table of contents - home page - text-only home page The League of the Physically Handicapped & Independent Living in 1935 By Steven E. Brown (Houston: ILRU, 2000), excerpted from "Freedom of Movement" The example of the New York League of the Physically Handicapped, rediscovered by historian Paul Longmore in the late 1980s, demonstrates why many people havedifficulty portraying FDR as a champion of disability rights. Like Longmore and FDR, most League members had contracted polio, though a few had cerebral palsy, tuberculosis or heart conditions. Unlike FDR, none used wheelchairs. League members came together because theybelieved they faced discrimination from private industry. They thought that New Deal policies,the name for the programs that FDR spearheaded to combat the Great Depression, would assisttheir quest for equitable employment. Instead, New Deal programs classified them as"unemployable." Six League members went to a New York City agency in May of 1935 to discuss thesediscriminatory policies. When told the individual they wanted to see was out of town, some League members refused to leave. They had not planned to demonstrate, but that is what they did. Three League members remained in the building for nine days. Picketers with and without disabilities supported them outside of the building. Following three weeks of these protests, the group decided to organize formally. Six months later, in November of 1935, they conducted a three week picket at the New York headquarters of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), one of the primary New Deal agencies for employment. They demanded that, "handicapped people receive a just share of the millions of jobs being given out by the government." As a result, the WPA hired about forty League members. Some skeptical League members believed this action was taken to squash the group, but instead it gained momentum. In May 1936, a year after their first action, League members traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with WPA leader Harry Hopkins. When they were informed that he was "away," they voted to stay until "Mr. Hopkins does see us." Three days later Hopkins did meet with the group. He informed them that he didn't believe there were as many employable New Yorkers with disabilities as the League contended. He also said that he wouldn't change his mind unless he saw an analysis that disproved his belief. Then, he promised, he would take action immediately to correct these conditions. Several months later, the League presented Hopkins with its "Thesis on Conditions of Physically Handicapped," a ten-page document that offered a comprehensive analysis of the situation. The "Thesis" described job discrimination in private and public sectors and recommended preferential civil-service hiring of disabled veterans and handicapped civilians as well. It also criticized public and private vocational rehabilitation as being underfunded and inadequate. Other employment programs the League critiqued as guilty of worse crimes: sending people to demeaning jobs, including ones as strike-breakers. The League's "Thesis" also accused New Deal programs of ignoring the problems of people with physical disabilities and categorizing people with disabilities as "unemployable." Betraying his word, Hopkins ignored the "Thesis." The League, dissatisfied with its Washington experiences, renewed its concentration on its New York activities. In September 1936, the League joined forces with the League for the Advancement of the Deaf to secure a promise that 7% of future WPA jobs in New York would go to deaf and handicapped individuals. As a result, 1500 people went to work. Unfortunately, more than 600 lost their jobs the next spring during nationwide lay-offs. The League's experiences with New York's WPA was indicative of both its successes and failures. On the positive side, the League did get a number of people jobs and open the public sector to some workers with disabilities. It did not, however, as it had hoped, alter federal policies towards people with disabilities working. In looking at the history of independent living, the League did not establish a base for future activism. But it did bring to the limelight in the 1930s some issues that would be addressed later in the 1970s and 1980s. League tactics will also seem similar to some current disability protests. Finally, and maybe most importantly, the League identified social problems plaguing people with disabilities that still remain with us. League picket signs included ones that said, "We Don't Want Tin Cups," and "We Want Jobs." The first could be said to pre-date the current movement against telethons. The second could still be used to protest the current more than 70% unemployment rate of people with disabilities (Longmore and Goldberger 94-98; Longmore, personal communication). Longmore, P. K. Personal communication. 14 July 1999. Longmore, P. K., and David Goldberger. "Political Movements of People with Disabilities: The League of the Physically Handicapped, 1945-38." Disability Studies Quarterly 17.2 (Spring 1997): 94-98. table of contents - home page - text-only home page