Author ORCID Identifier:
Date of Graduation
7-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in History (MA)
Degree Level
Graduate
Department
History
Advisor/Mentor
Starks,Tricia
Committee Member
Pierce, Michael
Second Committee Member
Williams, Patrick
Keywords
Black history; Disability; Medicine; Polio; Southern history
Abstract
Most of the work in the field of disability history has centered on the Northeastern part of the United States and regions with large urban centers, therefore, excluding Southern and rural perspectives. This omission is particularly problematic when roughly 79% of the Black population in the United States lived in the South in 1940. The aim of this study is to contribute a Southern perspective to disability studies and Black medical history by tracing the development of services and aid for children with physical disabilities in Arkansas. Employing the frameworks from the social model of disability and Black disability politics, this research reveals racial disparities in access to services for disability, and the implications the polio epidemic Simultaneously, it reveals the contributions of Lena Lowe Jordan, a Black nurse who identified the lack of adequate and accessible care for Black children with physical impairments and sought to mitigate these disparities. Jordan opened and operated the Lena Jordan Home and Hospital for Crippled Negro Children, the only facility in the United States that was dedicated to the service of Black children with physical disabilities from 1932-1938 in Little Rock, AR. Going beyond caregiving, Jordan significantly contributed to Black uplift by offering employment and professionalization opportunities for Black practitioners. Parallel to Jordan’s story is the outbreak of the polio epidemic; a major milestone in disability studies that significantly increased disability visibility and altered the way facilities for children with physical disabilities functioned. Theories polio’s “racial susceptibility” and the establishment of white-only rehabilitation centers--of which President Roosevelt publicly supported--contextualize the experience of Black patients and practitioners in the Southern United States. Federal legislative efforts seeking to expand access to care for disabilities during the polio epidemic, ironically, resulted in the end of the hospital’s specialized services and the relocation of physically impaired patients to other racially segregated facilities in the state.
Citation
Ford, R. (2026). Arkansas’ Crippled Children’s Homes & the Politics of Polio. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/6417
