Exhibit: March 2025—December 2025 (Full year)
Following national trends of institutionalization and separation, the State of Montana began offering specialized education for the deaf, blind, and “feeble-minded” at the State School at Boulder and supported the opening of the Warm Springs Infirmary & Invalid Hospital (now the Montana State Hospital).
But while these institutions attempted to help Montanans with certain disabilities, local efforts took a different approach. Starting with the St. Vincent Orthopedic Hospital and Dr. Louis Allard, programs in Billings began leading the nation in services and integration. Then, as today, the history of people living with disabilities is about civil and human rights.
As federal legislation, such as the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, and ADA Amendments Act of 2008, provided significant legal achievements for prohibiting discrimination of people with disabilities, many programs in Billings and Montana were working to accomplish these feats as early as the 1940s.
The disability rights movement continues today. In the exhibit, you’ll hear accounts from those who experience life with a disability and learn the stories of local advocates who worked to improve the lives of those living with disabilities.
