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doi: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2000.00040.xpmid: N/A
Summary The present article explores the relationship of gender and learning disabilities in early‐ and mid‐nineteenth‐century literary representations of people with learning disabilities. Literary texts are useful historical documents because these often foreground how learning disabilities worked symbolically in a social context and enable us to examine the ideological forces shaping notions of learning disabilities. The images explored in the present study suggest some common cultural themes. Men with learning disabilities were understood as being diminished, somehow lacking an essential component of masculine identity. Women, on the other hand, were often reduced to the essential, yet disruptive element of feminine sexuality, or later in the century, were conceived as deviant from the feminine norm in their carnality.
doi: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2000.00043.xpmid: N/A
Summary In terms of the history of education, most people think that 1870 saw the beginning of universal elementary education in the UK, yet few consider what provision was made for those with learning disabilities. The present paper seeks to throw light on the provision made by one authority in London, the Metropolitan Asylums Board. Prior to the establishment of the schools at Darenth in 1878, later known as Darenth Park, the Board established a school in Hampstead, and later, at Clapton for pauper children with learning disabilities. Equipped with classrooms and teachers, these were the first such schools to be funded by rates, as opposed to charitable giving. The present study will reveal that there was, in fact, a strong link with the School Board for London and that certain individuals, frustrated by constraints put on them by one authority, used their considerable skills to make provision through other routes. It was not until the 1970 Education Act that all children became entitled to education in the UK, but the example of the Hampstead and Clapton Schools reveal that attempts were being made 100 years earlier to provide rate‐funded education for children with learning disabilities. It might be regarded as a tragedy that philosophies in the intervening years did not reflect the optimism which policy makers in London held in the 1870s
doi: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2000.00039.xpmid: N/A
Summary The late nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century campaign for the treatment of ‘inebriates’ used many of the themes used by campaigners for the care of the ‘feeble‐minded’. The inebriate reformatories admitted mainly women, and their low rate of success was blamed on the inmates being ‘mental defectives’, rather than a result of the methods used. When the reformatories closed, these were reused as institutions under the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. Having been missionaries, the Reverend H. N. Burden and his wives managed inebriate reformatories and then switched to running colonies for ‘mental defectives’. The present article examines some of the links between the two movements.
doi: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2000.00042.xpmid: N/A
Summary The present paper examines how women were targeted for sexual regulation and treated as ‘mental defectives’ under early‐twentieth‐century legislation, depriving them of citizenship. It also looks at factors which determined whether they continued to be detained in institutions or were ‘released’ into the community.
doi: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2000.00041.xpmid: N/A
Summary The present paper explores gender differences in the management of mental deficiency institutions. It suggests that women played a particularly significant part in the management of some of the earliest institutions, and had a significant influence from the nineteenth century until well into the twentieth century. In addition, this study addresses the particular contribution of Miss S. Margaret MacDowall (1862–1930). Miss MacDowall's work demonstrates that teaching regimes and conditions in some types of smaller institutions run by women compare favourably to larger institutions run by men. The present paper further suggests that small institutions run by women during the Mental Deficiency Acts are worthy of more detailed study because these provide a continuity between nineteenth‐century pedagogic traditions and modern forms of community‐based residential care, and can offer useful ideas for developing residential care in the future.
doi: 10.1046/j.1468-3156.2000.00044.xpmid: N/A
Summary The present paper discusses the history of learning disability nursing in the context of its development within the nursing profession and its relationship with people with learning disabilities. The study provides a brief sketch of the development of learning disability nursing as a discrete branch of the nursing profession before exploring its history in the light of theories of marginalization and stigma. Although the present author recognizes the profound differences between the history of people with learning disabilities and those paid to care for them, he seeks to establish some common ground on the basis of parallel stigma.
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