Eugenics and Special Education

A Dissertation entitled Inherently Undesirable: American Identity and the Role of Negative Eugenics in the Education of Visually Impaired and Blind Students in Ohio, 1870-1930 by Jennifer L. Free, J.D. Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in History _________________________________________ Dr. Diane F. Britton, Committee Chair _________________________________________ Dr. Peter Linebaugh, Committee Member _________________________________________ Dr. Jesse Britton, Committee Member _________________________________________ Dr. Jim Ferris, Committee Member _________________________________________ Dr. Patricia R. Komuniecki, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo December 2012 Copyright 2012, Jennifer L. Free This document is copyrighted material. Under copyright law, no parts of this document may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author. An Abstract of Inherently Undesirable: American Identity and the Role of Negative Eugenics in the Education of Visually Impaired and Blind Students in Ohio, 1870-1930 by Jennifer L. Free Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in History The University of Toledo December 2012 To date, studies of eugenics artificially confine their focus to the movement’s application to race, socio-economic status, and the forced sterilization of the so-called feebleminded. However, the segregationist aspect of the eugenics design in the United States brought with it damaging policies toward individuals with physical and mental disabilities. The impact of the broad scale subscription to eugenic rhetoric and practice as applied to marginalized social groups was evident in all facets of society. It was, however, particularly revealing when one undertakes an analysis of the movement’s application to the evolution of the special education system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Separation of disabled students, whether in the form of outright exclusion in the residential state schools, or segregation in isolated sight-saving classrooms in the common schools, was one of the strongest illustrations of negative eugenics. It implicated a classification and sorting system that utilized economic productivity as an assertedly objective measure of value and desirability. This scheme iii allowed for differentiation between the deserving and the undeserving in the extension of the full rights and benefits of U.S. citizenship during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The end of a desirable citizenry was achieved through the outright exclusion of students with disabilities, and later through segregated classrooms in the common schools following states’ enactment of compulsory attendance statutes. Like other states, Ohio did not eliminate its exclusionary practices with its shift to segregated sight-saving classes. It shifted the form to intra-district segregation. Special education institutionalized the idea of the “undesirable” student. Segregated classrooms provided a vehicle to continue the tracking system that predetermined which students were likely to mature into valuable contributors to the expanding industrial state, and therefore desirable and deserving of the full rights and benefits of U.S. citizenship. By utilizing back-door arrangements to segregate undesirable students, administrators and teachers aimed to preserve traditional notions of order and efficiency in the common schools. The establishment and evolution of segregated sight-saving classes ensured that students who were believed to be incapable of becoming productive, and therefore valuable and desirable citizens due to their status as visually impaired or blind would remain on a separate track. By establishing special education classes, school districts appeared to embrace the progressive measure of deinstitutionalization, and at the same time ensured the continued viability of the status of undesirability, and allowed teachers to promote the progressive ideals of order and efficiency. iv “I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.” – Chris Cleave, Little Bee (2010). Contents Abstract iii Contents vi 1 Introduction 1 2 Eugenics: The History and Ideology of a Pseudo-Science and Its Parallels to Progressive Reform 32 3 Educational Reforms as Applied to the General Education System During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 77 4 Evolution of the Special Education System: The Ohio State School for the Blind and Sight-Saving Classes in Urban School Districts 120 5 Conclusion: Identity and the Role of Periodization 148 Bibliography 178 vi Chapter 1 Introduction Between 1870 and 1930, negative eugenics played a significant role in defining people characterized as inherently undesirable because they were physically or developmentally disabled. Twentieth century studies of eugenics artificially confined their focus to the movement’s application to race, socio-economic status, and forced sterilization of the feebleminded, or persons believed to of a lower intellectual caliber. However, the segregationist aspect of the eugenics design in the U.S. brought with it damaging policies toward individuals with physical and mental disabilities. The impact of the broad scale subscription to negative eugenic rhetoric and practice as applied to this historically marginalized group was evident in all facets of society. It was, however, particularly instructive when one undertakes an analysis of the movement’s application to the development of the special education system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Separation of disabled students, whether in the form of outright exclusion in the residential state schools, or segregation in isolated classrooms in the common schools was one of the strongest illustrations of the eugenics design. This dissertation analyzes the special education system as a vehicle of negative eugenics as applied to visually impaired and blind students at the Ohio State School for the Blind (OSSB) and in segregated sight-saving classes in urban school districts. 1 Administrators and teachers forcibly segregated visually impaired and blind students in an effort to preserve the progressive ideals of order and efficiency following Ohio’s enactment of its compulsory attendance statute in 1877. This resulted in a dual track education system in which students with disabilities were denied the training necessary to become self-sufficient, economically productive, and therefore desirable citizens as adults. The fourteenth amendment’s substantive and procedural safeguards as delineated by federal statutes and case law bestow the rights and duties of U.S. citizenship on all persons in the country.1 Citizenship status affords a person the protections of substantive and procedural due process and equal protection of the laws. To fulfill the civic duties inextricably tied to citizenship, one must receive an education substantively equal to that of their peers. In Brown v. Board of Education,2 a landmark decision ending de jur segregation of racial minorities in public schools, the Supreme Court disavowed its 1896 holding in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate facilities satisfied the equal protection clause provided they were equal.3 In finding that Plessy was at odds with the amendment both on its face and as applied, the Court reasoned that separate schools were, by definition “inherently unequal.”4 The Court went on to explain the connection between education and a viable, socially and economically productive citizenry. As Chief Justice Earl Warren observed in his majority opinion; 1 U.S. Const. amend. XIV, S. 1-2. 2 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 3 Plessy v. Ferguson 163 U.S. 537 (1896). 4 Brown, 485. 2 [t]oday, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities . .it is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.5 The Court’s deference to the fundamental importance of education in Brown was not unique in American jurisprudence. The Court has repeatedly stressed the inescapable nexus between education and productive, and therefore valuable and desirable adult citizens.6 Although the questions presented in these cases usually centered on issues of race or national origin, the tie between education and citizenship cannot be so confined. Like African American, Native American, and Asian American students, when students 5 Ibid., 484. 6 Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 400 (1923), noting that we have “always regarded education and [the] acquisition of knowledge as matters of supreme importance”); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 221 (1972),

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