“Shall the Minnesota constitution be amended to require all voters to present valid photo identification to vote and to require the state to provide free identification to eligible voters, effective July 1, 2013?” As Minnesotans prepare to cast ballots in November on a constitutional amendment that would require voters to produce photo identification at the polling ...
Posts Tagged ‘History Notes’
Lee Perish pioneered theater access, health care
Interpreters at performances are commonplace today, but that wasn’t always the case. People who were deaf or hearing-impaired had to watch shows without interpretation or stay home.
Going to a performance in a wheelchair was also difficult if not impossible. Spaces weren’t set aside for theatergoers. While passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in ...
Christ Child School provided early education option
Thirty-five years ago, a remarkable era of education ended on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Christ Child School for Exceptional Children, which operated in a low-slung, brick building at the southwest corner of Summit and Cleveland avenues, closed its doors. The school was torn down in 2005 to make way for the University of St. ...
Richard Owen – He went from polio patient to pioneering physician
The recent death of Dr. Richard R. Owen reminds us of how polio treatment and the perceptions of those with polio have changed. Owen, an Eden Prairie resident, died Dec. 11 at age 83.
He was a polio survivor who founded the Post-Polio Clinic at Sister Kenny Institute in Minneapolis. He practiced in many area hospitals ...
Babies benefitted greatly from one doctor’s research
In October the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the Minnesota Department of Health could not retain blood samples from the newborn baby screening program indefinitely or provide them to other researchers without consent from a baby’s parents. This ruling, however, did not affect the newborn screening requirement itself. This program was established in 1965 after ...
The little girl and the Great Communicator, years later
Thirty years ago, on Nov. 10, 1981, President Ronald Reagan told a story about an Iowa girl story at a press conference. “We just recently received word of a little girl who has spent most of her life in a hospital. The doctors are of the opinion that if she could be sent home and ...
Pink Deafies provide support during cancer battles
Fresh off of its showing at the Twin Cities Film Festival, Signing On: Stories of Deaf Breast Cancer Survivors, Their Families and the Deaf Community will be shown on Twin Cities Public Television this month. Director Barbara Allen’s documentary shares the store of a group of deaf breast cancer survivors who are known as the ...
Minnesota: Budget balancing or a lack of due process? -A historical perspective on past state impasses
During the government shutdown in July, Ramsey County District Court Judge Kathleen Gearin ruled that certain government functions must be provided and paid for even though the Minnesota Legislature and the governor had not agreed on an appropriation act. Years earlier, in a different context, U.S. District Judge Earl Larson issued a similar order in ...
Acting together is necessary
In 1995 Gov. Arne Carlson’s administration proposed to scale back the Tax Equity & Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) program and to decimate personal care attendant (PCA) services. Dozens of persons with disabilities and their friends and family members, including the newly formed Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, spoke out at the capitol and ...
Sound the Trumpets – Bringing those barriers down
The Minnesota Society for Crippled Children and Adults persuaded the 1963 Minnesota Legislature to pass, unanimously, a requirement that new buildings paid for by the state be accessible to persons with disabilities. This new law directed the state fire marshal to write rules for stated-funded construction that were consistent with the 1961 American Standard Association ...
Fight for Human Rights was lengthy
The Minnesota House, in 1973, had approved a bill supported by Handi-Registration, a self-advocacy group seeking to protect the civil rights of persons with disabilities. The bill expanded coverage for persons with disabilities in all areas covered by the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The Senate, however, refused to extend coverage in public services to persons ...
Treatment of men was unspeakably cruel, painful
Editor’s note: The topic of this month’s History Note, while important in the context of past treatment of people with disabilities in state institutions, may be offensive to some readers.
Dr. Samuel Shantz, the first superintendent of Minnesota’s Hospital for the Insane at St. Peter, thanked God in his report to the Board of Trustees ...
Conscientious objectors, media exposés, and institutional reform brought change for many
Editor’s note: Access Press uses its 20th anniversary issue history note to salute others who have used the news media to call for change.
During World War II, more than 3,000 conscientious objectors (COs) worked without pay in Civilian Public Service units established in 43 state mental hospitals and 15 state training schools, none of which ...
Restraints were just plain wrong back then, too
[caption id="attachment_1892" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Minnesota State reformatory -1933"][/caption]
METO, the Minnesota Extended Treatment Option at Cambridge, opened in 1999 to serve persons with developmental disabilities who present a risk to public safety. Last September, the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities documented excessive use of restraints at the program in a report, Just Plain Wrong. ...
Lobotomies were ‘suitable’ treatment
In 1949, a neurosurgeon from the Mayo Clinic and the Superintendent of Rochester State Hospital wrote that prefrontal lobotomy was generally recognized as a suitable treatment of certain types of mental illness when more conservative measures failed to produce permanent results. A prefrontal lobotomy involved cutting nerve fibers of the frontal lobe of the brain, ...
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