A Disability History of the United States, by Kim E. Nielsen

In writing A Disability History of the United States, Kim Nielsen takes on a difficult but very interesting task.  She examines the history of our nation from the perspective of disability, specifically the experiences and treatment of people with disabilities in the United States.  Given the changing perspectives of and language surrounding disability, it would not have been easy to trace that thread through historical documents, but Nielsen gathers plenty of anecdotes and primary sources to bring together a "wide-ranging chronological American history narrative told through the lives of people with disabilities."

Like many historians in today's black studies, gender studies, gay studies or feminist studies field, Nielsen looks at history and events through a particular lens, in her case the lens of disability.  She demonstrates the extent to which ableism has prevailed, stigmatizing disability and equating disability with dependency.  To a certain extent, in the lives of Native Americans and in colonial America, disability was only an issue when it prevented useful work.  Nielsen may be guilty of idealizing some of the Native American groups, but the attitude she attributes to them, that everyone has a unique contribution to make, no matter what physical limitations they have, is certainly commendable.

The treatment of slaves and women receives special attention, as these groups were considered disabled simply because of their race and gender.  As they were by definition disabled, they required extra care--and of course extra measures of control.  With the establishment of a new nation, new forms of organization and bureaucracy emerged, one expression of which was institutions for the disabled.  In some cases, these were successful, such as schools for the deaf.  In others, however, disabled people "whose bodies or minds were believed to be beyond redemption were variably warehoused or removed."  This remained the case well into the twentieth century, when activists and reformers exposed horrific conditions at certain institutions, leading to a movement promoting deinstitutionalization and independent living.  This work continues to be necessary even today.

One of the many devastating outcomes of the Civil War was the huge number of soldiers disabled during the war.  Nielsen points out that every war leads to improvements in prosthetics, starting with the Civil War.  One Confederate veteran who had his leg amputated during the war, James Hanger, began a prosthetics company that survives even today.  (We have gotten orthotic foot braces for my daughter from Hanger.)  On the other hand, not only disabled veterans but others who were "diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object" were prohibited from appearing in public or from begging on the street by "ugly laws" imposed in San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, and other cities.

The reader, disabled or not, can be heartened by the progress made by disabled people, starting in the latter half of the twentieth century.  Although the disabled rights movement doesn't get the attention that  racial equality and feminism get, groups of disabled people fully embraced the civil rights movement as their own.  We tend to take for granted the fruit of the disability rights movement like wheelchair ramps, TTY phones, and countless other means by which life has become more accessible for people with disabilities.

Just as blacks, women, and other minorities have experienced subjugation and worked toward equality, so have people with disabilities.  Nielsen writes, "There is no question that the power to define bodies as disabled has given justification, throughout US history, for subjugation and oppression."  Far too often "ableism defines disability and people with disabilities as defective and inadequate, and . . . disability is used to create and justify hierarchies."  By telling the stories of disabled people in history, she points out the stigma while pointing toward the pride emerging in spite of ableist ideology.

Thanks to Edelweis and the publisher for this complimentary review copy.