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Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Shangri‐La: foreshadowing the Independent Living Movement in Warm Springs, Georgia, 1926–1945.

Authors :
Holland, Daniel
Source :
Disability & Society; Aug2006, Vol. 21 Issue 5, p513-535, 23p, 10 Black and White Photographs
Publication Year :
2006

Abstract

American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is well known to have disguised and minimized his disability in his role as a political leader. Less well known is the remarkable nature of the colony he established for people with disabilities from polio in Warm Springs, Georgia in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The colony at Warm Springs represents a unique historical community in which disability was not stigmatized; where people with disabilities controlled their own resources and their own lives; and where the medical model of disability was repudiated. As such, the Warm Springs community represents a remarkable period and place in disability history that warrants continued study. New evidence drawn from the archives of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation, the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York and the personal scrapbooks of former residents of the Warm Springs colony provides further support for the theory that FDR’s Warm Springs colony represented an early precursor to the philosophies and values promoted by the Independent Living Movement that emerged 50 years later. The Warm Springs colony offered an unprecedented approach to rehabilitation and independent living for people with disabilities from polio in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and because of this provides an invaluable lesson from history that deserves ongoing attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
09687599
Volume :
21
Issue :
5
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Disability & Society
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
22483070
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/09687590600785993