Theses Doctoral

Disability and (In)dependence in the Rehabilitation Age: A History of the Functional Model of Disability, 1935-1970

Meister, Kristen

Using archival and historical sources, this dissertation explores the development of a broad, inter-impairment disability movement and the functional model of disability within the post-World War II medical rehabilitation movement and the development of the welfare state in the United States.

This dissertation highlights how disabled people, federal administrators, non-governmental organizations, and rehabilitation physicians and researchers bolstered support for medical rehabilitation while the nascent specialty struggled for professional recognition. By examining the ideological interconnectedness of eugenics and rehabilitation, this study documents the limitations of the rehabilitation approach to disability while demonstrating how rehabilitation replaced eugenics as the primary site of disability research and statistics. Highlighting the work of Maya Rivière, a disabled feminist, Sociomedical Scientist, and rehabilitation expert, this study reveals how disabled people actively shaped rehabilitation and independent living ideology from the 1940s to the 1960s.

The second half of this study analyzes the Rehabilitation Codes project that developed the functional model of disability and became the basis of the World Health Organization’s experimental statistical classification, the International Classification of Impairment, Disability, and Handicap, published in 1980. By defining terms such as “impairment,” “disability,” and “handicap,” the functional model advanced by the Rehabilitation Codes attempted to combat the stigma of disability and bolster rehabilitation and employment opportunities available to disabled people by accounting for prejudice against disabled people and their physical and mental capabilities.

This dissertation argues that the functional model facilitated a more humane disability evaluation process, expanded the field of disability research, and provided the theoretical foundation for a broad, inter-disability rights movement, but it also institutionalized long-standing intra-disability hierarchies. Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates that the functional model of disability, like the concept of disability itself, is context-specific and has evolved across time and space and in response to historical circumstances and socio-cultural norms.

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More About This Work

Academic Units
Sociomedical Sciences
Thesis Advisors
Rosner, David K.
Degree
Ph.D., Columbia University
Published Here
January 29, 2025