Jessica Dang

Molly Nannen

Derek Ruffner

Mental Discrimination in the 1930s

• Individuals with mental illnesses underwent great suffering at the hands of American society

• View as demon-possessed or characterized as senseless animals

• Physical restraints

• Deprived patients of freedom

• Clifford Beers

• Hospitalized in a private connecticut mental institution

• Spent a few years in various institution

• 1908 Changed mental health care forever

• “A Mind that Found Itself” an autobiography

• Had an immediate impact

• Founded the connecticut society for Mental Hygiene.

• Set forth goals

• To improve attitudes towards mental ill

• To improve services for the mentally ill

• To work for the pervention of mental illness and promote mental health

Discrimination Against Physically Handicapped

• Many states discriminated against people with physical disabilities

• Were denied the right to live in communities, the right to vote and the right to receive an education.

Denied Living Rights

• Reports have been discovered that are extremely prejudice against people with disabilities

• Every state in the country passed laws that singled out people with physical disabilities for institutionalization

Denied Living Rights cont.

• Many state governments even required their citizenry to assist them in locating and segregating these citizens

• Some statutes authorized for children with disabilities to be taken from their homes.

Denied Voting Rights

• Many polling places were found physically inaccessible for the handicapped

• People with disabilities have been turned away from the polling places for not looking competent

Denied Equal Education

• Physically handicapped people were denied education due to their physical condition

• Some considered too crippled by school boards to learn

• Others are placed in segregated classes and never learn to write or read

• The first International Congress for Mental Hygiene in the 1930

• 3,042 officially registered participants from 41 countries

• 5 years of participation on congress joint commission on mental illness and mental health

• Improving government mental health service

Gender discrimination in the 1930’s

• A 1930 census found that 24.3% of women were employed

• Most jobs offered to women at that time were domestic or personal service but some became professionals, often a nurse of schoolteacher

Some Famous women of the 1930’s

• 1932 Amelia Earhart’s and her solo Atlantic flight• 1933 Secertary of labor, Frances Perkins

became the 1st female cabinet member• 1933 Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the 1st woman

to head the U.S. mint• 1935 Eleanor Roosevelt begins writing “My Day• 1937 Zora Neale Hurston published Eyes Were

Watching God

Class Discrimination

• The class system in the 1930’s was very much the same as today.

• Everyone’s pocketbook was hurt by the depression

• With less people that could pay taxes the wealthy were taxed much heavier

• Wealthy were angry with FDR helping the poor and ignoring needs of them

• Often angry wealthy people would flaunt their wealth in front of the poor and showed off more than before