The Development of Institutions

The Development of Institutions

Written for DSAB 620

Reaction Paper 2

Keith Murfee-DeConcini

“Disability is an enigma that we experience but do not necessarily understand.”

Page 1, Handbook of Disability Studies, 2001

The attitudes of Colonial Americans (eighteenth century) towards the poor and the disabled were remarkably different from the periods that succeeded them. At the start of Chapter 1 of The Discovery of the Asylum (1990), entitled “The 'Boundaries of Colonial Society,” we learn that the “Eighteenth-century Americans did not define either poverty or crime as a critical social problem...Compared to their successors, the colonists accepted the existence of poverty with great equanimity.”  In those days, the term “poor” had a very broad definition: “When colonists discussed the poor or legislated for them, they included widows along with orphans, the aged along with the sick, the insane along with the disabled without careful differentiation. The fact of need, not the special circumstances which caused it, was the critical element in the definition.”

While the colonists would certainly make an effort to help the poor whenever they could, their act of charity was not limitless. “Dependent neighbors made up the ranks of the poor. The town recognized a clear obligation to them and officials were not especially concerned with possible malfeasance…Local communities, however, did not accept responsibility for the needy outsider, no matter what his moral condition, and they drew up complicated statutes to exclude him. Poor relief was a local system, towns liable for their own, but not for others.”

The Colonist attitudes’ towards the poor and the disabled were influenced by their religious beliefs. One Boston clergyman at the time, Samuel Cooper, proclaimed that relief for the poor was the highest Christian virtue. Cooper elaborated his point, “It ennobles our nature, by conforming us to the best, the most glorious patterns….Charity conforms us to the Son of God himself.” Indeed it was taught to the colonists through their religious upbringing that, “No good works were more important than caring for the needy.”

Still, alongside this generous religious outpouring of charity for the poor and disabled, colonists were also being taught that, “the roots of deviant behavior were more internal than external; the fault rested more with the offender than with the society.” One can wonder if some of the earliest most perverse seeds of what would become the basis for the medical model of disability were being planted.  

The Jacksonian society of the nineteenth century took a vastly different approach than their colonist predecessors. In Chapter 5 entitled “Insanity and the Social Order,” we see this on full display. Jacksonian Americans viewed insanity and those inflicted with it as a serious problem that they needed to deal with: “...by the 1830’s, Americans calculated that insanity was increasing significantly in their society, not being cured.”  They looked to doctors to discover and explain the etiology of the disease and they put their trust in the practitioners’ findings. In these findings, the medical community was unanimous: “...insanity was a disease of the brain and that the examination of tissues in an autopsy would reveal organic lesions, clear evidence of physical damage, in every insane person.”

One of the leading voices of that time in the medical community, Isaac Ray, backed up the findings of his colleagues by stating that, “No pathological fact is better established…than that deviations from the healthy structure are generally present in the brains of insane subjects... The progress of pathological anatomy during the present century has established this fact beyond the reach of a reasonable doubt.”

Sometime later, insanity fell under a newly created classification of mental disorders that focused on society and its role in creating deviant behavior.  Therefore society felt compelled to grapple with solutions to treat and cure this growing problem. Several prominent voices lent their views to the discussion, claiming that society should take ownership of the problem and invent a solution. “Should not society, then, make the compensation which alone can be made for these disastrous fruits of its social organization?... This duty of society, besides being urged by every consideration of humanity...will be seen to be more imperative if we consider that insanity is in many cases the result of imperfect or vicious social institutions and observances.”

The “solution” that the society came up with was isolating those with mental disorders in a new environment “from the dangers at loose in the community.” This would be done in hopes of reforming and curing the inflicted, rather than addressing the chaos and disorder of society. This reform program resulted in a new environment being created, which became known as the Asylum.

Thus, Jacksonian America offered their answer to the enigma of what would later become known as disabilities. Isolate them away from public view and hope and pray that they just disappear altogether! As Chapter 6 (entitled “The New World of the Asylum”) explains, the beginning days of the traditional Asylum were relevantly “safe experiences” for the era, (with a few exceptions). Thomas Kirkbride, one of the leading medical superintendents, instructed that in his asylum, none of the patients should be physically harmed in any way and most of his fellow colleagues across the country tried to follow his lead in their asylums respectively. At least in the beginning days of the asylum, they did not start off as snake pits like Willowbrook (1947-1987) and Pennhurst (1908-1987).          

References

Albrecht, Gary L., Katherine D. Seelman, and Michael Bury. 2001. "Introduction: The Formation of Disability Studies." In Handbook of Disability Studies, by Gary L. Albrecht, Katherine D. Seelman and Michael Bury, 1. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication.

Rothman, David J. 1990. "Insanity and the Social Order." Chap. 5 in The Discovery of the Asylum (Revised Edition), by David J. Rothman, 190-129. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction.

Rothman, David J. 1990. "The 'Boundaries of Colonial Society." Chap. 1 in The Discovery of the Asylum (Revised Edition), by David J. Rothman, 3-29. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction.

Rothman, David J. 1990. "The New World of the Asylum." Chap. 6 in The Discovery of the Asylum (Revised Edition), by David J. Rothman, 130-154. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction.