Elizabeth Boggs: Evolution

Institutions at the End of WWII

It was a year of de-mobilization around the world, servicemen returning home and resuming their lives, shifts in the economy — from a war economy to a peace economy, and in this country, and others, a significant rise in the birth rate. The new wave of children, the Baby Boom, as it turned out, lasted almost 15 years in this country. Where children's services were concerned, education and other services, this meant an increase in demand on an infrastructure that had already been very seriously eroded as a result of fifteen years of depression and a war.

Institutions — Deficit in Resources

The schools, the health facilities, the residential facilities for children and adults with retardation were not at all prepared for the new onslaught. There were at least proportionally, as many children with retardation in the new larger child populations than there had been in previous times, and probably rather more, because the year 1945 was a year in which many of the antibiotics had been developed in the early 40s and had been restricted to military use became available for civilians.