WITH MINDS FIXED ON THE HORRORS OF WAR: LIBERALISM AND DISABILITY ACTIVISM, 1940-1960 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Audra R. Jennings, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2008 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Susan M. Hartmann, Advisor Professor Kevin Boyle ______________________ Advisor Professor Warren Van Tine Department of History Professor Paul K. Longmore Copyright by Audra R. Jennings 2008 ABSTRACT “With Minds Fixed on the Horrors of War” examines the expansion of federal disability policy in the wake of World War II by focusing on the rise and decline of the major activist organization for disabled civilians, the American Federation of the Physi- cally Handicapped (AFPH). During World War II, with labor shortages threatening production and concerns for the disabled soldier playing heavily on their thoughts, federal officials launched a campaign to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Indeed, many employers developed elaborate plans for employing people with disabilities during the war, and 83 percent of the nation’s factories had disabled workers on their payrolls. At the end of the war, liberal policy makers, organized labor, and disability activists in the AFPH, as well as officials in the federal government, all played important roles in fash- ioning disability policy. These groups did not always work in concert; their differences did much to limit the reach of the disability policy of the postwar decades. Liberals em- braced disability policy as a crucial component in the postwar legislative expansion of the welfare state, but could not agree on the underlying purpose of disability policy and its administration. Social welfare professionals, and the liberals that aligned with them, ii wanted disability policy in the hands of medical professionals in the Federal Security Agency, who could provide treatment and care for people with disabilities, while labor liberals argued that people with disabilities deserved the dignity of work and that the proper administrative home for disability policy was in the Department of Labor. For their part, disability activists in the AFPH exposed widespread discrimination and the failings of disability policy, while pushing for increased employment opportunities in the postwar economy. Based on archival research in government, union, and AFPH documents and ex- tensive reading of contemporary periodicals, my dissertation first and foremost treats an important but heretofore neglected topic in the history of postwar liberalism and the evo- lution of the welfare state: the rise of disability activism and its role in shaping federal disability policy. iii DEDICATION Near the end of his shift at the East Diamond Mine in western Kentucky in the winter of 1938, a roof-fall trapped Robert Henry Jennings in the cold, dark mines. Jennings was only 25 years old, and the weight of the rocks crushed most of the bones below his shoulders. Workers from the next shift rescued him. In the hospital, he was wrapped in a heavy plaster cast, and doctors told him he would never walk again. When his father, Kelly Jennings, came to the hospital to collect his son, he asked Bob, as he was known among his friends and family, if he wanted a wheelchair. He said no. Shocked at his son’s stubbornness, Kelly asked his son how he intended to get around. Bob asked his father for two canes, a request his father obliged. To leave the hospital, Bob maneuvered himself against a wall with his canes and slid against the walls. He made it outside before he began to be really sorry that he had not taken the offer of that wheelchair, as there were not any walls that would get him to the family automobile. When Jennings was called to report to his local draft board in 1940, he still needed his canes, but he was walking. To get to his examination, he struggled up some thirty steps only to meet Dr. Fourshee, who had performed his operation after the acci- dent. The physican asked Jennings what he was doing there. Jennings explained that he had received a call from Uncle Sam and was merely reporting for duty. Fourshee told iv Jennings that he should hobble back down those stairs and go home because Uncle Sam would not be sending him anywhere. Being declared unfit for service did little to dampen Jennings’ feelings that he should do something for the war effort. So in the fall of 1941 he went to look for a job at the newly founded Republic Aviation plant in Evansville, Indiana. Plant management scooped up Jennings, a skilled laborer. Before the physical structure of the plant was even finished, Jennings was hired as troubleshooting mechanic for the concern. As a production soldier, he fought the war at home, building P-47 fighter planes. This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of Robert Henry Jennings, my grandfather. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the help, knowledge, and support of so many people. I will be eternally grateful to Susan M. Hartmann, my advi- sor, for her insightful critiques of my work, for her continual intellectual encouragement and support, and her willingness to give so much of her time to push me to be a scholar. Many thanks to the members of my dissertation committee—Kevin Boyle, Warren Van Tine, and Paul K. Longmore—for their insight and encouragement. My work would not be what it is today without the suggestions and insight of many gifted and wonderful scholars. I would like to thank Susan Burch, Birgitte Søland, John C. Burnham, the members of the Modern U.S. Seminar, and my colleagues in sev- eral women’s history seminars for their critiques of various chapters, encouragement, and many thoughtful suggestions. I would also like to thank many friends and colleagues for their support and for reading numerous drafts. I am grateful to Jessica Pliley for reading so much of my work, helping me to see the forest when all I could see were trees, and for being a true friend. I would also like to thank Michelle Wolfe, Karen Huber, and Ellen P. Fout for reading numerous drafts, listening to me talk through various ideas, and for their friendship and support. Many thanks to Alison Efford for being a wonderful friend and always listening. vi I would like to thank the archivists, staff, and administration of the Truman Li- brary for patiently answering my many questions, for their kindness and consideration, and for their support of my research. My dissertation research was supported by numer- ous grants. I would like to thank the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, and the Graduate School and Department of History at The Ohio State University. Moreover, I benefited from the ability to focus solely on writing the dissertation because of the generous financial support of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute Dissertation Year Fellowship and the Presidential Fellowship at The Ohio State University. Many thanks to William Schell Jr., the late T. Wayne Beasley, James Galt-Brown, and Stephanie A. Carpenter, all people who believed that I could do this before I knew it myself. Finally, I would like to thank the many people who believed in me all along. To my family and my husband’s family go many thanks for their support, encouragement, and love. My eternal gratitude goes to my husband Sion Sublett, my mother Renee Bliznick, my father Robert A. Jennings, my step-father Bill Bliznick, my grandmothers Clemmie Noffsinger and Marjorie Jennings, my grandfathers Tunney Noffsinger and the late Robert H. Jennings, and my brother Robert K. Jennings for their belief in me. Many thanks to my friends, especially Gwen Thompson, Melinda Grimsley-Smith, Jason Pow- ell, Donovan Pierce, Mike and Jill Austin, Phyllis Salerno, Vicki Tatum, and Sheryle Davis, for occasionally providing me with a much needed distraction, for always listen- ing, and for just being there. vii VITA November 21, 1979. Born – Owensboro, Kentucky 2003. M.A. History, The Ohio State University 2003-2006. Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Research Publication 1. “‘The Greatest Numbers . Will Be Wage Earners’: Organized Labor and Dis- ability Activism, 1945-1953,” Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas 4 (November 2007): 55-82. 2. “The Human Machinery of War: Disability on the Front Lines and the Factory Floor, 1941-1945,” eHistory Multimedia History: http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/mmh/machinery. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Concentration in Modern United States History Minor Fields: Women’s History, Modern European History viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract. ii Dedication. iv Acknowledgments. vi Vita. viii List of Figures. xi Chapters: Introduction. 1 1. From Derelict to Productive Citizen: People with Disabilities in War and Work, 1940-1945. 22 2. “Times Had Changed”: Disability and Rehabilitation in the Postwar Years. 67 3. “The Lush War Years Are Gone”: The Birth of the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped, 1942-1952. 111 4. Gazing “With Hope and Faith upon the Early Rays of the Sun of Peace”: The American Federation of the Physically Handicapped and Postwar Disability Policy, 1945-1949. 156 5. Mending “The Broken Machinery of Physical People like Us”: The Legislative Fight to Control Federal Disability Services, 1949-1951. 198 6. “Gotterdammerung of the Rehab Gods”: The Demise of the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped, 1950-1968. 239 ix Conclusion. .275 Bibliography. 282 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 Persons Rehabilitated, 1921-1945. 44 1.2 Federal, State, Local, and Private Expenditures on Rehabilitation. 45 2.1 Size of State and Territory Rehabilitation Bureaucracies in 1942 (Excludes Clerical Staff).