This learning activity uses mostly Chronicling America news articles from the 1940s and 1950s to learn about the National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. This initiative was started in 1945 under President Truman and later expanded into a National Disability Employment Awareness Month in 1988 (a brief overview can be found here). This initiative came out of a broader employment lobbying effort by the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped, which was founded in 1940 by Paul Strachan. This organization was notable for being one of the earliest organizations to bring people with different disabilities together to work towards common goals.

*Note: Before starting this exercise, discuss respectful language and historical terms. Although the term “handicapped” is part of the initiative’s name, students should be made aware that the term today is considered out-of-date and offensive to some people (this also applies to the use of the term “Negro” in the testimony by Alice Dunnigan). You may choose to discuss with students why the term  in the initiative's name changed from “physically handicapped” to “disabilities” in 1988.

Consider starting with the Observe, Reflect, Question approach to analyze the newspaper articles.

Potential Discussion Questions

1. What was the purpose of the National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week?
2. In what ways was this National Week a consequence of World War II? Provide specific examples from the Proclamation.
3. What were some of the strategies used to employ more physically disabled people?
   • Did they focus on changing the disabled person or the place of employment/the job?
     • (This is one place to consider discussing the medical/rehabilitation model of disability versus the social model of disability. You can find a helpful explanation of the models here.)
4. What were some of the limitations of this National Week? In other words, what continued to act as barriers to employment for disabled Americans? What about disabled Black Americans specifically?

Additional activities

1. Students can research additional articles about the yearly event in Chronicling America. The phrase “National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week” provides hundreds of results from 1945 to 1963.
2. Ask students to compare the language in the 1947 Proclamation for Employ the Physically Handicapped Week to Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (included in the album “Modern Legislation for Disabled Workers & Their Impacts”)
   1. Hopefully they notice how the language shifts from a recommendation to a legal requirement

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This source set can be put into conversation with:

-sources on disabled World War II workers (see album)

-general lessons on the postwar period (specifically the impact of World War II on fights for greater inclusion)

-broader discussions about identity building (the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped, being a cross-disability organization, was important to the development of a broader disabled identity)