“Ronald Reagan, Frank Lanterman, and the Shape(ing) of Deinstitutionalization in California”
This presentation is based on the last chapter of my book manuscript, California and the Politics of Disability, 1870-1970. In it I look at how the election of Ronald Reagan as governor in 1966 threw a curve ball into California’s plans for deinstitutionalizing the population of state hospitals in the 1960s. I focus on the political wrangling that took place at every level of government (local, county, and state) involved in the decision-making process in California about when, how, and why to close the majority of state institutions for the disabled and yet still provide at least some level of care. I also examine how the state’s original plans (embodied in State Assemblyman Frank Lanterman, who had led the charge in state government for a shift towards community care since the 1950s) were quickly subverted and altered by the arrival of a new conservative ethos in the form of Reagan’s gubernatorial administration, with lasting consequences for Californians with disabilities.
Eileen V. Wallis is a Professor of History at California State Polytechnic, Pomona. She specializes in gender history, the American West and California, public history, and disability history. She is the author of Earning Power: Women and Work in Los Angeles, 1880-1930 and of numerous scholarly articles on the history of California and the American West. Her current book project, “California and the Politics of Disability, 1850-1970,” uses Los Angeles County as a case study to understand how the interplay between state and county governments shaped the lived experiences of Californians deemed “mentally disordered” from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
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