TEXT-ONLY TIMELINE

Plays (P) Society/Legislation (S/L) Healthcare/Treatment (H/T)

400s BCE (H/T)

Hysteria (Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician, developed the term “hysteria,” a supposed disease
caused by the uterus)

Humor Theory (Hippocrates also utilized medical theory based on four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) an imbalance of which was thought to cause physical and mental illness)

191 BCE (P)

Pseudolus by Plautus (Ancient Roman comedy)

1100s–1500s (S/L)

Feast of Fools (A traditional celebration around Christmas in which class and power was subverted, as seen in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in which Quasimodo, a disabled man, is crowned the King of Fools)

1200s–1600s (S/L)

Real Jesters (Many of the fools employed by royal courts as entertainers had physical or mental disabilities. They were laughed at for their ‘abnormality’. A similar idea of ‘entertainment’ can be seen in Freak Shows from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.)

1600s (S/L)

Isolation (In Europe, mentally ill people were isolated and housed with those with physical disabilities in inhumane
conditions, often chained to walls.)

1605 (P)

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (English Renaissance comedy)

King Lear by William Shakespeare (English Renaissance tragedy)

1614 (P)

Bartholomew Fair by Ben Johnson (Jacobean comedy)

1660 (P)

The Imaginary Cuckold by Moliere (French
one-act comedy)

1746 (P)

A Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni (Commedia dell’arte piece)

1840s (H/T)

Rise of Hospitals (In response to cruel treatment of the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix advocated for the foundation of state hospitals. By the end of the century, however, these hospitals proved ineffective and became overcrowded.)

1886 (S/L)

Elizabeth Ware Packard, a former mental hospital patient
and founder of Anti-Insane Asylum Society, began publishing a series of books critiquing psychiatry. She challenged diagnostic practices that treated people as insane for expressing their opinions even if they appeared absurd as well as the subordination of women to their husbands—as her husband committed her for disagreeing with him.

1887 (H/T)

10 Days in a Madhouse (Nellie Bly published an
expose about the cruel treatment of patients at a
New York asylum)

1890 (S/L)

Van Gogh (Painter Vincent Van Gogh died by suicide and gained fame as an artist only after his death becoming one of the first examples of the ‘tortured artist’. One of his nicknames was “the red-headed fool”.)

1891 (P)

Hedda Gabler by Ibsen (Norwegian realism play)

1892 (S/L)

“The Yellow Wallpaper” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story illustrates the dangers of the “rest cure” for hysteria, a catch-all diagnosis for disapproved behaviors in women. It was removed from the DSM in 1980)

1896 (P)

The Seagull by Anton Chekov (Russian genre-defying realism play)

1901 (H/T)

Psychopathy of Everyday Life (Sigmund Freud, founder
of psychoanalysis, published a book about his findings
regarding psychology)

1927 (S/L)

Buck v. Bell (A Supreme Court case regarding the forced
sterilization of a young woman who was raped and became pregnant on the basis that she was believed to have an intellectual disability. The case was supported by Louis D. Brandeis and gave legal precedent for eugenics based on disability. American eugenics influenced
Nazi policy.)

1930s (H/T)

Medical Treatment (Often dangerous medical
treatments including surgery, induced medical reactions, electrotherapy, lobotomies, and drugs were used to treat patients with mental illness)

1941 (P)

Lady in the Dark by Moss Hart (Playwright), Ira Gershwin
(Lyricist) and Moss Hart (Composer); (American musical
about psychological treatment)

1941 (H/T)

Rosemary Kennedy’s Lobotomy (Rosemary Kennedy underwent a lobotomy to “cure” her learning disability and mood swings which permanently incapacitated her. Her brother, President JFK went on to sign the Community Mental Health Act in 1963)

1943 (S/L)

Barden-Lafollette Act (Expanded eligibility for vocational
rehabilitation services to those with mental disabilities)

1946 (S/L)

National Mental Health Act (established the
National Institute of Mental Health to conduct
health-related research)

1947 (P)

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (American realism play)

1948 (P)

The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht (German epic play told through smaller stories)

1950s (H/T)

Anti-Psychotic Drugs (Drugs were developed which treat the symptoms of psychosis)

1952 (H/T)

DSM-I (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders is a “classification of mental disorders with associated criteria” created by the American Psychiatric Association. Since then, it’s been revised and is now on the 5th edition.)

1952 (H/T)

1953 (P)

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (French tragicomedy)

1962 (S/L)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey’s novel focuses on mental illness and mental hospitals)

1966 (P)

Sweet Charity by Neil Simon (Playwright), Dorothy Fields
(Lyricist) and Cy Coleman(Composer), (An American musical comedy adapted from an Italian film commonly performed with a ‘Fosse flair’)

1969 (P)

Mistero Buffo by Dario Fo (Italian vignette play centering
Christian themes and challenging Capitalism)

1972 (S/L)

Supplemental Security Income (Social Security Act expanded to include those with disabilities)

1975 (S/L)

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Requires public schools to provide appropriate and free education to children with disabilities)

1978 (S/L)

IJudith Chamberlin publishes On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System after her own confinement to a psychiatric hospital in the 60s. The book became a foundational text for the Mad Pride Movement in which activists seek to re-educate the general public on such subjects as the causes of mental disabilities, the experiences of those using the mental health system, and the global suicide pandemic.

1990 (S/L)

Americans with Disabilities Act (Prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in regards to government service and public accommodations, jobs/employment, telecommunications, and transportation)

1993 (P)

The Last Yankee by Arthur Miller (American straight play about mental illness and treatment)

1998 (P)

Full Circle by Charles Mae (An adaptation of Caucasian Chalk Circle set in East Berlin instead of Soviet Russia)

2000 (P)

Psychosis by Sarah Kane (An abstract play about suicidal ideation and mental health treatment written shortly before the playwright’s suicide)

Proof by David Auburn (Pulitzer Prize-winning play about grief and inherited mental illness)

2003 (S/L)

Mad Pride hunger strike (6 psychiatric survivors gathered in Pasadena, CA in defense of human rights and choice in psychiatry, claiming psychiatry relies too heavily on medicating mental illness as opposed to providing treatment options wholistically. They demanded the APA, creators of the DSM, provide biological evidence for mental illness as they claimed to have in which the APA, finally, admitted to having none.)

2004 (S/L)

Out of Darkness Walk (The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention created an annual fundraiser walk to raise money for the prevention of suicide which had been steadily increasing)

2009 (S/L)

Disability Employment Statistics (US Department of Labor
Statistics began collecting data on employment statistics of people with disabilities)

2013 (P)

Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan McMillian
(A traditionallyone-person play about depression
from a child’s perspective)

Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (A one-woman play about the recent tragedies in the narrator’s life)

Stupid Fucking Bird by Aaron Posner (An adaptation
of Checkov’s The Seagull which rejects the
character’s suicide)

2015 (P)

People Places and Things by Duncan McMillian (A play centering drug addiction, depression and recovery)

2017 (P)

Incendiary by Adam Szymkowicz (A play surrounding pyromania, therapy, and love)

MODELS

Morality Model (Roughly BCE to 1600s)
The belief that an individual is morally responsible for their disability or that it is a punishment for something they did. Additionally, there was a belief that people with disabilities either held special powers (ie. blind people are ‘wise’) or that they are possessed by the devil/guilty of witchcraft.

How is this seen today?
In media, people with disabilities are often portrayed as having special powers. For example, in Game of Thrones the character Bran, who uses a wheelchair, can also look into the past.

Charity Model (Roughly 1600s to 1800s)
The belief that society is morally responsible for people with disabilities and that it is a charitable act to help them.

How is this seen today?
For a long time, the organization Autism Speaks held the belief that people with Autism are in need of neurotypical people to ‘show them the way in life’.

Medical Model (Roughly 1700s to 1970s)
The belief that disabilities should be cured with a focus on what is wrong with the individual rather than how society could be more accessible.

How is this seen today?
Society often ignores the fact that there are positives to having disabilities. Instead of joining the conversation of disability culture, society pities people with disabilities for having ‘lost’ a function that is considered ‘normal’.

Social Model (Roughly 1970s to Present)
The belief that disabilities are only disabling because of the way society lacks accommodations and inclusivity. For example, if there were ramps and elevators everywhere rather than only stairs, many would
not be considered ‘disabled’.

How is this seen today?
The Human Rights Model built off of the Social Model, adding in economic, political, and cultural perspective. Now, it is not only society responsible for inclusion but the government as well to enforce this inclusion—as seen through the Americans with Disabilities Act. While accessibility, equality, and inclusion today have not been fully achieved for the disability community, it is thanks to this change in thinking and to disability activists that
we are better off today than we were before!