Enrico Toti (1882-1916)

Statue of Enrico Toti in Rome; much-larger-than-life muscular male nude, holding a crutch, with his left leg ending mid-thigh.  In a park setting, with blue skies.  Base is inscribed with his name and other text in Italian.

With all the WWI centenary coverage, we were moved to come across this statue at the Villa Borghese gardens, on a recent family vacation in Rome.  Enrico Toti (1882-1916) was a railway worker from Rome; his leg was lost in a workplace accident in 1906.  After that, he became a distance cyclist, riding from Rome to Lapland, and down to Egypt, to great acclaim.  At the onset of WWI, he was considered unfit for military service, but he volunteered as a bicycle courier, and became an unofficial member of the 3rd Bersaglieri Bicycle Battalion.  He died at the Sixth Battle of Isonzo, and is one of the very few civilians awarded Italy's medal for military valor.

Reconstructing Lives (Edinburgh, until February 2013)

Current exhibit at Edinburgh Castle: 

Reconstructing Lives

National War Museum
Fri 9 March 2012 - February 2013
Free with admission to Edinburgh Castle

From the official description:
"Reconstructing Lives takes a fascinating and moving look at the experiences of those who have lost limbs in war, whether military or civilian, and the technology which helps rebuild their lives....On display you'll find prosthetics, ranging from a 16th century iron hand to  a modern i-limb hand developed by Touch Bionics."

Here's a report with photos, by someone who visited the exhibit.  And here are blog entries about the exhibit, by museum staffers.

Cerrie Burnell's Arm, Part 2

Wow, so two years after I first wrote about this, Cerrie Burnell's arm is still a matter of controversy? Maybe because I'm also reading Sue Schweik's The Ugly Laws right now, it seems amazing that in 2011 we're still anxious about the sight of an arm that doesn't end in a hand. For recent blogging about Cerrie Burnell's story, see Planet of the Blind and Bess's The Right to Design, among others.

I had just finished reading (and retweeting) that last link when my daughter's newest issue of American Girl magazine arrived in the mail. [visual description: girl holding a magazine open, with the story "Lizzy's Ride" visible; one page is a large photograph of a girl in equestrian gear, riding a pony, with her arms raised; one arm ends above the elbow]

"Lizzy's Ride" is a six-page first-person story about a Pennsylvania girl who rides ponies in competition. Lizzy says "I was born with only one hand. It might seem like that would be a big deal, but it's really not." The story isn't about her arm, it's about her ponies and how she cares for them on her family's farm. (There's video of Lizzy riding on the American Girl website.) But clearly, the editors at AG don't think that such things should be kept under wraps, either.

Why I love biographical dictionaries (#3)

For earlier installments in the series, see #1 and #2.

Again, the Australian Dictionary of Biography comes through with a winning disability-related snippet:

Although she dressed 'carelessly in skirts and sweaters', Dreyer had 'a passion for ornate drop earrings and exotic perfumes'. Humorous and warm hearted, she gave an annual party for 'Annabella', her wooden leg.

That would be from the entry on writer and journalist Marien Oulton Dreyer (1911-1980), who used a prosthetic leg from her childhood. She wrote a script for the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1951 called "Story of a Lame Duck" which was "largely autobiographical," and another script in 1953 about tuberculosis recovery from the patient's perspective.

Flickr: Judge Quentin D. Corley (1884-1980)

Judge Quentin D. Corley (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

Another disability history image thanks to the Flickr Commons project. This one is from the Library of Congress's set from the George Grantham Bain Collection, news photos from 1910-1915. Here we see Judge Quentin D. Corley (as the title suggests), driving a very early model car with steering wheel adaptations for his prosthetic left hand; the right sleeve of his jacket appears to be empty. Corley looks to be a young man wearing a white summer hat.

Quentin Durward Corley was born in 1884 in Mexia, Texas. As a young clerk in 1905, he lost both hands, his right arm, and his right shoulder in a railroad accident near Utica, New York. Corley went into a law career, passing the bar in Dallas County in 1907; in 1908 he became a justice of the peace, and in 1912 he was elected a county judge--the youngest county judge in Texas at the time. He also developed and patented the prosthetic hand he's shown using here--which allowed him to drive, type, button, cut, light a match, and write with a pen better than other available options. He toured the state of Texas alone by car to publicize his campaign for a girls' training school in the state. Corley died in 1980, age 96.

The Dallas Observer's blog wrote up this photo last fall. But they refer to a much earlier newspaper's treatment of the story: in 1918, under the title "Handicaps of Fate Defied by Cripples," the New York Times reported that Corley spoke a meeting at the then-new Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men in New York City that year, intended to encourage returning World War I veterans who may have similar physical impairments. Other speakers at the meeting were Michael J. Dowling, a bank president from Olivia, Minnesota (and a triple amputee from severe frostbite in his youth); and Frederick W. Keough, a representative of the National Association of Manufacturers, who discussed the issues of rehabilitation and employment for disabled veterans.

March 17: Mrs. McGrath

Two years ago, I posted about the song "Paddy's Lamentation" for St. Patrick's Day--it's a US Civil War-era song about an Irish immigrant who joins the Union Army and loses a leg in battle. This year, another Irish ballad about a disabled veteran--and his mother.

"Mrs. McGrath" (aka "Mrs. McGraw") is at least two hundred years old, but like a lot of ballads it gets adapted to the current circumstances as needed. It's sometimes sung as a dialog between Mrs. McGrath and her son Ted, back from war with both legs amputated. Some of the verses:

O captain, dear, where have you been,
Have you been sailing in the Meditereen,
And have you any tidings of my son Ted,
Is the poor boy alive or is he dead?

Well, up comes Ted, without any legs,
And in their place he's got two wooden pegs.
She kissed him a dozen times or two,
Crying, Holy Moses, it isn't you

Now was you drunk, or was you blind,
When you left your two fine legs behind,
Or was it walking upon the sea,
Wore your two fine legs from the knees away?

No, I wasn't drunk, and I wasn't blind
When I left my two fine legs behind,
But a big cannon ball on the fifth of May,
Tore my two fine legs from the knees away.

Oh Teddy, my boy, the widow cried,
Your two fine legs were your mamma's pride,
The stumps of a tree won't do at all,
Why didn't you run from the big cannon ball?

All foreign wars, I do proclaim,
Between Don Juan and the King of Spain,
And I'll make them rue the time
They took two legs from a child of mine.

Here's an upbeat version from Tommy Makem, and another from Pete Seeger. For a more somber contemporary version, here's Bruce Springsteen:

John Lind (1854-1930)

John Lind (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

Photo above is from today's Library of Congress uploads to Flickr. John Lind (1854-1930) was a teacher and lawyer, the 14th governor of Minnesota, a US Representative, and President Wilson's envoy on Mexican affairs. You can't tell from this photo, but he was also noted for being an amputee--his lower left arm was lost in a sawmill accident when he was thirteen.

Because he was such a public figure, it's not difficult to find contemporary references to Lind's impairment. Many of them add the lost limb to a heroic narrative:

"His quiet and collected personality, made more heroic by the loss of his left arm, impresses one with immediate confidence and respect." (The American-Scandinavian Review (January 1913): 15.)

"Soon afterward he began work in a sawmill, in which he lost his left hand by an accident. This was probably not altogether a misfortune; for it compelled an immediate abandonment of manual labor for intellectual pursuits and thus directed his destiny to higher spheres of action." (Algot Strand, ed., A History of The Swedish-Americans of Minnesota (1910): 73)

But Lind was a politician, not a saint, and some other references make that clear. "For a one-armed man John Lind can make some telling blows once in a while," reported the Moose Lake Star on 17 January 1901, and they weren't being metaphorical. Fresh from his term as Governor, Lind walked into a newspaper office and attacked an editor who had long criticized him.

[posted on the occasion of a certain Minnesota-based blogger's birthday]

October 14: Katarzyna Rogowiec (b. 1977)

Just trolling around today's birthdays on Wikipedia, spotted Paralympian Katarzyna Rogowiec. She was born on this date in 1977, in Rabka-Zdrój, Poland. At age 3, she lost both hands in an accident with farming equipment (she doesn't remember the event). She's an economist by education and occupation. Rogowiec won two gold medals at the 2006 Turin Paralympics, as a cross-country skiier, and she's the current world champion paralympian in the biathlon event as well. Just last week she finished second in the women's cross-country skiing 15km event at the Paralympic Winter World Cup held in Solleftea, Sweden.

Website: Hidden Lives of the Waifs and Strays

[Image description: a black-and-white photograph of ten smiling English girls in 1915, at least three of them (in front) seated in wheelchairs.]

A remarkable website has come to my attention (hat-tip to Jennifer Bazar). Hidden Lives Revealed is a "virtual archive" preserving the photographs, publications, stories, and sometimes extensive case files of British children in care, 1881-1918. The personal names of the subjects have been removed, but you can access transcripts of correspondence as well as facsimile images. And, because "disability" is one of the keywords in the index, you can find the stories (and there are many such) in which a child's or a parent's disability is a factor in their care arrangement.

Take, for example, J., whose file runs over fifty items. J was born in 1870, and the very first boy in the Society's care. A childhood fall and an accidental burn resulted in physical "deformities." The boy was working as a streetsweeper at age 10; a health inspector removed him from his "wretched and degraded" family and placed him in care. At age 12,

He is now able to run about but a year ago he was compelled to lie on his back & was considered by several doctors in a very precarious condition he is naturally a very good, quiet, little boy & where-ever he has been he was evidently a great favourite. He is decidedly ignorant & can read & write very little.

J. was featured in a Society publication in 1901, as a success story. At the time, the thirty-year-old was working at a printing firm, married, the father of a little girl. But the case file continues for years past this happy ending: there are letters from J himself, and poems he wrote for Society publications. There's a photograph of him c.1923, in a suit and mustache. In 1930, he writes to tell his contacts at the Society that his health has worsened (tuberculosis) and he can no longer do physical labor. There's a flurry of letters as the Society tries to find provisions for this "first boy," but J. died in February 1930.

A. was born in 1892, and orphaned before she was 10. She lived with an older sister who wasn't well-equipped to care for another child; and A. contracted tuberculosis that required a right leg amputation. She was admitted to the Lockett Home for Crippled Children, Southport, in the winter of 1901, in good health. Five years later, a report explains that she's using crutches, healthy and strong, but "her intellect is not very bright." The report concludes that she could earn a living doing ironing if she had a "false leg." "She might also do stocking knitting," opined the writer. Unlike J., we don't know the rest of A.'s story--we don't even know if she got that leg.

Students might quickly take from these case files that work and vocational training are a major concern of the Society--much of the paperwork involves finding placements for teenagers who will soon leave care and need to support themselves. Another issue is morality--standard forms will ask such questions as "Are you aware of her being addicted to any unchaste practice?" The legitimacy and baptismal status of a child is frequently recorded, and the alcoholism and sexual behavior of parents is also a constant theme. Tuberculosis and untreated infections and injuries may strike some students as remarkable common in these materials--an opening to discuss the ways medical care changed in the twentieth century, and how medical history intersects with disability history.

March 17: Josef Sudek (1896-1976)

[Visual description: An older Josef Sudek, seated at a table showing the remains of coffee, smiling, his hand on his lap]

"We traveled down the Italian boot until we came to that place--I had to disappear in the middle of the concert; in the dark I got lost, but I had to search. Far outside the city towards dawn, in the fields bathed by the morning dew, finally I found the place. But my arm wasn't there--only the poor peasant farmhouse was still standing in my place. They had brought me into it the day when I was shot in the right arm. They could never put it together again, and for years I was going from hospital to hospital..."

--Josef Sudek, describing a 1926 trip back to the site of his 1916 battle injury in Italy; found here.

Born on this date in 1896, Czech photographer Josef Sudek. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a bookbinder, who may have been the first to introduce Sudek to photography. The year he turned 20, Sudek's right arm was amputated at the shoulder, after injuries and infection sustained in battle during World War I. Apparently he was given a camera during his convalescence in the veterans hospital, and found it agreed with his interests. Sudek studied photography after the war in Prague, while living on his Army disability pension. In 1924 he co-founded the Czech Photographic Society.

Josef Sudek's work is considered neo-romantic, painterly, haunting. He created series that captured the light inside a cathedral, or the Bohemian woodlands, or panoramic Prague nightscapes. "I love the life of objects," he said. "I like to tell stories about the life of inanimate objects." His own crowded studio was the subject of another series, called "Labyrinths."

Manet's "Rue Mosnier with Flags" (1878)

[Visual description: painting by Edouard Manet, a street scene in daylight, with French flags flying from every building; in the foreground, a figure with one leg uses crutches, back to the viewer, wearing a large blue coat and a black hat]

We went to the Getty today, a gorgeous day here in Los Angeles. The Getty is a wheel-friendly place with free admission and amazing views, so it's a low-stress place for us to go be a tourist family in our own town, and we go a few times a year. This time I spotted the Manet above--hadn't noticed it before, somehow, but it's in the permanent collection there. Tyler Green's blog Modern Art Notes had a good discussion of this painting's historical context earlier this year; an excerpt:

You can't miss the one-legged man--likely a war vet--at the left of the painting. The scene is apparently set on that national holiday and Manet juxtaposes the man against one of Baron Haussmann's famously straight Parisian streets. On the right -- on the other side of the street -- are Haussmann's new streetlights and a prosperous family. They all ignore the one-legged man. Manet is reminding us of the cost of war and of France's willful negligence of its warriors.

Why I love biographical dictionaries (#2)

(Here's #1.)

A few sentences from the first paragraph of the entry on chemist Ida Freund (1863-1914), in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online; entry written by Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie:

"During her youth she lost a leg as a result of a cycling accident and the disease that followed. The artificial leg that replaced it was never very satisfactory. Throughout her life she moved about by means of a tricycle worked with the arms."

And I can't find any other mentions of Freund's tricycle anywhere. Anyone know more about it? There has to be an interesting journal article waiting to be written here--she was a chemistry demonstrator and then lecturer at Cambridge, 1887-1912, a gifted teacher, supporter of women students in the sciences, author of two textbooks. Her colleagues or students must have made some mention of her tricycle over the years?

Paddy's Lamentation

A post about disability history that takes note of St. Patrick's Day? No problem. A well-known 19c. immigration ballad, "Paddy's Lamentation," is about an Irishman who arrives in America just in time to be recruited into the Union Army, and he loses a leg in combat. There are many recorded versions of this, and quite a number of YouTube videos featuring the song, but I've chosen a simple performance by young man playing a guitar (a stationary camera is pointed at the guitar; we rarely catch the singer's whole face, but he's a young white man with a beard):

Lyrics:

Well it's by the hush, me boys, and sure that's to hold your noise
And listen to poor Paddy's sad narration
I was by hunger pressed, and in poverty distressed
So I took a thought I'd leave the Irish nation

CHORUS: Here's to you boys, now take my advice
To America I'll have you(s) not be comin'
There ain't nothing here but war, where the murderin' cannons roar
And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin

Well meself and a hundred more, to America sailed o'er
Our fortunes to be made we were searchin'
When we got to Yankee land, they shoved a gun into our hands
Saying "Paddy, you must go and fight for Lincoln"

CHORUS

General Meagher to us he said, if you get shot or lose a leg
Every mother's son of you will get a pension
Well meself I lost me leg, they gave me a wooden peg,
And by God this is the truth to you I mention

CHORUS

March 6: Pete Gray (1915-2002)

[Image description: a black-and-white publicity photo of a one-armed baseball player in a St. Louis uniform, autographed "Pete Gray"; he's tossing a ball in the air, while nearby his glove is midair]

Ask most baseball fans today to name a one-handed player in the Major Leagues, and they're likely to say Jim Abbott--and that's a good answer. But ask someone older, from northeastern Pennsylvania, and you're as likely to hear the answer "Pete Gray." Pete Gray was born Peter Wyshner in Nanticoke PA, this date in 1915, the son of immigrants from Lithuania; his right arm was amputated at age 6, after a wagon accident. Wyshner lived in coal-mining country, so there were plenty of others with accidental injuries and lost limbs in his community--and it wasn't considered too unusual that he'd still want to play baseball. When he wasn't working as a water boy at the Truesdale Colliery, of course.

He played in the minor leagues during the WWII, when so many of the usual players were in uniform; then in 1945, he was picked up by the St. Louis Browns, and played 77 games in the majors as an outfielder. He was famous for the speed with which he could catch a ball in his glove, toss the ball in the air, remove the glove, grasp the ball, and throw it (that's the maneuver depicted in the publicity still above). As Pete Gray, he was featured in newsreels, a novelty story intended to inspire returning troops and attract audiences to the games. He stayed in baseball's minor leagues into the early 1950s, then retired to Nanticoke. His later years were hard; he died in a nursing home in 2002, after years of alcoholism and very little income. Pete Gray's glove is in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.

Print sources for further reading:

William C. Kashatus, One-Armed Wonder: Pete Gray, Wartime Baseball, and the American Dream (McFarland & Co. 1995).

William C. Kashatus, "Baseball's One-Armed Wonder: An Interview with the Late Great, Pete Gray," Pennsylvania Heritage (Spring 2003): 30-37.

More disability history on Flickr

cp 1855
Originally uploaded by otisarchives1

[Image description: sepia-toned photo of an African-American man in uniform, seated, facing the camera, with one leg amputated; the leg on the viewer's left is exposed to show the healed surgical site. A set of crutches are leaning against the chair.]

This time, it's content from the Otis Historical Archives in Washington DC, which specializes in images from the history of public health and military medicine, but there are other themes too. Image above is of "Buffalo Soldier" CPL Edward Scott of the 10th US Cavalry, injured 3 May 1886 at the Battle of Pinito Pass, Mexico (sent to chase down Geronimo and his men). These images (about 600 of them) aren't part of the Flickr Commons project yet, but apparently that's in the works; meanwhile, you can still browse and add comments.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: Battlefield Biker has more of Corporal Scott's story, including this quote from a letter written by his rescuer, Lieutenant Powhatan Clarke: "The wounded Corporal [Scott] has had to have his leg cut off, the ball that shattered it lodging in the other instep. This man rode seven miles without a groan, remarking to the Captin that he had seen forty men in one fight in a worse fix than he was. Such have I found the colored soldier."

December 19: Richard Leakey (b. 1944)

I had two legs in the grave, but I wasn't dead.

Kenya-based paleoanthropologist, museum administrator, Kenyan government official, and environmentalist Richard Erskine Frere Leakey turns 63 today. In his twenties, he was diagnosed with terminal kidney disease, and told he had only a decade to live. (He had a kidney transplant in his thirties, with significant immune system complications afterwards, but he's outlived that prediction by thirty years and counting....) As the first chairman of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, he took on the problems of poaching and the ivory trade.

In 1993, he was injured in a plane crash that may have been caused by sabotage (widely suspected, never proven). Since then, he's used two below-the-knee prosthetics, or in some situations a wheelchair. During his term in the Kenyan parliament (1997-1999), he introduced legislation to protect the rights of disabled people in Kenya. He continues his work, as a visiting fellow at SUNY-Stony Brook, and as chairman of Wildlife Direct, which funds conservationist work in Africa and encourages park rangers to publicize their work through blogs and other "on the ground" reporting. He's been a trustee of the National Fund for the Disabled in Kenya (1980-1995) and the National Kidney Foundation of Kenya (1981-1990).

Leakey describes the plane crash and its aftermath, with detailed descriptions of learning how to use a wheelchair and prosthetic legs, returning to his work and activism, encountering social and political disadvantages as a disabled person, etc., in his memoir Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures (with Virginia Morell; St. Martins 2002). Here's Leakey's own blog.

August 11: Andre Dubus (1936-1999)

American writer Andre Dubus was born on this date in 1936, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He was almost fifty years old, an ex-Marine, father of six, a prolific short-story writer and a respected writing instructor when he stopped to help an injured woman and her brother on the road. The three were hit by an oncoming car, killing the brother. Dubus saved the woman by pushing her to safety, but his own legs were crushed by the car instead. One amputation and years of surgery and therapy followed, and for the rest of his life Dubus used a wheelchair.

In his post-accident life, Dubus published two further books of essays, a collection of short stories, and numerous contributions to literary magazines. One of the essay collections, his last, was Meditations from a Moveable Chair (1998, cover at right shows a bearded Dubus in a wheelchair, near a ramp in a swamplike exterior). A comment here earlier this week pointed out that the title story of Dubus's second-to-last collection, Dancing After Hours (1996), features Drew, a wheelchair user and his assistant, and a waitress who has a strong memory about listening to Rahsaan Roland Kirk. (Ruth at Wheelie Catholic made note of Dubus last year, too.)

[Note: Last August 11, we marked the birthday of poet Louise Bogan.]

June 9: Cole Porter (1891-1964)

American composer and songwriter Cole Porter was born on June 9, 1891. He's best known for standards like "Just One of Those Things," "I Get a Kick out of You," and "I've Got You Under my Skin." In 1937, he was in a serious riding accident, and fractured both legs. He used a wheelchair or crutches for the last twenty-seven years of his life, but because few buildings were accessible in the mid-20th century, he was often carried into venues to perform, or parties to attend. He put his piano on blocks and continued to compose from his wheelchair. His post-injury works included Kiss Me, Kate (1948), which won him a Tony Award.

Chronic and severe pain, depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction were also part of Porter's difficult life after the accident--not all of that directly or solely traceable to his injuries, of course. He is known to have been treated with an early version of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Porter's right leg was amputated, after dozens of surgeries and decades of chronic pain, in 1958. He was fitted for a prosthetic leg, but never used it comfortably, and rarely left his home in his last years. During his life, the extent of his pain and injury were mostly unknown beyond his closest friends, but Porter has since been depicted as using a wheelchair in the 2004 film De-Lovely, and in stage productions of Red Hot and Cole.

Note: The Gay for Today bio-blog also noted Porter's birthday today.

Congratulations to Tsuchida and Soejima!

The 111th Boston Marathon (the world's oldest annual marathon--they like to point that out) almost didn't run on Monday--Boston was in the path of a big nor'easter that dumped a lot of snow and rain on the whole region. But organizers decided at 4am race day that it should go forward, and it did.

The Wheelchair division winners were both Japanese: Masazumi Soejima for the men (pictured at left) and Wakako Tsuchida for the women. Both are past Paralympic medalists, and Tsuchida has competed not only in track-and-field events, but also in ice sledge speed racing at the Winter Paralympics. Oh, and she had a baby seven months ago....

But wait, there's more. The Boston Marathon has several divisions for disabled athletes. In the visually-impaired division, Americans Adrian Broca and Ivonne Mosquera had the top times. In the mobility-impaired division (in which competitors usually ambulate with prostheses, crutches, or braces), Paul Martin and Amy Palmiero-Winters (pictured at right, not at the Monday race) placed first and second.

Congratulations to all the athletes who participated!

RIP: J. Kutty (1984-2007)

Noted Tamil performer J. Kutty has died, after a fall at a hotel in Paramakudi. Kutty, born Philip Breet Mankoshy, was just 23 years old. He is best known for his role in "Dancer," a 2005 Tamil film about a one-legged dancer, based in part on his personal story. Kutty lost his own right leg in a motorcycle accident in 1998. He was in Paramakudi to perform at a temple festival with an arts ensemble.