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I. Personal Background and the Camp Jened Years, 1965-1973

Life in Corning, New York, 1943-1963

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^[1] Jacobson

Larry, let's start with some family background, like where you were born and what kind of neighborhood you grew up in.

Allison

Okay, I was born in Corning, New York, which is upstate New York. It's between Binghamton and--actually, it's between Elmira and Jamestown. It's just past Elmira, New York. Corning was and still is--but at the time I was growing up, they actually made glass products there. They do more research there now. In 1943, September 11th. My mother used to tell me that I was born at nine o'clock at night, during a blackout, because they used to have--this was during the war, and so the civilian population throughout the country would do blackouts. I don't know whether--there was fear that the Germans or the Japanese would somehow bomb the country.

Jacobson

What did your parents do?

Allison

My father was a glass worker. He had come over with his two brothers and my grandmother in 1914, and his aunt. And my grandfather, Gustav had come over in 1912, and they were from a region of Sweden called--well, the town was Idesjö and the region was Smallanol and it's a region that is basically depopulated now, but they made glass there. So Corning Glass would go to different parts of Europe, and they would recruit trained glass workers and bring them over. This is how my father's side of the family got here.

My mother worked at a number of jobs. She worked at a time when women didn't work. She worked in an insurance company. She was a cashier at the--there were three movie houses in Corning, and she worked, actually worked at one time or another in all of them as the ticket seller. In fact, all the women in my family, my aunts and everything,

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always worked. It was kind of a different kind of thing because women didn't work as a rule at that point in time.

I had two brothers, who were younger brothers, who were twins, fraternal twins. We all went to grammar school and high school. I graduated high school in 1961, from Corning Free Academy, which doesn't exist anymore.

Jacobson

How old when you when your brothers were born?

Allison

I was three years old? Yes, they are three years younger. I think they frankly look a lot older than I do, but that's--[laughter]--but that's just my opinion.

Jacobson

You said you graduated from high school--

Allison

In 1961, Corning Free Academy, which as I said, is no longer a high school. And I went to Corning Community College for two years. I was president of the student body my second year, and received what they called an associate arts, an AA degree. I transferred to New York University in 1963, sometime in the fall of 1963. I went from this very small school to the largest private--I think it was larger than--well, Berkeley is part of the University of California system, but this was the largest private university, I think at the time in the world. I went from the smallest to the largest.

Jacobson

How small was it?

Allison

Well, it was a community college. It was two years. If there were 250 people there, that was a lot. And they were basically people from the area: Elmira, Corning, surrounding counties. We got the most exotic people. I think we had--I had one friend from Westchester County who somehow discovered this school, and three guys from Rochester, which is in Monroe County, which is ninety miles away, but they're essentially from Chemung County and Steuben County, Corning, Elmira.

From aspiring actor to pre-law at New York University, 1963

Jacobson

What made you go to NYU?

Allison

I wanted to escape. From the time I was small, I think. My mother working in a movie theater sort of promoted this thing. I was very interested in acting. I actually wanted to come to New York to be an actor. I got to see every movie ever made, not because my mother worked in the theater. I could go and I could see--I think I saw "On the Waterfront," like, five times. That was my plan. My plan was to come to New York. NYU was sort of like a convenient way to do that. But I wanted to become an actor.

Just to fast forward, I wasn't willing to make the sacrifice, after all is said and done. But what I have is a lifelong passion for the theater, for film, for acting, which my kids share. But that was my plan. And I didn't major in drama when I went to NYU. I majored in political science and history. I had a dual major. Pre-law. So there was

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obviously a lot of schizophrenic thinking going on in my head, because I came with one goal in mind and proceeded academically to do the opposite.

I even took the exam for the foreign service when I was at NYU and could have pursued that. They wanted me to take the exam a second time. That could have been a career path. You know, I really wanted acting. I wasn't willing to make the sacrifice, the tremendous sacrifice. If you're going to do that, you have to be able to take a lot of humiliation, a lot of rejection; you have to be very tough, and you have to live with the thought that you may never ever see your name in lights.

It was also during the war.

Vietnam era, working with people with disabilities at Camp Oakhurst, 1964

Jacobson

What war?

Allison

The War of 1812 [laughter]; you know how old I am. The start of the Vietnam War. They were drafting people right and left. I had a student deferment, but I had been called for my physical. Actually, at one point in time, when I was at (Camp) Jened, I was called before my draft board. But that was later. That was after I was out of college and I was teaching. But I remember going to Whitehall Street for my physical, which was sort of like a rite of passage for young men during that era. You would stand around in your underwear, in lines with your possessions in a little bag, and you would go from--there's, like, twelve or thirteen or fourteen, fifteen stations, each representing a body part or a functional part.

I had the dubious distinction--after each one, they say, "If there's anything else you want us to know, step aside." Well, I stepped aside fourteen times because I think I was slightly--what's the word I'm looking for? It'll come to me. But by the time I got to the end, they were looking at me and saying, "I don't think this kid wants to join the armed services."

Jacobson

Do you remember what year that was?

Allison

I think it was--I'll tell you. I can put it in the context that Alan Winters was--or was it Jack Birnbaum running the camp? It may have been when Jack Birnbaum was running the camp, because I was working in the office part time and going to school, working the Camp Jened office, the foundation office. Their offices were at 32 Broadway, and Whitehall Street was literally down the block. So I remember going back to the office after this physical, totally traumatized, convinced I was on the next transport out and I would be in-country very quickly.

The end of the story, though. The doctor at the end--he says, "You know, son, you think you have a lot of things wrong with you." I said, "Well, yes. I have a problem here, I have a problem there." And he said, "Where are you from?" And I said, "Corning, New York." He said, "Do you know Dr. Thomas McNamara?" I said, "That's the guy who delivered me." He says, "Well, we served in World War I together." And he says, "Don't

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worry, kid." And so that was my first brush. I mean, the strangest thing: meeting a doctor that actually knew the family doctor.

But the reason I bring that up is that the war changed a lot of plans that a lot of people had. I don't know if it was conscious or unconscious and everything. Sometimes I don't even know if it's worth it to dwell on it, but it sort of dovetailed with how I got into the disability field, which was when I came to New York, I needed a summer job. I applied for a camp position in Oakhurst, New Jersey, at Camp Oakhurst, run by Jack Birnbaum, one of the most important people in my life, and that was my first contact, conscious contact with people with disabilities.

I came late, so I had no orientation. He said, "Listen, I can't give you an orientation. You're here. Orientation is over. I'm just going to send you down to New York, and you're going to meet the bus and you'll ride up with the campers." I said, "Fine. That's pretty good." I'm trying to remember whether it was 23rd Street off of Seventh Avenue. It was--

Jacobson

The Federation of the Handicapped.

Allison

Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly right. I rode down on the empty bus there, and the first disabled person I ever saw in a conscious, professional kind of way was this little kid. He was fourteen, but he was very small for his age. Who came running out of the facility and started to climb the sign pole. So of course my old--I said, "Okay, this is gonna be cool."

I had my job. I was the swing counselor, between two bunks of boys. I looked at it--whenever anybody was on his day off, I filled in. And I think there were, like--I don't know--thirteen, fourteen kids, boys to a bunk. So I just said, I don't have fourteen kids to tuck in; I have twenty-eight. It was a great--it was in Oakhurst, New Jersey, close to Asbury Park, a beautiful part of New Jersey. On nights off we would go down to Asbury Park, and smoked my first marijuana at that camp. It was 1964. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience.

When Jack left and went to Camp Jened, he called me the next year, and he said, "Look, I'd like you to come. I'd like you to be the unit head." And that's how I ended up at Jened. That was the start of--

Jacobson

If I remember at Oakhurst, because I went there for one summer in'64--

Allison

Alan Kee was there?

Jacobson

Yes. And Frieda Tankus was there.

Allison

That's right.

Jacobson

Frieda was in my cabin.

Allison

And Marvin Raps, who may still be running the place, was a counselor.

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Jacobson

I remember the name. But that was my first and last year. Oakhurst, if I remember, took campers only up to fourteen years old. They had a few sessions during the summer.

Allison

They had an adult session at the end.

Jacobson

The sessions were only three weeks long--

Allison

Yes.

Jacobson

You could go there until you were fourteen, and then you could go back when you were eighteen, but there was no program for anyone in between those ages.

Allison

Yes, right.

Jacobson

Do you remember questioning why that was? What was the philosophy behind that?

Allison

Well, like I said, this was my first year, and I was new to the whole thing. The philosophy--well, it's a very structured camp, and we did reports and we did evaluations. I remember things were designed to make sure that there was relatively little unstructured time. I mean, you could have unstructured time, but it was scheduled unstructured time. It didn't ever happen sort of accidentally.

Jacobson

Yes.

Allison

One of the things that I recall from that time happened during the adult session, was going into Asbury Park, I believe, with an adult camper who wanted to go to a bar and have a drink. The guy was, like, thirty years old, or even older. And being refused when we went into the bar, I and another counselor--against all the rules--and being refused by the bartender. The bartender not refusing the guy to his face, refusing us because of him. We finally found a bar that served him.

I recall--and I may have gotten this wrong, but he had I believe--I don't remember what his disability was specifically, but I remember when he drank he spoke a lot more clearly, and he was calmer. I went back and said, "You know, he's never going to be a pain in the ass again. This is all you have to do." But it struck me. It struck me that here was an adult man who was way past the age of--who was being turned down for no good reasons but the fact that he was different or looked different, was in a wheelchair, did not speak clearly. It really made a lasting impression on me.

Camp Jened: choices in the era of experimentation

Jacobson

What about at Camp Jened?

Allison

So when I got to Jened and I was with Jack and then Alan Winters was there, Jened was an opportunity to try to do some different kinds of things. As you remember, that era was an era of a lot of experimentation. I mean, we were moving into the flower--you know, the hippie era, the flower power era, antiwar, love, peace--and the camp really

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became in a lot of ways, as it evolved in the sixties and into the seventies, a reflection of what was going on in the larger society.

One of the things--remember, Jened served simultaneously adults, teenagers, and smaller kids, and I think we stopped with the smaller kids and it was teenagers and adults at some point later on, but initially--and they went for four weeks or eight weeks. So it was an opportunity for particularly the teenagers, and I was the head of the teen unit, to experience, to do things that teenagers were doing, albeit in a cloistered kind of way but at least there was an opportunity, including dating. You know, having--we had a lot of dances, I remember, but having the ability to lead--to the extent, again, in a cloistered kind of situation, and I hate to use the word--but quote-unquote "normal" kind of teenage existence, experiencing those things that nondisabled teenagers took as a matter of--you know.

Jacobson

Was that because of Jack doing that?

Allison

It was a kind of evolutionary kind of thing. I think Jack was still kind of from the old school in terms of the program and schedules and stuff like that, but I do believe that Jened loosened him up a little bit. But the program evolved. It really evolved over--Alan was not a social worker; Alan came from a totally different kind of perspective. There was sort of not a professional kind of discipline he brought to it. He just had worked at Oakhurst for a very long time, and sort of knew how to do this, knew how to--

Alan was very comfortable and was always much more comfortable in dealing with the physical plant. I was the program director under him, so I was, like, the number two. He was more concerned with the physical plant: making sure that the water was on, the electricity was on, that the bunks were kept in repair. You know, overseeing---I think we built the infirmary, we built--I'm trying to remember--I don't remember if the swimming pool was built when he was there or I was there, but--

Jacobson

Wasn't the swimming pool installed in 1969, after the fire?

Allison

Yes. That's the year camp didn't open.

Jacobson

Okay.

Allison

Yes.

Jacobson

Was Jack a social worker?

Allison

Yes, Jack was a social worker. He was trained in the discipline, and he brought that kind of perspective to camping, to camping for people with disabilities.

Jacobson

Tell me about the Jened Foundation?

Allison

The Jened Foundation was comprised of basically parents, and they had a couple of people on the board who were not parents. There was a guy named William Miller, who was an attorney, who raised a lot of money. I'm trying to remember. There was one particular patron who also gave a lot of money to NYU, and I'm trying to remember--his bust was in the dining hall--trying to remember who that was. The name is escaping

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me. They ran a bingo game to raise money out in Brooklyn, and then there were some smaller grants from places like the Hechsher Foundation, which would give money for, like, equipment. And I think the Hechsher Foundation helped us with the swimming pool, as I recall.

So this was not a high-powered kind of board of directors with people who are socially prominent and very wealthy. Bernard Abrashkin, who was the president, had a daughter, Ellie [Eleanor] Abrashkin, who was a camper, and Barney was the general counsel for the non-uniformed sanitation workers. He recruited some friends. I remember there was a guy named Jack Slatkin, who was the treasurer. I don't think Jack had children there. Bill Miller, who was a guy who raised a lot of money. Ida Levine, who was also on the board of directors for United Cerebral Palsy, New York State, New York City--I think Ida was--Ida on our board. I'm drawing blanks after that, but they ran the bingo game. What we took in from fees and whatever we raised from foundations really was--that was it. That was the budget.

Money was a constant struggle. It was not a wealthy organization by any stretch of the imagination. I think the counselors got paid $250 for the summer. I think that was the whole thing. That was a lot of money in those days. "Do you want it weekly, or do you want it at the end?" I just remember struggling. The money, the money, the money, the money.

Jacobson

Where did you get staff?

Allison

We recruited from college kids essentially. What we would try to do--and high school kids, who started out as waiters and waitresses. We had a lot of recidivism. We would have people that would come back, and sometimes they would come back in the same capacity, and sometimes they would come back in a different capacity. Joan Lazar started as a counselor; came back as the chief nurse.

There was a good reason for it. It was a wonderful--I can't think of anybody who had a bad experience up there. If there were, they kept it from me. And all of us felt like it was a very special time and we could not wait for the winter to be over, for the summer to begin so we could do it again. There was a sense of purpose. There was a sense of freedom up there. It really was different from anything I'd ever known, ever done in my life, and I have never done since. We made friends. I mean, this relationship between camper and counselor blurred, and there were friendships that developed. People could see each other as human beings.

Toward the end, that was the whole purpose. The whole purpose was to get rid of the labels and to look at people as human beings because otherwise you can't possibly understand if you were going into the so-called helping professions--you couldn't possibly help this person if you were relating to him or her through the confines of a label, that--you know, you were doomed to failure.

What happened is that the whole relationship--it broke down into much more human kind of friendships and so on and so forth, and that led directly to hiring disabled people as counselors.

Jacobson

Okay. Let me turn the tape over.

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Allison

Okay. I've talked that much. God, I am a long-winded--

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Jacobson

Were you aware of other programs for the handicapped at other camps, and what were the differences?

Allison

I was vaguely aware. I had some relationships with like Sue Samuels and people like that, and I think that the difference was-largely because it was the teen camp and there was adult camp--I think the difference was we were much more, initially, I guess you'd call it experimental in terms of what was it we were trying to accomplish. We saw it as--first of all, adults were coming up there to have a vacation. I mean, adults don't need--at that time--okay, you had your resorts, and you do at these resorts--you have these structured activities during the day. And that was a vacation.

But the option was you could do it or you--yes, you could learn ballroom dancing and take calisthenics and learn yoga, or you could just go for a walk or go swimming. These are adults, largely people--many of them who lived in hospitals, many of them who were literally confined to their homes, did not get out, did not participate in the general life in any significant way. So you wanted to offer them activities and everything so they would have a good time, but you also wanted to respect the fact that they were adults and this was their vacation. While families would talk about "you don't know what it's like to have a disabled child" and "he's a disabled--" whatever, you know--so it was kind of a vacation in their minds for them when this person would go away. But it was also a vacation for the person--it was a two-way street.

Jacobson

Was that just a sign of the times, or was that something that just came with the territory? And then with teen camp there was just a sense of, like, of wanting--I'm not putting it very eloquently--but wanting to provide a kind of environment where teenagers could be teenagers, without having to deal with all of the stereotypes and the labels and stuff.

Allison

It was a combination. I think it was something that the times--again, to put it in the context of people questioning the established order, how things were done and why they were done, so that certainly had a role in it; and I think that the part in terms of people becoming close to one another, the rules of counselor and camper were blurring, and people simply being friends led inevitably to--you know, "We got to re-think this," and the need for the experience to be as ultimately--to give people enough freedom so the experience is what they make it, not what you try to push down their throats, but the experience is what they make it. They have the choice. They make the choice. And treat people with--ultimately with respect so that they can make that choice. Then they have the right to make that choice.

I remember very, very distinctly--and this is in adult camp--a couple who wanted to have sex, and the counselor came to me and said, "So-and-so and So-and-so want to have sex, and they can't do it themselves; they want me to help them." I said, "So why are you telling me? It's none of my business. They're adults." Now, I said that, and I meant that, and in the back of my head, as the director of the camp, I thought, "Oh, my God, I'm gonna get sued on this. I don't want the lawyers to even know about this."

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But it was--I mean, it was kind of like, "Man, you talk the talk; you better walk the walk." This was one of these moments of truth. You know, here are two adults. They are both severely physically disabled in terms of their range of motion, their ability, they were in love and ultimately got married and they wanted to have sex but needed the help of a surrogate. And so, the counselor was coming to me for instructions. I just--you know, I--it's none of my business.

I think with anybody under eighteen--because we were acting in loco parentis--that would have been a different--I would have not said that. That would have been a different situation. But we also had to live with if you're going to let teenagers be teenagers, then give them a certain degree of freedom. It wasn't rampant freedom. I mean, everybody had to be in bed at a certain hour, you know.

Jacobson

Yes, I know. I remember.

Allison

So the rest of us could go out to play. But there was opportunity. There was opportunity if people wanted to be creative. And that was part of--you had to live with that. I mean, you know, teenagers are going to be teenagers, and this is something that it goes with the territory.

Jacobson

Jened was one of the few camps that was open to teenagers.

Allison

Yes.

Jacobson

Oakhurst cut them off at fourteen. Camp Carolla's cut off age was fourteen for boys and sixteen for girls.

Allison

Literally, what did kids do? What did severely disabled kids do in the summertime? I have no idea what they did.

Recruitment far and wide

Jacobson

There were very few places those kids could go. For most non-disabled kids at that age there were C.I.T. [counselor-in-training] positions or working at McDonald's, but disabled kids didn't have those opportunities.

Tell me about the campers. Where did they come from?

Allison

They came from all over. Remember Alan Caplan? He came from Toronto or Montreal Basically it was the eastern seaboard. The majority I think were from New York City and the outlying boundaries, but we had campers from Canada, Ohio.

There weren't many options, and there was no Internet back then, but there were journals that people subscribed to, directories that had camp listings. I remember the Community Council of Greater New York used to put out a Red Book every year with all of the social services agencies listed and subdivided under "Recreation, Camping" and so on and so forth. So people had ways. And then there was word of mouth. Parents

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have a way of finding resources for their children. Before it was called networking, they were networking.

Today, with the Internet, it would be a relatively easy thing. You set up a web site, you're deluged with people. And people were repeaters. Just like the counselors were repeaters, the campers were repeaters. We could expect a certain number, a certain percentage--it was a very high percentage of people coming back every year.

Jacobson

How many campers were there at one time?

Allison

Oh, God. I'm trying to think. There were bunks of boys, bunks of girls, and there were, like, ten or eleven or twelve in a bunk or something?

Jacobson

Less.

Allison

Less? Nine, ten?

Jacobson

Eight or nine.

Allison

So I think there were maybe altogether there were maybe 120 campers. No, no, that's too much. That's too much. No, forty, forty, forty--about 120, yes.

Jacobson

Did some pay?

Allison

Yes, most paid. Most paid. We got scholarships for some. There was some money--money--I'm trying to remember--we had a lot of kids from Coler. Nellie Franco, remember?

Jacobson

Bird S. Coler?

Allison

Yes. There was money through the hospitals for the camping.

Jacobson

And Bird S. Coler was a hospital.

Allison

On what's now called Roosevelt Island. It used to be called Welfare Island. We had adults from Goldwater and kids from Coler. They were long-term care rehabilitation hospitals, Coler basically being for children and Goldwater for adults.

Recollections of Judy Heumann: a seminal figure

Jacobson

Okay. I want to talk about the campers. They were many campers at Jened who went on to become activists and leaders in the disability rights' movement. One of them was Judy Heumann. Do you remember what she was like in those days?

Allison

I gave Judy her first job.

Jacobson

Tell me, what were your impressions of her?

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Allison

Judy [Heumann] was an extraordinary human being, and still is an extraordinary human being. Judy was in a lot of ways one of those people who come along at a moment in time and actually cause things to change, because she simply refuses to accept the status quo. Her battle with the Board of Ed. [Education] to become a teacher, and her subsequent things that she's done--

Jacobson

Do you remember her as a kid?

Allison

Yes. Judy [speaking into tape recorder], you were a total pain in the ass, but I loved you anyway.

Jacobson

I thought you would say that. Why was she?

Allison

Because Judy demanded--and she was right, and what happened if you were at all logical, which I sometimes was, in relatively rational moments that I would have--you could not argue with what she was asking for. She was merely asking to be treated like you would treat anybody else. She was asking for equality; she was asking for the oldest thing on earth: Give me respect. Give me equal opportunity so that I can live the kind of life--you know, be independent.

She was a seminal figure. There were a number, but Judy is right there at the top, I think the top five of really seminal figures in terms of the disability rights movement and the independent living movement, which came out--they go hand in glove. No, she was just a feisty, very bright, very verbal kid.

Jacobson

What kind of things do you remember--issues that came up when she was a teenager?

Allison

I don't remember. I'm trying to think specifically, and I don't--I can't think of specific things. I'll just give you impressions. Judy was just somebody you could not ignore. She was, even as a child, a very interesting, intelligent, smart person, very attractive from that standpoint. You didn't want to ignore her, because she was also fun, you know?

Jacobson

How old was she when you first met her?

Allison

I don't remember. She was a teenager.

Shattering stereotypes; discussion of disability hierarchy

Jacobson

One thing I remember about the camps I went to when I was young, not so much Oakhurst, but at Carolla and its Saturday rec program, the Carollians, there was this hierarchy of disability. In other words, the more disabled you were, the more unacceptable you were. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Allison

Yes. You know, it's interesting. You find similar things with--now I guess it's called people of color--but you find in many cultures that it's still like the lighter-skinned people where you have basically a brown people but on one side of the scale they're

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white, and on the other end of the scale they're black. There is a hierarchy based on color. The same thing is true of disability, based on the severity and type of disability.

There would be a lot of discussions about that: the post-polios versus the people with cerebral palsy, and the ambulatory versus the non-ambulatory. It was broken down--it really--and there were some people that were sort of difficult to fit into--and that was largely, I thought, a self-imposed kind of thing, and a totally natural human thing. What we human beings do is whenever we get a chance and we have a group is that we start classifying everybody. It seems to be--it doesn't matter what culture you come from, what gender you are, it's what we tend to do.

You look at the program "Survivor" and you'll see that very dramatically. There's got to be, like a food chain, and somebody's got to be at the top of the food chain, and somebody's got to be at the bottom of the food chain.

Jacobson

Now, I remember it being less prevalent at Camp Jened. That somehow the lines blurred so that the hierarchy wasn't as defined as it was elsewhere. Do you have any thoughts on why that was?

Allison

I think that that was probably, then, whatever we were trying to do, we were doing it right because that was happening. Because by sort of taking away, loosening up--you know, being not so rigid--and trying to develop an environment where people could not just be experiencing the classical kind of camping curriculum and then by hiring right people, I think you break down a lot of stereotypes. Again, these stereotypes, this pecking order, this food chain, however you want to characterize it, was largely self-created. Not totally, but largely.

Jacobson

What do you mean self-created?

Allison

I think you put people in a group and they will classify themselves, and they will--look, there will be people at the low end and people at the high end, and I think that all people do this, and I think that what you saw--I mean, what we tried to do was to give people an opportunity--and I don't know if it was conscious, but--was to get out of that. You know, you don't have to look at--you're in an environment with people your own age, and you don't have to classify. Things were going on between the counselors and the campers; there were things going on between the campers and the campers. Those dynamics were set to, like, get beyond the stereotypes. I mean, the non-disabled people had stereotypes in their minds about disabled people when they came there. Hopefully after they had spent a summer there, those stereotypes were shattered, were irrevocably changed.

The same thing had to be happening between campers, who had different kinds of disabilities and there was this tendency to put the more verbal, the post-polios, on one kind of level and then proceed downward as people got more severely disabled, and I say that it's largely self-imposed, not totally self-imposed, because the society does that, too. But kids with disabilities--what we're trying to do is give them the opportunity to reject that. "I won't buy into that. That's a lot of garbage. Don't buy into that."

Jacobson

Where you aware that was going on?

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Allison

Yes. After about a couple of years into--yes, I was aware. We talked--we used to talk about this--the staff--we used to talk about it in terms of--and there were--I mean, I think that the counselor part came into play more for really being aware of kids that were up there--adults who were, for whatever reason, being left out. There still was room while this other stuff--but there still was room for the traditional kind of camp experience to go on, because some people wanted that; some people needed that. Some people needed that as a vehicle to sort of break out. Or they came for that. That's what they came for.

But the trick was--what we tried to do was even though the camp program was our basic kind of product--we also want to give the opportunity to say, "The hell with that. I want to have a different kind of experience," and be able to have that. And that was a byproduct, again, of the times, of the great social--not only social unrest but social experimentation, and people rejecting labels, people looking at black people and saying, "I refuse to continue to buy into the fact that society has said you're inferior to me because of the color of your skin" and women--the feminist movement--"We refuse to be second-class citizens anymore." In this instance, it was people with disabilities saying--

And even the nomenclature changed. I mean, it used to be--it went from crippled kids to handicapped kids to kids with disabilities. The nomenclature got--you know--but emphasizing getting back to the people. This may sound utopian, but I really--I still, at my advanced age, I still believe it. I still believe that from an evolutionary standpoint, for social evolution, that you can get to the point where these things simply don't matter anymore, where they're incidental.

"You know so-and-so? She's the"--just like you would describe somebody--she's the one with the red hair--"Oh, yeah, I know who she is," kind of thing. It's not a point of classification, it's a point of identification. So you're always dealing with the human being. You're not dealing with the stereotype. You're not dealing with--yes, I mean, you know better than I do. You grew up where somebody would be wheeling you, and someone would be asking them if you were hungry, did you want something. You know, that crap you had to put up with.

Things could change. I think Jened played a role in fostering that idea. And I think--you know, the large part of it, Denise, is the problem did not exist with people with disabilities; the problem existed with people that didn't have disabilities. It was our problem that you guys were having to put up with. So it was important for us to change.

The reason it was such a great experience for the counselors was that it made everyone confront the stereotypes in their lives and learn to live beyond them.

Jacobson

Let me change the tape.

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Allison

As I was saying, essentially a lot of us saw it as a problem that the nondisabled majority had which needed to be--and I honestly believe the racism and all the rest of this stuff, and I don't want to get tedious, politically correct because I really am so tired of political correctness I could vomit, but--it was our problem, and insofar as you let us get

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away with it, it was your problem, and there needed to be, like, a moment in time when this something, this spark started the thing to change. And that's why the Judy Heumanns of the world, the Eunice Fioritos and people like that are so important--and Phyllis Rubenfeld. I believe she has passed away.

Jacobson

Yes.

Allison

And these are very important people who contributed critical things at a critical moment and really changed the face of the world. You look at things in a historic perspective, and there has been tremendous, tremendous change, and the biggest change has been--I believe it's not only the physical environment but also in the acceptance. I think we have a ways to go yet, but I think it's dramatically different than 1963, when I started in disability.

The fact there's even an oral history project on this alone is I think symbolic of the fact that something historic has happened.

The work-camp experience: proof of employability

Jacobson

Before we move on, and I have to admit that I could talk about Camp Jened all day, and it's interesting that when people I know who've gone to Jened get together and start talking about it, their eyes light up and they get so excited--whether they had gone as campers, counselors, staff. It's clear that their whole experience at Jened has meant a lot to them.

I remember, I believe in 1968 either Alan Winters or you came up with the idea of work-camp. How did that come about? And tell me a little about what that was?

Allison

I'm trying to think. There were some campers involved, and our friend who has passed away--

Jacobson

Frieda?

Allison

No--we were talking about the glass eye in his hamburger.

Jacobson

Alec?

Allison

Yes. Alec Levy may well have been one of the people. And there was another. He worked for the City of New York for a long time and still may be, Howard Silverman. There were people that--you know, the idea was thrown out. Somebody--it may have been Alec, it may have been Howard--that one of the things that we could do is allow campers to run a little business, and so we did that. And it just got into, like, a work-camp kind of thing.

See, work-camp in traditional camping is not a novel kind of thing.

Jacobson

No?

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Allison

No. It's really kind of--I mean, at least now it's not, from what I can gather. My daughter, my younger daughter is at camp right now.

Jacobson

They called it CIT.

Allison

Yes, counselor-in-training.

Jacobson

Yes.

Allison

Yes. And that was--it's kind of inevitable--and then there was this other camp store kind of piece of it. It's just one thing just sort of leads to another. It just sort of progresses. It's kind of logical. Once you let the logic take over, it just sort of flows by itself.

Jacobson

What was the idea of it?

Allison

To give kids a work experience, you know? That's part of the real world. Work is fundamental to independence.

Jacobson

And--

Allison

And that it's another thing to say that disability historically has been--was at that time defined as inability to work, disabled, unable to work. Your government programs at that point in time were based on that premise: couldn't work, could no longer work, what have you. Had nothing to do with rehabilitation or anything. And there were obviously people--I mean, who is to say when your mind is perfectly functioning, when you're smarter than I am, you can't work? I mean, that's crazy.

We may have been ahead of the curve with regards to technology--I mean, if we'd had the technology back then that we have now, it would be almost like--you know, totally illogical. But again, you know better than I, we were in an environment that was unfriendly and hostile from a sociological standpoint, cultural standpoint, from a physical standpoint. And those were really the things that were preventing people from working and living independently, not a particular disability or a particular condition that they had. Those were things that could be overcome. In fact, wasn't that the purpose of rehabilitation?

I could never understand the illogic of we have this huge vocational rehabilitation program that really didn't pay any attention to anybody until they were out of school, instead of dealing with kids while they were in school and having some sort of linkage. There was no linkage until they were out of school, at which point in time, if their education sucked, it was probably too late to rehabilitate them because the issue then was an educational issue and not an vocational rehabilitation issue. So you're vocationally rehabilitating an illiterate when you should be vocationally rehabilitating someone who can read, kind of thing. The whole system just didn't make any sense to me.

It's oversimplifying it, and I apologize for that, but I think what happens in government programs, the helping programs: they take on a life of their own, and they become turf, and they become, like, somebody's property, okay? And once that happens, then it's very hard to do intelligent things with them, and you get this kind of dysfunctional thing

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that goes on, where you don't have any kind of linkage or any kind of, like, sequential kind of thing.

What was the object of vocational rehabilitation? It was to get people to work. But all the other policies were preventing them from working. In fact, all the other policies were telling them not to work. There were work disincentives under SSI and so on and so forth. Classic stuff.

A civil rights perspective; involvement in the 504 Democratic Club and presidential campaign, 1975-1981

Allison

Like I said earlier on, before the tape was running, I remember how--this was later, when I was at the Mayor's Office for the Handicapped--The New York Times--I mean, I used to get--I first learned to despise The New York Times because of the editorial stance they would take on issues of disability. It really was--I mean, this is a paper I revered, and it came as quite a shock to me when they would not look at the issues of disability from a human rights or civil rights perspective. They only saw it as a medical rehabilitative kind of issue.

Jacobson

Can you give me an example?

Allison

Yes. When there was the big--remember when there was the--I don't know whether it was the gas crisis--

Jacobson

Yes.

Allison

--or whether it was some of the demonstrations that went on over the buses having lifts, and you could not get the goddamn New York Times to understand what this was about. This was people--this was a civil rights, human rights issues. And they did not want to deal with it. They refused. I think today it's very different, but it was a moment of great disillusionment to me. Yes, life is growing up and being disillusioned. That's how you learn. So I have a much more healthier skepticism of the press--national, local, what have you--than I did when I was a lot younger. This wasn't a case of them getting it wrong; this was a case of them not getting it at all!

To me, it was just indefensible that they would take this position, that they would be so myopic. But that was part of the problem. You had "the old gray lady," as they called The Times, not recognizing your humanity. That it's very, very difficult to get the so-called establishment--whether it's political establishment or, you know, the social establishment or--you know, the opinion makers--it's very difficult to get them motivated to understand.

So one of the things I think happened with the disability rights movement which is unique is that I think a lot of it happened--unlike with the black civil rights movement and the feminist movement--a lot of it happened without the assistance of those elements in society which supported the other groups. I think that it's only relatively

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recently and relative in years that you find people supporting disabled rights in a comparable way that they support civil rights based on color or gender.

Jacobson

Are you saying that disability rights was never seen as a political issue?

Allison

It wasn't seen as a political issue for a long time. That became another step on the road. I remember being at MOPD--

Jacobson

Mayor's--

Allison

--Office for People with Disabilities, formerly MOH [Mayor's Office for the Handicapped], and I and a couple of friends started the 504 Democratic Club, which later Frieda Zames and a number of other people--Marvin--I can't remember Marvin's last name now--have really run it since then. I mean, I was involved for maybe the first two years. The purpose of that--

Jacobson

What years?

Allison

1980-81. The purpose of that was you need to engage politicians at a high level that they understand, which is votes. And you need to engage them dramatically, and you need to engage them on a continuous basis to make them understand that you're not going away. You need them to understand you represent a far larger group of people than the numbers that they see when they come to your meetings and that your endorsement means something. Then and only then do you start to get a change in attitude on the part of the political people because now you've got something they want. Up until then, you had nothing that they wanted.

In a number of political campaigns that I did--I did Jimmy Carter [presidential], I did three of Ed [Edward I.] Koch's and I did Abe [Abraham] Beame--[both mayoral]. I did a number of them--anyway, one of the things I was always given to do was to take part in some sort of, like, citizens with disabilities forum and come out with a cogent kind of campaign piece that made sense, which would be the policy of the candidate and whatever.

One of the things we tried to do was to look at this and say, Look, your constituency--disability as a political issue transcends, goes beyond the person with the disability, who has the disability. The whole family: the wife, the husband, the children, the mother, the father, the aunts, the uncles. For many, the disability of that person is a central issue in their life. Therefore there's a huge amount of votes out there. It's never been addressed through political context, and once it is, there will be, I think, a positive response.

The biggest thing we did was in the Jimmy Carter campaign, which--oh, I fought with Judy [Heumann]. Judy and I had such fights in that campaign.

Jacobson

Tell me about those.

Allison

I used to remember screaming at her. I was in New York, screaming at her because she was cutting deals on the West Coast, okay? As only Judy can. And I'm the guy with the responsibility. I'm not even operating out of Atlanta, which was the headquarters; I'm operating out of New York, and we're trying to put together, like, coordinators in every

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state. We're trying to do a political structure. Judy's appointing people. I don't remember what she was doing, but she was committing positions. Jesus. But that was literally--I mean, in the [George] McGovern campaign there was some fooling around on the margins on this issue. Carter-Mondale was the first national presidential campaign with a significant policy piece, campaign piece about disability. And they used sign language interpreters, and there was an emphasis on accessibility. It was a dramatic breakthrough. I don't think we understood how dramatic it was, because the Republicans followed suit, and today, it's a matter of course now, when the major parties are having a convention, they will look at the venue from an accessibility standpoint.

Jacobson

The Carter campaign was nineteen--

Allison

Nineteen seventy-five. In '80, he ran for reelection and was beaten by Reagan.