I’m speaking in huge generalities here,” says Kim E. Nielsen, the author of A Disability History of the United States, “but I think that push for social conformity exacerbated the incredible shame folks had about family members with intellectual and physical disabilities.” Institutionalizing such family members often became the most attractive—or viable—option. The stigma associated with having a different sort of child was too great; too often, schools wouldn’t have them, state-subsidized therapies weren’t available to them, and churches wouldn’t come to their aid. “There were no support structures at all,” Nielsen told me. “It was almost the opposite. There were anti-support structures.”
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Adele Halperin. Daughter, sister, aunt. June 30, 1951–May 7, 2023.