History Note
Each month of 2007,
Access Press will feature an important person or persons in disability
history: local, regional or national
Jessie Haskins
Student with disability causes system change
by Luther Granquist
On January 27, 1896, Jessie
Haskins, a student with a disability at Carleton College, wrote
to the editor of the Minnesota Bulletin of Corrections and Charities
stating that “something should be
done to provide schools for deformed and crippled children.” Later that
year she presented a paper, “The Need of an Institution for Crippled and
Deformed Children,” at the Fifth Minnesota Conference of Corrections and
Charities. She argued that “it is best for the state that such children
should be cured whenever possible and educated so that they may be helpful, self-sustaining
members of the state.” After this conference, Hastings Hart, the Executive
Secretary of the Board of Corrections and Charities, suggested that Haskins meet
with Dr. Arthur J. Gillette, an orthopedic surgeon in St. Paul, before the 1897
legislative session. The three worked together to get the legislature to pass
a bill to establish a Minnesota Institute for Crippled and Deformed Children,
which ultimately became Gillette Hospital. ![]()
The book, We Hold This Treasure,
by Dr. Steven Koop, provides details of Haskins’ life and her
aggressive and effective advocacy. This book is included in With
an Eye to the Past on the Minnesota Developmental Disabilities Council
Web site: www.mncdd.org
