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The Care, Cure, And Education Of The Crippled Child

Creator: Henry Edward Abt (author)
Date: 1924
Publisher: International Society for Crippled Children
Source: Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 1  Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4  Figure 5  Figure 6  Figure 7

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The Association for Crippled and Disabled, in Cleveland, Ohio, which in 1918 merged with the Sunbeam Association,-2- conducts an Orthopedic Center, at which is located a branch of the Civilian Rehabilitation Service, The Sunbeam Shop, a salesroom for products made by the clients of the organization, the Sunbeam Training School and Workroom, a Home Industries Department, a Physiotherapy Department, a brace shop, and the headquarters of the following committees: The Committee on the Welfare of Cripples in Institutions, the Social Service Department, the Committee on Co-operation with the Public Schools, the Cleveland Chapter of the American Physiotherapy Association, and the Orthopedic Council, which furnishes professional advice whenever needed.

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-2- Formerly the Sunbeam Circle. Name changed in 1916.

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An example of a local organization giving limited attention to the problem of the crippled child, is that of the Philadelphia North American. During the unusually hot summer of 1901, this paper opened a cottage on the beach at Atlantic City, New Jersey, for those children who ordinarily participated in its outings in Fairmont Park, but who were too weak to make the trip. A member of the editorial staff, feeling a keen sympathy for these little ones, held a party on his porch and charged for ice cream and lemonade. The proceeds were donated to the Outing Fund. The event was given some publicity, and soon "porch parties" became a city-wide fad. By the end of the summer, enough money had been received to open the North American Sanitarium in Ventnor, a suburb of Atlantic City. This institution eventually became an all-year-round "surgical" tuberculosis sanatorium for children, in which form it exists today.

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An example of a temporarily interested organization is the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association. Wishing to commemorate the name of their great poet, the people of Indiana organized this corporation, which, in addition to receiving state aid, is raising funds by subscription to build a $2,000,000 children's hospital adjacent to the Robert W. Long Hospital, in Indianapolis. This institution will have a large orthopedic service.

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Temporary organizations have at times been created to conduct surveys of cripples. Three of these surveys, the first held in Birmingham, England, in 1911; the second in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1916; and the third in New York City in 1919, have received international recognition. A fourth was undertaken by the Child Welfare Council of Toronto, Canada, in 1923. In addition to many lesser surveys, conducted more or less comprehensively by interested groups in smaller cities, an extensive investigation, which promises to be very significant to the entire movement, is now in progress in Chicago.

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Except for a census of the maimed and crippled, completed in Massachusetts in 1905, the Birmingham survey was the first investigation of this type ever conducted. The Massachusetts census merely attempted to ascertain the number of handicapped, whereas the British investigation arrived at some definite conclusions regarding causative diseases, availability of facilities, and ratio of cripples to population. It was conducted by a special Subcommittee of Inquiry, working under the central Birmingham Education Committee, and was a model for the work conducted in Cleveland, five years later.

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The Welfare Federation of Cleveland appointed a special Committee on Cripples, in 1915, to survey conditions in that city. The work was assisted financially by the Sunbeam Association, which also co-operated with active service. A house-to-house canvass, and visits to 150,000 families located 4,186 physically handicapped persons, of which 49 % had been disabled in chldhood.-1-

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-1- Education and Occupations of Cripples, Juvenile and Adult. A Survey of All the Cripples of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1916, published in N.Y. City, 1918.

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On April 4, 1919, as a result of the efforts of the New York Committee on After-Care of Infantile Paralysis Cases, representatives of forty-one organizations, associations, and hospitals, appointed a Special Committee on Survey of Cripples, which undertook to survey six typical districts of the city. It was found that full information could be acquired only by questioning domestic servants and janitors, in addition to the families in each home. Relatives were hesitant about disclosing the fact that one of their number was handicapped physically. This fact probably explains why so many local and less carefully conducted surveys show only a comparatively small number of cripples per thousand population.

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Canvassers in this survey were instructed to make as little use of the word "cripple" as possible. They were to state the purpose of their visit in other terms, make sure that the family visited understood that they were giving no financial assistance, promise that all information was to be confidential, credit no information from children, avoid using children as interpreters if possible, make note if persons interviewed were of extremely low grade mentally, become familiar with charitable organizations in the district, in order to be able to consult these for further information, and fill out cards with the following information concerning each case: -1-

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