Mentally Handicapped In The 1930's

The Treatment and Lives of the Mentally Handicapped in the 1930’s The 1930’s time period made a great impact on the lives of those who were mentally handicapped. However, this was also the time of the great depression, the most devastating time for people and especially the mentally handicapped. You may ask how they were treated before and after the depression, what was done about their condition, and how their conditions were “treated” or “taken care of”. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the image and lives of the mentally handicapped has changed over a cruel period of time due to the amount of research acquired.
The handicapped have been often mislead because there wasn’t enough information about how their conditions could
The lives of the “normal people” became very difficult although, one can imagine how difficult it was for the mentally handicapped. The shortage of money caused from the great depression lowered the chance for the disabled people to pay for the help or care they needed. During this time, people were very afraid of what was happening and often blamed the handicapped for all of their problems. People would care about their own problems and forget about the disabled, which left them alone with no help. This, however, ties in with John Steinbeck’s, “Of Mice and Men”. Lennie, a mentally disabled being faces a rough time when he gets told multiple time to not do any bad things (Steinbeck). Every time he was left alone, he had no help and ended doing ‘the bad things” even though it was unintentional. If it wasn’t for a major economic crisis, then the disabled would not get blamed for all the trouble. They only got blamed because they were simply considered to be called
This on the other hand was because they did not know a lot about them and their conditions because of a lack of research. Because of the amount of research gained, The Mental Health Act of 1946 gave grants in order to build new treatment facilities and clinics to help the mentally disabled. Because of that, more people learned that the mentally disabled do not affect them in any harmful way intentionally. Discoveries of new technology and the more information we have of the human anatomy helped them evolve since some studies show what can cause mental disabilities (The Treatment of the Mentally Handicapped During the Great Depression). And still to this day they are now being noticed as everyday people and not