Picnics, Parties, and Rights: U.S. Disability Activism, 1940–60

In 1942, a group of disability activists, with strong ties to organized labor, founded the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped (AFPH) to improve the economic and social lot of disabled Americans. The AFPH argued that people with disabilities should have a prominent role in shaping the policy that would in turn shape their lives. As a new and vibrant social movement, the AFPH pulled thousands of disabled citizens into the national political arena. AFPH activists petitioned Congress and appealed to the President, leading government officials, and the public at large. In doing so, disability activists in the AFPH sought to redefine what it meant to be a disabled citizen, rejecting the passive support that their legal and social status as dependents gave them, instead claiming rights, particularly the right to work.

 On the local level, however, AFPH activism had a decidedly different tone. There, members used the AFPH to create a separate social space where they performed the very roles from which broader society had excluded them. Members hosted picnics and parties. They held dances, banquets, and athletic competitions. The activities of local lodges reflected members’ struggle to lay claim to the rights of citizenship and gain access to social normalcy.  By creating a separate space for disabled people to enjoy these activities, AFPH members both staked a claim for their right to participate in society and rejected the notion that people with disabilities were not only physically handicapped but also socially handicapped. 

This paper explores the relationship between national activism and local community building. On the surface, these two sites and agendas of activism might seem contradictory, but implicit in both of these agendas was a rejection of a stigmatizing dependency that defined disability in the minds of many Americans.