Founders

The Connecticut Occupational Therapy Association defines occupational therapy (OT) as a scientific, evidence-based “skilled treatment that helps individuals achieve independence in all facets of their lives.” And while occupational therapy is thought of primarily as a profession involving physical engagement, the creative career field has strong roots in the mind-body connection, having originated alongside the mental health movement in the early 20th century.

In 1916, Herbert J. Hall, M.D. described the methods of treatment for nervous disorders in his sanatorium as “handicrafts for the handicapped.” He once advised, “Idleness too long continued is as deadening to the spirit as it is disabling to the body.” And through his work cure theory, the medical doctor used arts and crafts to improve his patients’ self-esteem and employment potential (AOTA, 2017).

Wounds of war form a new field of work

Occupational therapy was established during World War I, and even in its earliest stages, included mental health initiatives. Towards the conclusion of the war, when so many American soldiers were coming home with panicked mindsets (a condition later coined “shell shocked”), the United States War Department employed reconstruction aids (RA) to assist wounded and worrisome soldiers in their recovery.

These RAs were civilian women who served in military hospitals, at home, and abroad to help reconstruct the realities of the lives the soldiers had known before becoming disabled. Occupational therapy RAs taught crafts and vocational skills to distract the injured while increasing their productivity and morale.

Commanding officers were often resistant to having women in military camps assisting in the advancement of anguished soldiers. When an army captain asked RA Ora Ruggles how she would help “wrecks [of soldiers] like these,” she brought to life the lessons of occupational therapy in her response. “Finding and teaching occupations will take their minds off of their misfortunes,” she replied. “It’s not enough to give a patient something to do with their hands, you must reach for the heart as well as the hands. It’s the heart that really does the healing” (AOTA, 2017).

Pioneers that propelled the OT profession

The same year, the National Society for Promotion of Occupational Therapy was founded. Initiated with innovation, the society had six gender-equal members, three men and three women — unheard of at a time when American women did not yet have the right to vote.

Former architect George Edward Barton started the Society. After spending more than a year in a sanatorium, he opened the Consolation House in New York to rehabilitate himself and others. Barton’s secretary Isabel Newton was another founding member.

The third founder was psychiatrist Dr. William Rush Denton, who embraced occupational therapy at the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore. He was known for intertwining occupational treatment with mental health techniques and was quoted as saying, “Sick minds, sick bodies, and sick souls may be healed through occupation” (AOTA, 2017).

Eleanor Clarke Slagle, the director of the occupational therapy department at Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins, was another founder. In Chicago, she established the Henry B. Favill School of Occupations, the first professional training school for occupational therapists. The Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lectureship Award remains one of the highest occupational therapy recognitions.

Thomas B. Kidner, a vocation secretary for the Canadian military hospitals commission, also helped start the Society after developing an occupation program to engage bedridden soldiers.

Susan Cox Johnson was the final founder of the Society. Johnson was an arts and crafts teacher in Manhattan and director of occupations committee for the New York state department of public charities. She went on to teach occupational therapy at Columbia University and advocated for “using crafts to redirect thoughts, strengthen bodies, and regain confidence” (AOTA, 2017).