Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium

Honoring the historic struggle of Western Pennsylvanians with disabilities to attain human and civil rights.

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Using Disability History to Ensure Disability Rights

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Featured Project: Voices of Change

Kate Bayer, special education teacher, Polk State Center, early 1970s

Voices of Change, Uncovering Stories of the Western Pennsylvania Disability Movement
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As a graduate student in special education at Pennsylvania’s Clarion University in the early 1970s, Kate Bayer spent nine months teaching school-age children at Polk State Center, an institution for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Venango County.

Her assignment to Polk Center followed the 1972 Pennsylvania judicial decree which guaranteed–for the first time–the “Right to Education” for children with disabilities.

At Polk, Kate witnessed treatment she considered inhumane. Committed to making sure that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities were treated with dignity and respect, Kate went on to work in a community-based disability services agency for 28 years. She began as a direct care professional and retired as Director of Development and Marketing.

Kate’s account of teaching at Polk State Center, her observations about the treatment of residents, and her life-long commitment to people with disabilities is part of Western Pennsylvania history. Kate, a long-time resident of the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, passed away in March 2021 at the age of 70.

Download the transcript of Kate Bayer, Special Education Teacher, Polk State Center, early 1970s, video.

View other Voices of Change videos.

Preserve and Share

The Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium preserves and shares the historic struggle of Western Pennsylvanians with disabilities to attain human and civil rights.

Educate

We educate the public about disability history in order to improve community access, participation and equal opportunity, and to ensure disability rights through existing and new policies and laws.

Advocate

We join stakeholders across Pennsylvania to advocate on policies that ensure the civil rights of people with disabilities.

Western Pennsylvania has played a significant role in the history of disability rights. From Arc Allegheny’s efforts in the 1970s to expose abusive conditions in state institutions to Allegheny County’s development of the first paratransit system in the nation in the 1980s, Western Pennsylvania has taken a stand.

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Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium
412-204-7199 / [email protected]

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The Consortium is an affiliate of Senator John Heinz History Center that works in coordination with multiple disability organizations and advocates in Western PA. In cooperation with ACHIEVA and the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University.

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Using Disability History to Ensure Disability Rights