The New Disability History: American Perspectives (The History of Disability, 6) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814785638 ISBN 13: 9780814785638

Publisher: NYU Press, 2001

Synopsis

A collected volume highlighting disability's hidden history in American society

Disability has always been a preoccupation of American society and culture. From antebellum debates about qualification for citizenship to current controversies over access and reasonable accommodations, disability has been present, in penumbra if not in print, on virtually every page of American history. Yet historians have only recently begun the deep excavation necessary to retrieve lives shrouded in religious, then medical, and always deep-seated cultural, misunderstanding.

This volume opens up disability's hidden history. In these pages, a North Carolina Youth finds his identity as a deaf Southerner challenged in Civil War-era New York. Deaf community leaders ardently defend sign language in early 20th century America. The mythic Helen Keller and the long-forgotten American Blind People's higher Education and General Improvement Association each struggle to shape public and private roles for blind Americans. White and black disabled World War I and II veterans contest public policies and cultural values to claim their citizenship rights.

Neurasthenic Alice James and injured turn-of-the-century railroadmen grapple with the interplay of disability and gender. Progressive-era rehabilitationists fashion programs to make crippled children economically productive and socially valid, and two Depression-era fathers murder their sons as public opinion blames the boys' mothers for having cherished the lads' lives. These and many other figures lead readers through hospital-schools, courtrooms, advocacy journals, and beyond to discover disability's past.

Coupling empirical evidence with the interdisciplinary tools and insights of disability studies, the book explores the complex meanings of disability as identity and cultural signifier in American history.

About this title

About the Authors

Paul K. Longmore is Professor of History and Director of the Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University and author of The Invention of George Washington.

Lauri Umansky is Professor of History at Suffolk University and is the author of The New Disability History: American Perspectives and ""Bad Mother: The Politics of Blame in the Twentieth Century America.

Reviews

"Never assume" has become a mantra for historians over the past few decades. U.S. history was largely a tale of white male accomplishments until practitioners of African American history and ethnic-group history and women's history asked new questions and learned different answers. This collection's contributors draw attention (as the editors note) to "the frequency, the virtual commonplaceness, of disability as personal yet also public experience, social problem, and cultural metaphor" in the U.S. The first essay, for example, dissects the uses of "disability" in the struggles of African Americans, women, and immigrants for equality. In each case, the "unequal" group was assigned "disabling" traits thought to make its members unqualified for full citizenship. Each group won broader rights by demonstrating that its members did not in fact suffer from the alleged "disabilities," but no one ever questioned the notion that "disability" itself was a reasonable basis for exclusion or limitation. A fascinating overview that includes studies of sign language, veterans' pensions, Helen Keller, popular photography, and the twentieth-century history of government disability policy. Mary Carroll
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Edition details

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814785638
• ISBN 13: 9780814785638
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 422
• Editor: Longmore Paul K., Umansky Lauri