It’s Time for a National Museum of Disability

It’s Time for a National Museum of Disability

Without a home, many crucial chapters in American history could be lost.
This year, we studied an institution founded in Boston in 1848 originally called the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth — a name that could never be used today — and renamed the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center. (We also learned about the use of respectful disability language and how that idea changed over time.) The school had one goal: teach students who were thought to be too cognitively or developmentally disabled to learn. It was the first public school of its kind in America. Despite its name, the school made some progress. Its base of special education techniques grew. The observations made in teaching the students there influenced education practices across the country. In 1887, the school moved to a larger campus. Then slowly, it became nightmarish, complete with abuse and experimentation on residents.

The authors are 12th graders at Gann Academy in Waltham, Mass. The completed history project, “Division, Unity, Hardship, and Progress: A Disability History of the United States,” is on view at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham. This article was written with their teachers, Alex Green and Yoni Kadden.
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