities, similar backgrounds, and shared school and post-secondary experiences promoted a sense of commonality. Thisnascent group identity, in turn, provided the basis for devel-opment of an oppositional political consciousness. Socializingwith disabled friends gave them opportunities to talk aboutencounters with job discrimination, to verbalize and legiti-mize their resentment about employers’ biases and biased gov-ernment policies, and to discuss how they might oppose thesepractices and policies.

This metamorphosis from social network of disabledpeople to political organization illustrates a pattern in 19th-and 20th-century U.S. disability history. Graduates of the deafand blind schools established alumni associations and socialclubs so that they could continue their school friendships andoffer mutual support. Over the years, these fellowships ex-tended their purposes to address economic and political issues.Deaf associations lobbied for state deaf vocational bureaus and

fought against oralism, civil service discrimination, denial ofdriver’s licenses, and New Deal policies about &dquo;unemploy-ables.&dquo; Blind organizations condemned means-tested poor re-lief and sheltered workshops and lobbied for guide-dog andwhite-cane laws. All of these groups contested profession-als’ power (Matson, 1990; Van Cleve & Crouch, 1989). Thus,schools and other facilities, usually created by nondisabledbenefactors, inadvertently enabled people with various dis-abilities to transcend their natural geographic dispersion andlack of generational continuity and construct informal socialnetworks and formal self-directed organizations. Those for-mations then served as sites for the fashioning of oppositionalconsciousness and collective resistance to the dominant ideol-

ogy of disability.The League’s challenge to that ideology was also encour-

aged by the general activism spurred by the Depression crisisand by the leftist and labor backgrounds of the League’s key

leaders. In copying the arguments of labor and leftist activists,the League typified another pattern that has appeared indisability-based political movements. League members wel-comed support from Communist, Socialist, and other radicalallies, but, like many of their working-class White and Blackcontemporaries, league members followed radical leaders notto transform society but pragmatically and only until theygained their personal objectives: the economic security, socialvalidity, and personal control of their destinies that they be-lieved jobs would ensure. Likewise, during the 1940s, Jacobusten Broek, first president of the National Federation of theBlind, drew parallels between the organized blind movementand the labor movement and sought alliances with unions.Late in the 20th century, activists in various disability groups of-ten learned advocacy by participating in the Black civil rights,feminist, antiwar, and labor movements. All disability move-ments have borrowed, and adapted to their own situations,the analyses and tactics of contemporaneous social-justicemovements. But whatever the sources of influence, disabilitymovements have typically espoused liberal reformist, ratherthan radical transformative, political agendas (Matson, 1990;Scotch, 1985).

Thus, various disability groups came to view their con-dition as not primarily medical but, more significantly, socialand political-of minority status that necessitated collectivepolitical action to resist discrimination. The League’s begin-nings were unique, but its origins paralleled those of otherdisability-based political movements. Sylvia Flexer Bassoff

said,

What started it was [finding] out that jobs wereavailable, that the government was handing outjobs.... [E]verybody was getting jobs: newspaperpeople, actresses, actors, painters, and only handi-capped people weren’t worthy of jobs ... withoutgiving us a chance.... Those of us who ... weremilitant just refused to accept the fact that we werethe only people who were looked upon as not wor-thy, not capable of work.

Repudiating the view of disability as individual medical pathol-ogy, vocational incapacity, and social invalidity, these disabledyoung adults-and other groups of people with disabilities atother times in other places-engaged in activism that assertedit was instead a minority status and a political issue.

The League’s challenge to the dominant ideology of dis-ability points to another objective of all disability-based polit-ical movements: to address not only disability issues, such asjob discrimination, but also disability identities. New York’scity officials and newspapers purveyed common (though con-tradictory) stereotypes about &dquo;cripples.&dquo; At times displayingnotable hostility, they depicted the activists as (a) patheticallyhelpless and manipulated by Communists, (b) manipulative,or (c) dangerously out of control. Meanwhile, the protestors’supposed supporters on the Left exploited stereotypic views

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of the helplessness, vulnerability, and pathetic condition of&dquo;cripples.&dquo; Public officials and the mainstream press used thestereotype to discredit disabled activism; the Daily Workerused it to discredit capitalism. The mainstream media furtherreferred to them as &dquo;paralytics&dquo; or &dquo;invalids,&dquo; while the DailyWorker sometimes called them &dquo;paralysis victims&dquo; or &dquo;helplesscrippled people.&dquo; League leaders spurned all of those labels asstigmatizing and consistently called themselves &dquo;handi-

capped.&dquo; The differences in terminology represented underly-ing competing views of disability identity.

League activism in itself challenged the reigning identity-defining stereotypes. Militant tactics, along with slogans suchas &dquo;We Don’t Want Tin Cups. We Want Jobs,&dquo; demanded notonly employment but also social dignity. The League mem-bers’ boldness is even more noteworthy given that era’s opin-ion of &dquo;cripples.&dquo; Whereas the President of the United Statesthought it necessary to hide or minimize his disability, leaguemembers resisted social prejudice by engaging in public pro-tests. &dquo;It was a very traumatic experience to even decide to geton a picket line, because we all shuffled along with braces andcrutches,&dquo; recalled Sylvia Flexor Bassoff. &dquo;We were all terriblyembarrassed ... [but] we wanted jobs more than we were in-timidated.... It wasn’t done easily.&dquo; &dquo;You have to understand,&dquo;explained another member, &dquo;that among our people, they wereself-conscious about their physical disabilities.... They didn’tlike being stared at. They didn’t want to be looked at. But afterthat experience, they decided, ’Let them look,’ you know, ’Lookback, stare back at them.’... I think it not only gave us jobs,but it gave us dignity, and a sense of, ’We are people too:

&dquo;

The League’s public actions thus foreshadowed later disabil-ity movements by joining the issue politics of protestingjob discrimination with an implicit identity politics of self-redefinition (Anspach, 1979).

But the League’s view of the issues and of disability iden-tity focused narrowly. They declared solidarity only with peo-ple having certain kinds of handicaps; they never allied withthe national and state Deaf associations, which were also bat-

tling WPA discrimination. This pattern of organizing thosewith particular disabilities and keeping public distance fromother disability groups has been manifest in many disability-specific political associations, such as the National Associationof the Deaf, the National Federation of the Blind, and vari-ous activist organizations of &dquo;psychiatric survivors.&dquo; A new

political pattern appeared in the late 20th century as cross-disability coalitions emerged to promote universalistic dis-ability rights provisions, such as Section 504, the Individualswith Disabilities Education Act, and the Americans with Dis-abilities Act. These confederated efforts claimed that all peoplewith disabilities face institutionalized discrimination rooted ina common set of social prejudices and therefore should act inpolitical solidarity. By the mid-1980s, the Harris poll could docu-ment a cross-disability minority-group consciousness emerg-ing among a younger generation of adults. This new, nascentlypoliticized disability constituency was much more diversethan those represented in the League and other disability-

specific groups. As a result, it advocated for a much wider

range of issues, such as universal accessibility. Meanwhile,some health charities (e.g., the National Easter Seal Society, theUnited Cerebral Palsy Association, the American Diabetes As-sociation), which were founded to support medical researchand treatment, took on political advocacy roles to ensure pro-tection of their constituents’ civil rights. All of these develop-ments evidenced a shift away from a purely medical model ofdisability to increasing politicization within a minority model.

The connections among identity, issues, and ideologies ofdisability is further illuminated by comparing League memberswith President Roosevelt. In contrast to their social network,FDR’s associations with a great many people with disabilitiesoccurred within the contexts of medical rehabilitation and

charity fundraising. His different experience fostered a differ-ent identity and a different ideology of disability. He saw dis-ability as personal affliction and private tragedy best addressedby individual striving to overcome this adversity, and thushe became the literal embodiment of the emerging medical-vocational rehabilitation system. While the League explainedthe conditions of Americans with physical handicaps in insti-tutional and political terms, Roosevelt, along with policy andrehabilitation professionals, explained them in individual andpathological terms.

The diverging disability politics of FDR and the Leaguewas further revealed by the presence in his administration oftwo networks of Black and female appointees. The &dquo;Black Cab-inet,&dquo; or &dquo;Black Brains Trust,&dquo; composed of an unprecedentednumber of African American administrators, advocated forthe interests of the constituency it both represented and helpedto generate and legitimize. Meanwhile, Eleanor Roosevelt ledthe New Deal’s network of female reformers, which definedwomen’s and children’s issues as its special domain. The effortsof both networks opened administrative positions in work-relief programs to Black and female appointees and producedspecial WPA outreach projects targeting unemployed Af-rican Americans and women. In contrast, although a manwith physical disabilities headed the New Deal, and otherphysically disabled individuals held executive positions in theWPA, no network of politicized disabled advocates emerged.In Depression-era America, the League’s political definition ofdisability was not widely shared, even among people with dis-abilities, or at least among those from higher status back-grounds. No network of disabled advocates would form withinany administration until the Bush and Clinton presidencies,half a century later. They would grow out of a nationallyorganized disability rights movement and an emergent dis-ability community operating from a politicized ideology ofdisability.

What was the League’s ideology? How did it view dis-

ability policies? The League’s &dquo;Thesis on Conditions of Physi-cally Handicapped&dquo; drew on the members’ own experienceto offer a broad-ranging analysis of handicapped persons’&dquo;struggle for social and economic security.&dquo; It attributed theeconomic disadvantages endured by this population not to

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physical impairments but to discrimination in the private andpublic job markets, to unjust public policies, and to haphaz-ard and unfair rehabilitation and relief programs. It implicitlyrejected the premises of modern policymaking from a dis-tinctive handicapped perspective.

Their disabilities &dquo;automatically closed ... many fields ofmanual labor&dquo; to handicapped job-seekers, but, argued the&dquo;Thesis,&dquo; &dquo;unjust restrictions&dquo; and &dquo;unfounded prejudices&dquo;shut these people out of private-sector jobs in which &dquo;physicalqualifications were irrelevant:’ &dquo;The Municipal, State and Fed-eral Governments&dquo; also required &dquo;the most illogical and un-necessary physical qualifications ... for positions, which thephysically handicapped person, if given a chance, could fillmost competently.&dquo; This argument foreshadowed the ADA’sprovision prohibiting denial of employment if a disabled per-son could perform the essential functions of a job. The &dquo;The-sis&dquo; also argued that the federal hiring preference given toveterans, including disabled veterans, provided &dquo;ample prece-dent for giving [disabled civilians] some added consideration&dquo;in civil-service hiring. But instead, government work-reliefpolicies and projects introduced bias by indiscriminately clas-sifying all handicapped individuals as &dquo;unemployable.&dquo;

The &dquo;Thesis&dquo; next criticized both public and private vo-cational rehabilitation as &dquo;not only inadequate but also det-rimental in that it creates the illusion that somethingconstructive is being accomplished.&dquo; Due to underfunding,New York State’s Rehabilitation Bureau &dquo;had to turn thousands

away,&dquo; could provide &dquo;very limited training&dquo; to &dquo;those few it didreach,&dquo; and during that training &dquo;failed&dquo; to give them enoughassistance for &dquo;daily necessities.&dquo; Meanwhile, that state’s Em-ployment Agency placed disabled workers in temporary jobspaying &dquo;miserably low wages&dquo; and even went &dquo;so far as to send[them] out ... as strike-breakers.&dquo;

The League also condemned sheltered workshops, sin-gling out three: the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, where SylviaFlexer had worked; the Altro Workshop, &dquo;an institution cre-ated for the rehabilitation of tuberculers&dquo; and probably the&dquo;workshop for the TB&dquo; in which an unidentified League mem-ber had felt &dquo;very much exploited&dquo;; and the Institute for Crip-pled and Disabled, established in 1917 as a model of vocationalrehabilitation. Because the workshops paid only $3 to $5 aweek, the &dquo;Thesis&dquo; accused them of &dquo;shameful exploitation&dquo;&dquo;under the guise of social service.&dquo; The League thus contestedrehabilitation professionals’ opinions about sheltered work-shop wages. The National Industrial Recovery Act’s &dquo;Substan-dard Clause&dquo; permitted the workshops to pay employees lessthan the minimum wage. Leading charity and rehabilitationprofessionals endorsed that exemption. The League, the orga-nized blind movement, and the Deaf associations all con-

demned it. League members considered professionals to beself-serving. Sylvia Flexer Bassoff recalled that the day after herfirst League meeting, her boss at the sheltered workshop threat-ened to fire her if she went to any more. &dquo;I don’t think theywere too happy at handicapped people becoming indepen-dent. Because if handicapped people became independent

economically and were able to get jobs, what do you need theBrooklyn Bureau of Charities for?&dquo; The &dquo;Thesis&dquo; called for a

survey to &dquo;gather the necessary information upon which tooutline a permanent program&dquo; of work relief and rehabilita-tion, and because personal encounters with the existing sys-tem had made League members distrustful of social-serviceagencies and professionals, they felt that that survey shouldemploy handicapped persons. Distrust of policymakers andservice providers and the demand for a voice in policy-making and program administration have been common to alldisability-rights movements and were expressed in the late-20th-century declaration &dquo;Nothing about us without us.&dquo;

Although the League advocated employment, its &dquo;The-sis&dquo; supported &dquo;home relief.&dquo; In fact, it wanted home relief

expanded. Prevented from taking &dquo;their proper place in soci-ety to support themselves,&dquo; many handicapped people wereforced to rely on their families, private charities, or home re-lief. The &dquo;Thesis&dquo; thus ascribed economic dependency to in-justice rather than impairment. Yet the home-relief allowance,scanty for able-bodied recipients, was &dquo;doubly insufficient&dquo; forhandicapped persons who needed supplementary aid for &dquo;me-chanical appliances and medical care.&dquo; And many were refusedeven this &dquo;mere pittance&dquo; because of strict eligibility rules.Hundreds denied home relief had to enter &dquo;municipal lodg-ing houses, while vast numbers of others [were] reduced to va-grancy ... and [sank] to the level of beggars.&dquo; &dquo;Something[must] be done,&dquo; demanded the &dquo;Thesis,&dquo; &dquo;to eliminate the

necessity of any handicapped individual being forced to resortto begging.&dquo;

In conclusion, the League proclaimed that its recom-mendations were &dquo;the very minimum necessary to alleviate the

present grave situation of the handicapped.&dquo; Then it added sar-donically : &dquo;Certainly the situation must be grave if [it has]finally made the handicapped articulate.&dquo; The League had im-plicitly presented a repudiation of the &dquo;disability category&dquo; inmodern public policy.

Deborah Stone has elegantly explained the creation ofthat category. Its rigorous requirements defined disability as anabsolute inability to engage in productive labor. The aim wasto limit access to the need-based system, to keep workers inthe work-based system, and to disguise the true levels of un-employment. Yet, Stone and others have described that cate-gory as offering a &dquo;privileged&dquo; position by &dquo;excusing&dquo; disabledpeople from having to work and giving them a &dquo;ticket&dquo; out ofthe labor force (Berkowitz, 1987; Stone, 1986). They overlookthat the policy increasingly restricted people with disabilitiesfrom the labor market and society. The disability category’sformulators not only established medical criteria of disabilitybut also fashioned ceremonies of social degradation for per-sons seeking legitimation of their &dquo;need.&dquo; They aimed to makepoor relief the least desirable option and to ensure that onlythe &dquo;truly needy&dquo; would submit to the humiliation and stigmaof qualifying for such aid. &dquo;Worthiness&dquo; of poor relief markeda disabled person as &dquo;unworthy&dquo; of social respect. The mod-ern state used the disability category to regulate poor and la-

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boring people but did so by declaring &dquo;the disabled&dquo; sociallyinvalid. More than a medical and vocational determination, itwas a verdict of social delegitimation that was made both a so-cial identity and a permanent social role.

These developments coincided with intensifying preju-dice against disabled people in the late-19th and early-20thcenturies. People with a wide range of disabilities were definednot only as incapable of productive labor but also as incom-petent to manage their own social careers and even as sociallydangerous. Many came under the permanent supervision ofprofessional experts; some were permanently sequestered ininstitutions. Thus, what in one respect began as an attempt tocontrol able-bodied laborers by limiting access to social wel-fare benefits was also, or at least became, the creation of a large,stigmatized, and segregated social grouping held in a perma-nent state of clientage. In terms of social values, this categoryof persons came to define the limits of legitimate need on theone hand and of social normality on the other. They alsoserved the ideological and economic interests of a range ofprofessional groups in the modern welfare state. Develop-ment of the disability category was thus part of a muchbroader redefinition of the social roles and identities of peo-ple with disabilities.

At one level, public policies define who socially legitimatecitizens are. The WPA and the Social Security Act were a two-pronged strategy that established mechanisms not only to de-termine eligibility for two types of public aid-work relief andwelfare-but also to define two types of Americans: valid andinvalid. In the Depression era, Americans across the politicalspectrum expressed alarm about the indignity of relief and themorally destructive effects of dependency on it. FDR declared,

In this business of relief, we are dealing with prop-erly self-respecting Americans to whom a mere doleoutrages every instinct of individual independence.Most Americans want to give something for whatthey get. That something, in this case, honest work,is the saving barrier between them and moral dis-integration. We propose to build that barrier high.

New Dealers feared that men long on relief might &dquo;crack up.&dquo;So government work programs offered economic security andsought to restore unemployed men’s self-esteem, reputationsas family providers, and sense of control over their destinies.However, this concern for &dquo;self-respect&dquo; through work and theworry about &dquo;moral disintegration&dquo; because of dependency onrelief pertained only to &dquo;employables.&dquo; The work programssought to restore the identities of young and middle-agedWhite, &dquo;able-bodied&dquo; men, not only by giving them jobs butalso by contrasting them with &dquo;unemployables,&dquo; &dquo;natural de-pendents,&dquo; who properly belonged on local relief. As a result,the WPA in many states refused to hire handicapped workers.The League protested the WPA practice and that New YorkCity’s Emergency Works Program classified handicapped peo-ple &dquo;indiscriminately as ‘unemployables :

&dquo;

But the attempted dichotomization of able-bodied em-ployables and disabled unemployables was undercut by a con-tradiction in New Deal policy. FDR’s Executive Order No. 7046creating the WPA instructed that &dquo;no one whose age or phys-ical condition is such as to make his employment dangerousto his health or safety, or to the health and safety of others,may be employed on any work project.&dquo; But, said the next sen-tence, &dquo;this paragraph shall not be construed to work againstthe employment of physically handicapped persons,.otherwiseemployable, where such persons may be safely assigned towork which they can ably perform:’

&dquo;

The League and Deaf leaders wielded that executive orderto force open WPA jobs. The League’s &dquo;Thesis&dquo; referred to it as&dquo;a ruling forbidding discrimination on account of physicaldisability.&dquo; Deaf associations cited it to oppose WPA discrim-ination against Deaf workers. Although these groups opposedsegregated employment, activism by handicapped and Deafgroups prompted the WPA in some localities to create specialprojects or special jobs on regular projects and to establishquotas on some projects. Meanwhile, many individuals withdisabilities somehow evaded WPA policies and obtained WPAjobs. Studies of the WPA noted that in various localities, any-where from an eighth to a third of WPA applicants were re-jected due to disabilities but that more than one fifth of allWPA workers had disabilities. Individuals with deafness, phys-ical handicaps, and blindness around the United States ma-neuvered their way into jobs on the WPA and other New Dealwork programs.

However, WPA officials believed that giving jobs to

&dquo;unemployables&dquo; undermined the work program, the localwage structure, and the stability of the local job market. Theythought that although workers with disabilities might be ableto do their WPA jobs satisfactorily, they could never movealong to private industry jobs because they would be unableto meet employers’ stricter hiring examinations and employ-ment practices. These were the very practices League membershad condemned as disability-based discrimination. They hadhoped that WPA employment would enable them to provetheir capabilities to private employers. Instead, the New Deal-ers failed to question the reasonableness or fairness of thosepractices. They assumed that most people with disabilitieswere inherently unsuited for private employment and there-fore were unsuitable for temporary transitional employmenton government work programs. As a result, at times whenWPA executives found it necessary to economize by eliminat-ing jobs, handicapped workers were among the first to go. Theintent to make the WPA a &dquo;real work&dquo; program, rather than a

relief or rehabilitation program, made hiring &dquo;unemployables&dquo;undesirable. The WPA’s inconsistent policies and practices andFDR’s executive order reflected the confusion in federal dis-

ability policies regarding the employability of disabled personsversus their necessary relegation to home relief.

In the long run, the federal disability insurance/welfaresystem that grew out of the New Deal institutionalized thedichotomization of able versus disabled and the concept of

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&dquo;unemployability.&dquo; That concept implicitly reappeared in thedefinition of disability later fashioned by the Social SecurityAdministration: an inability to engage in gainful activity. Thatdefinition forced millions of people with disabilities out of thejob market and permanently onto welfare, and disability ac-tivists continued to criticize it. In the 1940s, the new NationalFederation of the Blind (NFB) opposed such policies. In the1970s and up to the present, disabled activists have foughtwhat has come euphemistically to be called &dquo;work disincen-tives.&dquo; They did not know that the League of the PhysicallyHandicapped had launched this struggle when it protested apolicy it had seen as economically and socially marginalizingpeople with disabilities. Disagreeing with policymakers andrecent students of policy, they did not think that policies suchas the WPA’s categorization of them as &dquo;unemployable&dquo; char-itably excused them from work. They believed that such pol-icies deliberately excluded them from the job market andsociety, intentionally stigmatizing and segregating them bycodifying job discrimination into law.

The surprisingly similar views of disabled activists aboutsocial welfare policies suggest a new approach to the study ofpolicy. Has an implicit tradition of disability politics aboutpolicy existed without our recognizing it? Let me note onethread of that possible tradition. Throughout the history ofdisabled activism, advocates have simultaneously called forboth equal rights and exceptional treatment. The League de-manded an end to discrimination but also job quotas and ade-quate home relief. Scotch and Berkowitz (1990) reported asimilar stance by the organized blind. In 1949 an NFB witnesstestified to a congressional committee on behalf of both civilrights and Aid to the Blind. He argued that blindness incurredsignificant expenses and limitations; therefore, it necessitatedsocietal aid. But as a social condition, it evoked discrimination.The real handicap of blindness, &dquo;far surpassing its physicallimitations,&dquo; he declared, quoting Jacobus ten Broek’s &dquo;Bill ofRights for the Blind,&dquo; was &dquo;exclusion from the main channelsof social and economic activity.&dquo; So blind people needed pro-tection from discrimination (Scotch & Berkowitz, 1990).Late-20th-century disability rights advocates advocated legalprotection from discrimination and introduced two new con-cepts into American civil rights theory: equal access and rea-sonable accommodations. In addition, they opposed work andmarriage &dquo;disincentives&dquo; and called for publicly funded healthinsurance and personal assistance services for employed peo-ple with significant disabilities. Disability-based political move-ments seem always to have advocated for both equal treatmentand differential treatment.

However, their agendas have conflicted with both themedical model of disability and the dominant ideology ofequality. The medicalized view has regarded accommodationssuch as architectural modifications, adaptive devices, and as-sistive services as special benefits charitably provided to fun-damentally dependent individuals in lieu of the preferredobjective, their restoration to some semblance of normality.But the disability-rights tradition has viewed these provisions

as different modes of functioning, not signs of inferiority. Thereigning civil rights theory has allowed differential treatmentof minorities as a temporary measure to facilitate eventual par-ity. But the disability-rights tradition has implicitly claimedthe legitimacy of permanent differential treatment becausedisabled persons require such accommodations to participatein the economy and society on an equal basis.

Critics have complained that disabled people cannothave it both ways-they cannot legitimately claim equal op-portunity and equal social standing while demanding &dquo;spe-cial&dquo; privileges. To the critics, equality means identical

arrangements and treatment. From this dominant perspective,one cannot be equal and different in American society. But,within the disability-rights tradition, there is no contradiction.It is possible in America, this tradition has implicitly pro-claimed, to be equal and to require aid and accommodations,to be equal and different. Indeed, for Americans with disabil-ities, any other approach to equality seemed impossible. Dis-abled political values were built out of the daily realities of thedisability experience. To ensure equal opportunity, disabledactivists have declared, civil rights protections, equal access,reasonable accommodations, and appropriate support ser-vices must be guaranteed as rights. This perspective suggeststhe need to move beyond the traditional framing of policy op-tions as employment versus income maintenance, or welfareversus rehabilitation versus civil rights. That dichotomization(or trichotomization) is contradicted by the realities of the dis-ability experience and contested by the disability-rights tradi-tion. And it also once again shows the importance of disabledvoices in policy-making and program development.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul K. Longmore is a professor of history and director of the Insti-tute on Disability at San Francisco State University. Address: Paul K.Longmore, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., SanFrancisco, CA 94132.

REFERENCES

Anspach, R. (1979). From stigma to identity politics: Political activism amongthe physically disabled and former mental patients. Social Science andMedicine, 13, 765-773.

Berkowitz, E. D. (1987). Disabled policy: America’s programs for the handi-capped. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gliedman, J., & Roth, W. (1982). The unexpected minority, handicapped chil-dren in America. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Hahn, H. (1985). Disability policy and the problem of discrimination. Amer-ican Behavioral Scientist, 8, 293-318.

Harris, Louis, and Associates, for the International Center for the Disabled.(1986). ICD survey. New York: ICD.

Johnson, W. G., & Lambrinos, J. (1985). Wage discrimination against handi-capped men and women. Journal of Human Resources, 20, 264-277.

Longmore, P. K. (1985). The life of Randolph Bourne and the need for a his-tory of disabled people. Reviews in American History, 13, 581-587.

Longmore, P. K. (1987). Uncovering the hidden history of disabled people.Reviews in American History, 15, 355-364.

Matson, F. (1990). Walking alone and marching together: A history of the orga-nized blind movement in the United States, 1940-1990. Baltimore: Na-tional Federation of the Blind.

Oliver, M. (1989). The politics of disablement. New York: St. Martin’s.

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Roth, W. (1983). Handicap as a social construct. Society, 20, 56-61.Scotch, R. K. (1985). From good will to civil rights: Transforming federal dis-

ability policy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Scotch, R. K., & Berkowitz, E. D. ( 1990). One comprehensive system? A his-

torical perspective on federal disability policy. Journal of Disability PolicyStudies, 1, 13-19.

Stone, D. (1986). The disabled state. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Van Cleve, J. V. (Ed.). (1993). Deaf history unveiled: Interpretations from thenew scholarship. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Van Cleve, J. V, & Crouch, B. (1989). A place of their own: Creating the deafcommunity in America. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

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