SOURCE: "Franklin Roosevelt: Ambiguous Symbol for Disabled Americans," in The Midwest Quarterly, Vol. XXIX, No. 1, Autumn, 1987, pp. 113-35.

In the following essay, Duffy maintains that Roosevelt was not an advocate for disabled Americans, calling this a myth perpetuated by Roosevelt's biographers.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt provides an ambiguous symbol for disabled people. In spite of his work on behalf of Warm Springs, the rehabilitation institute in Georgia he helped to found, Roosevelt, by his failure to act to reduce physical barriers, retarded the social and economic progress of his fellow disabled Americans. Instead of assisting disabled people to overcome the physical barriers and consequently the social prejudices they faced, he hid the reality of his disability and presented himself to the public as a man who was recovering from or who had recovered from an illness, a myth perpetuated by his biographers.

When Roosevelt took office, the nation...