In 1967, the US Vocational Rehabilitation Administration (VRA) awarded $331,000 to the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Foundation to fund a new company, the National Theatre of the Deaf. Endowing such an enterprise was bold, but not entirely unprecedented for this federal agency tasked with restoring disabled Americans to productive employment. Founded in 1920, the federal–state vocational rehabilitation program, or VR, ascended to institutional and ideological prominence during World War II and maintained this position well into the 1960s and beyond. VR distinguished itself not only through positing competitive employment as the solution to disabled Americans’ dependence on the state, but the specific means through which it would restore the disabled to productivity: the multidisciplinary expertise of physicians, psychologists, physical therapists, and rehabilitation counselors who collectively sought to render rehabilitants employable through a series of therapeutic interventions. Whereas disability activists focused on combatting the structural barriers disabled workers experienced in the labor market, “rehabilitationists” emphasized the imperative for disabled people to acclimate to existing work environments through individual physical and psychological transformation.

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康复竞赛：手语哑剧、国家聋人剧院和冷战国际主义

1967 年，美国职业康复管理局 (VRA) 向尤金·奥尼尔纪念剧院基金会拨款 331,000 美元，用于资助一家新公司，即国家聋人剧院。为这样一个企业提供资金是大胆的，但对于这个负责让美国残疾人恢复生产性就业的联邦机构来说，并非完全没有先例。联邦-州职业康复计划 (VR) 成立于 1920 年，在第二次世界大战期间上升到制度和意识形态的突出地位，并将这一地位保持到 1960 年代及以后。VR 不仅通过将竞争性就业定位为美国残疾人对国家依赖的解决方案而出类拔萃，而且还通过将残疾人恢复生产力的具体方式：医生、心理学家的多学科专业知识、物理治疗师和康复顾问，他们共同寻求通过一系列治疗干预使康复者能够就业。残疾活动家专注于与残疾工人在劳动力市场上遇到的结构性障碍作斗争，而“康复主义者”则强调残疾人必须通过个人身心转变来适应现有的工作环境。