The History of Labels

"Label Jars, Not People"- this slogan is often used by advocacy groups. But why are there labels in the first place? And where did they come from?

Defining Labels

According to the dictionary, a label is a "Slip of paper for attaching to an object," but also a "Short classifying phrase or name applied to persons." When you label someone, you put that person in a group of other people with the same label. The group with the label can become more obvious than the individuals who share the label, and soon the label itself becomes more obvious than the individuals or even the group. Other people don't see the individual, just the label.

Labels have always been used to describe or categorize people but for people labelled as having an intellectual disability, they became especially important (and more common) about two hundred years ago. Before then, people were rarely "officially" labelled as having an intellectual disability, except in court cases (see The Law).

Nicknames and Individuals

Before that, labels were often just like nicknames. If you were tall and skinny and your name was John, you might get called "Long John." If you were large and named Tim, you might get called "Big Tim," or you might be called "Tiny" (because people would find that nickname funny). If you worked as a blacksmith, you might be nicknamed "Blackie", and everybody would call you by that nickname. Your friends might never use your "real" name - they might not even know it. And if you learned slowly and your name was Simon, you might get called "Simple Simon" - just like in the rhyme. But if your favourite colour were green, you might also be nicknamed "Green Simon."

These names are not really labels, because the person is not put into a group. The nickname describes one characteristic, one part, of the person but still lets other people know that there is an individual person behind the name. Also, some of these nicknames had positive sides to them. Terms to describe what is now called intellectual disability included "silly," and "natural" - but "silly" meant "fullness of soul," and "natural" meant that one was less "corrupted" by civilization and was closer to God (see Religion & Folktales). These labels may have been limiting, but they were not completely negative or insulting terms.

Nicknames, Labels and Bureaucracy

Nicknames that everybody would use for someone, and that might last a person's lifetime, became less common in the nineteenth century for many reasons. The main reason was because society became more bureaucratic and there were more records of people being kept. For instance, if everyone went to school and the school board wanted to keep records, they would use proper names rather than nicknames. The same thing would happen if someone was working for a big company (which became more likely in the nineteenth century, during and after the Industrial Revolution; there were not very many big companies before then).

So nicknames became less popular. Instead, because people were being placed into groups for bureaucracies, they were labelled. These labels could be for anything: to show what kind of work you did, what class you belonged to, or even how quickly you learned.

Labels and Groups

Labels are different from nicknames because they put people into groups with names. In the nineteenth century, medical doctors and educators became interested in people who they labelled as "idiots" because they did not seem to learn, or did not learn as quickly. Of course, the doctors and teachers may not have noticed the different ways in which people can learn and express themselves, so the people labelled "idiots" could learn better than others thought at first.

Labels and Funding

Eventually some teachers realized that people labelled "idiots" could learn, and so they set up special institutions to teach them in (See Education). However, it was expensive to get into these institutions, or asylums, and to go there students, whose families were often poor, needed to have extra money. To make sure that only students who really needed special schools were allowed into them, they were tested by teachers or doctors. If the person testing the students thought that the special schools would help them, the student was labelled an "idiot" and sent to the school. Many parents did not send their children to these schools because they did not want them to be labelled "idiots."

These problems have remained important ever since. Often, people who are labelled do need extra help to learn how to do some things or to carry out some jobs. They cannot get the help they need without being labelled - but if they are labelled then often they are not treated as a real person.

Labels and IQ Tests

In the second half of the 1800s, laws were passed in many countries to make sure that all children went to school. However, not everyone fit into the school system very well. Many of the people who did not fit were labelled as "idiots." In France, at the end of the 19th century, Alfred Binet (See Education) made up a test to find out which students would do well in school, and which ones would not. His plan was to help officials to select and teach only those students who would do well. His test was the first IQ (Intelligence Quotient) Test. IQ scores seemed to be scientific (although they are not, as Jane Mercer's writings have shown) and they created a new way that people could be labelled.

Labels And Ideology

"Ideology" refers to the ideas and assumptions that make up the way people see the world. They may not understand the ideology, or they may, but it is there and it shapes their world. Labels are signs of different ideologies, or ways of seeing the world. When in the 1600s some people were called "naturals," the term indicated that they were thought to be a part of the natural world rather than the civilized world, and that they were closer to God (see Religion and Folk Tales).

In 1866, Dr. John Langdon Down, the medical superintendent of Earlswood Asylum, decided that some of the people in the asylum looked like Mongols. He labelled them "mongolian idiots," because he believed they actually were related to Mongolians. He thought that Mongolians had not evolved as far as Englishmen, and that they were an inferior race. When he saw people who looked "Mongolian" to him, he believed that they were regressions to an older, less advanced type of human. The ideology that caused him to label people as "Mongolian" was connected to his belief that the English were the most advanced people in the world. Of course, people Dr. Down labelled as "mongols" are now labelled as having "Down Syndrome."

When Henry Goddard labelled some people "morons" in 1912, he was also acting on a belief that certain ways of living were signs of lower intelligence, and that poor, rural people were not as intelligent as wealthier, city-living people. He was not the only person then (or today) to believe this.

These examples show briefly how labels often reflect the beliefs of the people who are giving the labels. These beliefs often are not just connected to ideas about intelligence, but about many other things - religion, race, or social class, for instance.

Changing Labels

Labels have changed over the years, and no doubt will continue to change. In the 1800s, the labels were "idiots" and "imbeciles." Later, some people in England came up with the term "feeble-minded" to label those people who they thought were especially dangerous because they seemed "normal." In the United States, the label "moron" was used by Goddard to describe the same type of "dangerous" looked "normal" (which is also a label from the 19th century - before then, no-one was called "normal"). What this shows is that labels are often stuck on to people who scare the labellers. Goddard and others were afraid that society would be overrun by people who were not like them. Goddard thought that "morons," although they seemed normal, were more likely to be criminals or sexual deviants - so he labelled them and tried to have their rights taken away.

Other labels have come and gone. "Mentally deficient," "mentally defective," "mentally retarded," and "mentally handicapped" have all been used in the twentieth century. Today, at the start of the twenty-first century, people use labels like "developmentally disabled," "intellectually disabled," "intellectually challenged," "cognitively delayed," and others. Peter Park, of People First of Canada(see Arts: Peter Park Interview), has even said that sometimes he is concerned that the term "self-advocate" is becoming another label.

The phrase, "People with a disability", is a"People First" label because it puts the person before the label. The phrase, "people who have been labelled as having a disability", not only puts the person first, it also points out how labelling works.

The debate about labelling always comes down to two opposing points:

1

Labels harm people because they keep others from seeing the person behind the label, and they limit our belief in what that person can do.

 

2.

Labels are needed because they identify people who need extra help so that these people will be able to get extra services (like community living support, for instance) that they need to survive.

The challenge is to find a way of supporting people without covering their identity with labels.

Other resources

There are many works on labelling. "Labelling Theory," which says that more harm is done to people by labels than by any actual disability, was first developed by the American psychologist Jane Mercer in the 1970s. Since then, there have been a number of other works that debate the usefulness of labels.

Click here for a list of books, articles, web sites and other resources on labelling. (NOTE: UNDER CONSTRUCTION! COMING SOON!)

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