OSHER 525 - Utah State Developmental Center: We've Come a Long Way

The Utah State Training School (USTS), as it was called, gave Utah the distinction of being the 46th state to build an institution for what were termed feeble-minded citizens. This was the moral hygiene period in United States history and many organizations in Utah pushed for an institution. Speakers and petitions these groups circulated declared that every feeble-minded person deserved a facility that would help them become "part of the most complex civilization that the world has seen," according to the editorial The Care of the Feeble-Minded in the February 1929 edition of the LDS Relief Society magazine. Over the years, the training agenda lost out to social and economic issues. Institutions everywhere became warehouses and, regardless of improvements, they kept people from becoming part of that complex civilization noted in the Relief Society article. This session is a trajectory of time in the treatment of people with disabilities and how the Utah State Developmental Center and people in the community are meeting the needs of everyone.