Interview with Willie Mae Goodman, excerpt
Willie Mae Goodman decided to send her daughter Marguerite to the Willowbrook State School when Marguerite was four years old.
institutionalization of Disabled people and people labeled disabled
Willie Mae Goodman and Marguerite Goodman
Mrs. Willie Mae Goodman heard many people speak of her daughter’s death.
Mom is Worthy Opponent for State
Marguerite Goodman lived at the Gouverneur Hospital in lower Manhattan.
Bernard Carabello Interview
As institutions became more widespread, more parents sent their children with intellectual and developmental disabilities away, hoping they would be rehabilitated and come home.
We Kept Our Retarded Child At Home, excerpt
Willowbrook opened in 1947. The number of people living at institutions in and around New York City increased in the early twentieth century as physicians frequently told parents of “mentally retarded” children to send them to institutions where they could be rehabilitated.
Your Child and Willowbrook, excerpt
In the late 1800s through the early 1900s, educators and social reformers created institutions for people they called “idiots,” “feeble minded,” or later, “mentally retarded.
Chart of Inmates in the State Institutions
State institutions grew throughout New York State after the founding of the New York Asylum in 1851 and into the mid-20th century.
Delinquent Girls Tested by the Binet Scale, excerpt
Henry Goddard was a psychologist living and working in New Jersey.
New York City’s Schools and What They Cost
At the beginning of the 20th century, New York City required more and more students to attend school and prohibited them from working.
Elizabeth Farrell and Ungraded Classes
Special education classes for children with intellectual disabilities were pioneered in New York City by a social welfare reformer, Elizabeth Farrell.
Map of Randall’s, Hart, and Blackwell’s Islands
In the 1830s, the City purchased Randall’s Island to use as a remote burial ground for the poor and as an almshouse.
The Idiot School
Édouard Séguin learned how to teach children with intellectual disabilities when he lived in France.
Survey of Blackwell’s Island
Many blind people lived in dire conditions in the city almshouse for the poor, because they were not able to support themselves and had no other place to go.
Exercises of the Pupils of the NY Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb
Sign language is believed to have been in use by different peoples, including Native Americans, for many centuries.