A History of Conservatorships and the Transformation of Legal Disability in Cook County, 1905-1945

This dissertation examines the years 1905-1945 and shows how historical flashpoints changed the relationship between individuals, between individuals and their governments, and between local, state, and national governments. These structural changes altered the meaning of independence, dependence, and disability in the United States. Conservatorships were part of the common law system of legal disabilities used primarily to organize households into independents and dependents connected through various and uneven systems of legal rights and legal obligations. Over the past two hundred years, many of these systems were streamlined or altogether removed. For example, women considering marriage no longer have to add “loss of contractual rights” to their list of matrimonial cons. However, the legal disabilities that bind conservators to conservatees remain intact. Disabilities created by the law have generally produced a care entitlement. However, the changing organization of households as well as the changing relationship between people, households, and their local, state, and national governments affected the nature of the care entitlement as well as who was responsible for providing and regulating said care. People disabled through formal legal relationships—wives, children, conservatees —were entitled to the care of their husbands, parents, and conservators. Various levels of government were responsible for ensuring and enforcing these entitlements. Throughout the last century, governments obligated themselves to legally incompetent residents in novel ways and, in so doing, took on a variety of these care responsibilities for a variety of reasons. This dissertation analyzes the proliferation and formalization of disability care entitlements in 20th Century Chicago and shows how increasingly complicated systems of care and increasingly disparate sources of care turned the probate court into one of the primary regulators of disability care in Cook County.