"Pearl Birnbaum Hurwitz was the founding President of the Massachusetts Association for Retarded [sic] Children, an advocacy group composed of parents and professionals whose aim was to raise and nurture mentally handicapped children in their own homes and communities rather than institutionalizing them, as was the practice of the day.She was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Dever and reappointed by Governor Herter in the 1950s to the legislative commission that revised laws affecting the mentally handicapped in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, resulting in compulsory public education state-wide for this population.