The previous night’s reading consisted of stories about the development of autism awareness in America through both stories of individual cases and through a more general lens describing the American society’s changing views. We began reading an anecdote on an early researcher who investigated mental illness in a time when autistic individuals were called “idiots” and were denied many basic human rights. The article described how a scientist opened a famous school to educate the blind and those with mental illness, as he believed in the idea that all people are teachable.