Leonardo said:
Don't be shocked, they used to do that. My father's generation (people born in the mid 50s) remembers such times.
Yep my parents (from Hoboken N.J.) told me that they used to slap children in school who tried to use the left hand, and would also use tactics like strapping the left arm so the left hand could not be used. Dark times indeed! They went to school in the late 1930's and 1940's.