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History of the Blind in California
The English poor relief system, transported to America by the Colonists, was based on the Elizabethan Poor Laws enacted in 1572 and 1601 These old Poor Laws were enacted and administered with two objectives in view, the prevention of actual starvation and a “grim intent to deter vagabondage and dependency through punitive measures.”
The latter of the two objectives was stressed by the overseers of the poor, the theory being that if relief were made sufficiently disagreeable to the recipient, he would, somehow, cease to remain a public charge. The many shameful devices used in caring for the poor led Blackstone in his celebrated Commentaries, to speak about the, “miserable shifts and lame expedients” used in caring for disadvantaged persons. The blind were, of course, part of “the poor.”
The breakup of the old poor laws was gradually brought about by the withdraw of various groups of persons from the category of “the poor,” and the establishment of a series of public assistance programs enacted to provide more adequate care to these groups of individuals, such as dependent children, the aged and the blind. Thus, the rise in special categories was attributable directly to the revulsion of the general public against the harshness of the old poor laws.
As early as 1830 Indiana enacted a measure “to provide for the support of the indigent blind of this State.” Four other states—Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts and Wisconsin—passed similar laws between 1830 and 1909. Six more states enacted this field of legislation by 1920, and eleven additional states by 1930. By 1935, when the Social Security Act became law, some twenty-seven states already had enacted special programs of public assistance for their state’s needy blind residents. Today all states have such programs.
This cursory glance at the history of public assistance for the blind indicates the problem of making special economic provisions, of one kind or another, for sightless persons was recognized, if not adequately solved, by many proceeding generations. But it remained for the State of California to raise public assistance for the blind to perhaps its highest level which has yet been attained—A level which provides not only for the mere relief of poverty but which permits the individual to develop his potentialities toward the end of living a reasonably satisfying life.