Blazing Trails

Samuel G. Howe

It will come as no surprise that many Unitarian Universalists have been instrumental throughout history in advancing the cause of people with varying abilities. Some of the names are better known: Dorothea Dix and Samuel G. Howe who, among other accomplishments, established the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston and was recognized as the country’s leading expert on the subject.  Others are lesser known, but no less important in raising consciousness, improving services, and gaining greater acceptance of people with disabilities in society.

While some of his techniques may have been suspect (he was a great proponent of bloodletting to cure ills, for example), Benjamin Rush was a pioneer in the study and treatment of mental illness.  Rebuffed when he protested the inhuman treatment of people with mental illness at Pennsylvania Hospital, he obtained state funding to create a ward for the “insane” at that facility and began a practice that revolutionized the way we think of people with mental illness.  In 1812, he wrote the book Medical Inquiries and Observations, Upon the Diseases of the Mind, which was a standard reference for seventy years and earned him the title of “the father of American psychiatry.”

Dr. Martha May Eliot was a leader in the development of health services for mothers and children.  While on staff at the Department of Pediatrics at Yale, Dr. Eliot helped to develop the Division of Child Hygiene and collaborated in the drafting of the first Maternity and Infancy Act which required states to extend and improve services for mothers and children and for “handicapped” children.  In her report to Congress in the mid-1950’s, Dr. Eliot identified children with mental retardation as a program priority.  Largely through her initiatives, by 1955, services for people with mental retardation were a priority within the federal government.  Since 1964, the American Public Health Association has awarded the Martha May Eliot Award to deserving individuals who have provided extraordinary health services to mothers and children.

T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. has a long and distinguished history in the field of primary care pediatrics and child psychiatry.  An author of more than 200 scientific papers and chapters, Dr. Brazelton has been influential in advocating the importance of early intervention to at-risk infants and their families.  Among other honors, he was appointed in 1989 to the National Commission on Children by the U.S. Congress, where he advocated for better services to disadvantaged children.  His Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale is used worldwide to assess the physical and neurological responses of newborns as well as their emotional well-being and individual differences.

These are just a few of the stories of Unitarian Universalists living out our faith in word and in deed…and helping to make the world a better place for people of all abilities.