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.

CFP: Commemorating the Disabled Soldier (Ypres, Belgium, 4-6 November 2013)

[From H-Disability]

Call for papers

Commemorating the disabled soldier: Comparative approaches to the history of war, disability and remembrance, 1914-1940

International conference (Ypres, Belgium, 4th-6th November 2013) & special issue First World War Studies

Organized/edited by Prof. Pieter Verstraete (KU Leuven), Dr. Martina Salvante (Trinity College Dublin) & Prof. Julie Anderson (University of Kent) – with the financial support of the Province West-Flanders, the In Flanders Fields Museum, the Centre d’Histoire des Sociétés, des Sciences et des Conflits & the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders.

2014 will mark 100 years since the outbreak of the Great War. On the occasion of this important anniversary the Centre for the History of Education of the KU Leuven (Belgium), the Centre for War Studies of Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and the Centre for the History of Medicine of the University of Kent (United Kingdom) propose to organize an international conference aimed at reflecting on the impact of that specific event on soldiers’ bodies and minds. Millions of men all over the globe, in fact, returned home limbless, sightless, deaf, disfigured or mentally distressed.

In the last decades disability history has attracted an increasing interest in the scholarly community, thus becoming a well-established field, which has been highlighting, among others, the experiences of impaired people, medical and rehabilitative techniques, charitable institutions and welfare measures, public reception and private emotions. The First World War has somehow represented a watershed both in the visibility and the treatment of impairment and disablement owing to the massive amount of men who suffered physical injuries or mental disorder symptoms as a consequence of the conflict. These men happened, therefore, to embody the destructiveness of war and performed as human and living ‘sites of memory’. Because of their heralded heroism in the battlefields, shattered soldiers, however, were commonly considered worthy and in need of an (economic and medical) assistance that disabled civilians had not experienced beforehand. In spite of such considerations and of the yet numerous studies focusing on the interrelation between war and disablement (Julie Anderson, Joanna Burke, Ana Carden-Coyne, Deborah Cohen, David Gerber, Sabine Kienitz, Marina Larsson just to mention few), there has never been organized so far an international conference dealing exclusively with such a topic in an historical and comparative perspective.

Disabled veterans have always been involved in the commemorations of the Great War, but they have never been the focal point of any celebration. That is why we believe that the upcoming centenary of 2014 may provide us with an important opportunity to reflect upon the impact of war on the individual lives of those (and their families) who came back impaired, as well as on the institutions (charities, governmental agencies, ministries, associations, etc.) taking charge of their care and assistance during and after the conflict. Hence, we’d like to explore the question of the political, social, medical and cultural legacies of war disability in postwar society. The conference as well as the special issue will be specifically interested in strengthening comparative and transnational approaches. Contributions on rather unknown case studies and geographical/national areas are especially welcomed.

The gathering of international scholars coming from different countries would be, therefore, the occasion for in-depth discussions, reviews of previous studies, and outlining of future research perspectives. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to: medicine/surgery and treatment, rehabilitation and vocational retraining, associations and self-advocacy, charities and care-giving, war pensions, experience and memory, visual and textual representation (of the disabled themselves), suffering and pain, the place and function of the disabled body at inter-war commemorative activities, the international shaping of a global discourse on the mutilated body, the influence of war-related discourse on the over-all care for the disabled in general etc. Although the main conference will be focused on the First World War the call for papers, however, also is open for contributions that deal with the impact of subsequent conflicts on the soldier’s body and mind.

Besides the organization of an international conference which will be held on November 4th-6th 2013 the organizers also envisage first of all a special issue in the International Journal of the Society for First World War Studies. The Editor-in-chief already has approved the idea and the issue would be published in 2014. Furthermore, the organizers aim at publishing a book that would gather some/all of the papers presented at the conference. That would be the first book presenting a wide array of (trans)national cases on the subject of disability and the Great War, by getting together, thus, diverse hypotheses, methodologies and sources; In this way it would make European scholars as well as European citizens aware of the existence of disabled soldiers from the Great War and their particular place in the upcoming centennial celebration.

Practical & financial information

We are very pleased to announce that we will be able to accept and reimburse 13 scholars a sum of maximum 500 euro’s to cover their travel expenses to and from Ypres/Belgium where the conference will be held. Besides that the organizational committee will also pay for the accommodation (2 nights). Included also is a visit to the world famous and recently renovated In Flanders Fields Museum as well as a guided tour on the second day to the Western front line.

Please do also note that after the international conference “Commemorating the disabled soldier” will be ended, there will be another conference organized dealing especially with the relation between medicine and the Great War. Closely linked to this event two exhibitions will take place in Ghent and Ypres on the history of psychiatry and medicine in relation to the Great War. Unfortunately we will not be able to pay for additional nights.

Time line & deadlines

Submission of abstract and short CV: December 1st 2012 – Abstract=600 words/CV=Maximum 20 lines
Letter of acceptance (abstract): January 2013
First draft of the manuscript: June 1st 2013
Comments by the editors: September 1st 2013
Conference at Ypres: November 4th-6th 2013
Second draft of the manuscript: December 1st 2013
Final manuscript for First World War Studies: February 1st 2014

Submission of abstracts

Abstracts containing no more than 600 words and a CV of no more than 20 lines should be sent to Pieter.verstraete@ppw.kuleuven.be before December 1st 2012.

Looking forward to some thought provoking contributions as well as fruitful discussion,

The editorial committee,
Pieter Verstraete, Martina Salvante & Julie Anderson

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:

13 February: The Beating of Isaac Woodard (1946)

[Image description: black-and-white photo of Isaac Woodard, seated, wearing a uniform and large round sunglasses. A woman is standing next to the chair, with her arm behind Woodard.]


What does it cost to be a Negro? In Aiken, South Carolina it cost a man his eyes.

--Orson Welles, in a September 1946 radio broadast

On this date in 1946, Isaac Woodard (1919-1992) was on a long bus ride from Georgia, returning to his family in North Carolina. Woodard was African-American, and grew up in the South, but he was also in uniform, freshly discharged from the US Army with medals earned for his wartime service. Surely, he could use the next rest stop without any fuss?

The driver allowed him to do that; but the driver also contacted police, who took Woodard off the bus at the next stop in Batesburg, South Carolina. After being removed from the bus, Sgt. Woodard was beaten with nightsticks and taken to the town jail. The next morning, Woodard woke up blind. Both of his eyes had been irreparably damaged in a beating that he didn't remember clearly. He was released from jail, brain-injured and blind, and received no medical care for at least two days after the event. His family reported him missing after three weeks; only then was he identified and moved to an Army hospital for care.

Woodard's story was publicized by the NAACP; Orson Welles called for the punishment of the policemen involved; a federal case was brought, but the chief of police was cleared of all charges. Although he was not blinded during his war service, the Blinded Veterans Association made an exception in his case, and welcomed him as a member. Woodard moved to New York after he recovered, and died in a military hospital there in 1992.

The abuse faced by Woodard and other returning soldiers was part of President Truman's reason for issuing Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed forces. Woody Guthrie wrote the song "The Blinding of Isaac Woodard" to retell the story in ballad form at a concert in support of Woodard held in New York City in 1946 (also featuring Cab Calloway, Billie Holliday, Milton Berle, and Orson Welles).

Want to teach about the Woodard case? Documents related to his story are collected online here, courtesy of Andrew H. Myers, for classroom use.

Further reading:

Robert F. Jefferson, "'Enabled Courage': Race, Disability, and Black World War II Veterans in Postwar America," The Historian 65(5)(2003): 1102-1124.

Kari Frederickson, "'The Slowest State' and 'Most Backward Community': Racial Violence in South Carolina and Federal Civil-Rights Legislation, 1946-1948," South Carolina Historical Magazine 98(2)(1997): 177-202.

September 7: Daniel Inouye (b. 1924)

[Image description: A black-and-white portrait of a young Daniel Inouye]
Oftentimes, it takes as much, if not more, courage to speak out and oppose our government’s actions. It should be viewed no less patriotically than those who wave the American flag.

Happy 85th birthday to Senator Daniel Inouye, who has served in the Senate continuously since 1959. Inouye is also one of the several disabled veterans serving in Congress.

He was born to Japanese immigrant parents in Honolulu, and joined the Army in 1943; Japanese-Americans were prevented from enlisting before that year. In April 1945, his right forearm was amputated due to battlefield injuries in Italy. He met future colleague Bob Dole when both were recovering from their war injuries at an army hospital. Inouye abandoned plans for a medical career and used the GI Bill to study political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The day Hawaii became a state in 1959, Inouye was sworn in as its first senator.

Conference: War Wounds (Canberra, 24-25 September 2009)

[Image description: Logo for the conference, central photo is black and white, a young man in uniform, arm in a sling)

A conference announcement from the H-Net digest. Aside from the cringeworthy "triumph over" language here, it looks like an interesting program:

BAE Systems Theatre,
Australian War Memorial, Canberra
Thursday 24 and Friday 25 September, 2009

The history of warfare and the history of medicine have been closely linked. War has often been an accelerator of advances in medical treatment and surgery as doctors and nurses struggled to cope with the human cost and suffering of mankind’s most destructive acts.

The major wars of the last hundred years—from the First World War to more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan—have driven advances in treatments for wounds and pain management, the use of antibacterial agents and more effective prophylaxis against disease and infection, as well as the development of radical new approaches to evacuating, treating and healing the injured.

Nevertheless, war continues to inflict its toll of carnage and human misery on not just combatants but also civilians who are, too often, either the intended or accidental targets of modern conflicts. The relationship between medicine and the military can also produce challenges and conflict.

For veterans and their families the post-war legacy of combat experience can sometimes seem as severe and persistent as the effects of wounds and injuries. War-damaged veterans are reminder of the enduring impact of war on Australian society.

The Australian War Memorial is convening this two-day conference to bring together eminent historians specialising in the medical and demographic consequences of warfare, medical practitioners and researchers in the field of military medicine, former and serving medical officers, surgeons, nurses and veterans. They will explore the impact of war, wounds and trauma through the historical record and personal experiences.

Conference themes

Major themes to be addressed by speakers include:

• Casualties in war, treatment in the field and medical evacuation, surgical teams and field hospitals
• Soldiers’ and doctors’ perspectives (personal accounts) of wounds and treatment
• Mine casualties, fear of wounds and acute trauma on the battlefield
• Shell shock, self inflicted wounds and combat fatigue
• Illnesses and diseases of war (malaria, dysentery, venereal disease, etc.), maintaining soldiers’ health, the evolution of service medicine
• Facially disfigured soldiers, advances in surgery, rehabilitation of wounded veterans
• The cost of war and veterans’ health studies, the aftermath and post mortems, including the debate over the effects of ‘Agent Orange’ in Vietnam
• Living with the effects, triumph over disabilities
• The lighter side (doctors’ and veterans’ memories)

Join us at the Australian War Memorial for an absorbing, stimulating and, at times, confronting exploration of the interaction of medicine and war.

This conference is being convened by the Australian War Memorial. The support of the Australian Government through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs is gratefully acknowledged.

More information.

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.

November 17: Winifred Holt (1870-1945)

[Image description: black-and-white archival photo of two men seated at a table, in French military uniforms; they have their hands on a small checkerboard; one man appears to have his eyelids closed, and the other has fabric patches over both eyes; behind them, a woman in seated, and has her own hand stretched toward the checkerboard]

Co-founder of Lighthouse International (formerly the New York Association for the Blind) Winifred Holt was born on this date in 1870, in New York City, the daughter of publisher Henry Holt. She was a force in early twentieth-century advocacy --she and her organization worked for inclusion of blind children in New York public schools, for summer camps, vocational training programs and social groups run by and for blind people, for rehabilitation of blinded WWI veterans. She also worked for changes in medical protocols to prevent a common cause of blindness in newborns. She encouraged similar "Lighthouses" to operate in other cities around the world. Many of the projects she started continue in some form today.

In the photo above (found here, in the Library of Congress's Bain Collection), Holt is seen teaching newly blind French soldiers to play checkers in a rehabilitation program in France (Holt received the Legion d'Honneur for her wartime work there). Holt trained as a sculptor when she was a young woman; her best known work is a 1907 bas-relief bronze portrait of Helen Keller, online here. She also wrote a biography of blind English MP and postmaster Henry Fawcett.

Disability in other campaigns this year

We haven't had an equivalent of the 2006 Michael J. Fox ad this season (yet), but here's one current ad from a Senate race (New Mexico) that's tightly focused on disability, specifically on brain-injured young veterans:



[Video description: Erik Schei, a young man with close-cropped sandy hair and glasses is seated facing the camera, with a screen in front of him. We hear him in a computer-generated voice explaining that he is an Iraq War veteran who was brain injured by a sniper's bullet, and not expected to survive. He then thanks Congressman Tom Udall for supporting funding for research into traumatic brain injuries. At the end of the video, he mouths the words "thank you."]

Run across any others?

Added later: More on Erik Schei.

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

Blind elected officials

With today's resignation of Eliot Spitzer from the office of governor of New York, David Paterson becomes acting governor--the third African-American state governor since Reconstruction (after Deval Patrick and Douglas Wilder), AND the first *or second, see "stop the presses" below* blind state governor in US history.

I've made a list of some other political leaders who experience blindness, as a reference. Folks who do disability studies may be asked questions about this in the next few days--I figure it's good to have some handy details to share.

On the international scene, there's the UK's Gordon Brown--the current Prime Minister is partially blind from a rugby injury in his youth.

Here in the US, I know of two* blind Congressmen in US history:

Thomas D. Schall (1878-1935), blind from a 1907 electrical accident, served five consecutive terms in the House of representatives (1915-1925) and then was elected to two terms in the Senate (1925-1935).

Ira Clifton Copley (1864-1947), founder of the Copley Press newspaper publishing company; served six consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, 1910-1923; vision significantly impaired by childhood case of scarlet fever, and further affected by later episodes of snow blindness

This year, another may be added to the list, as Rabbi Dennis Shulman is running for office in New Jersey--he would also be the first rabbi elected to Congress.

Willie Brown, the recent mayor of San Francisco (1996-2004), has significant vision impairment from retinitis pigmentosa. Brown was also a state assemblyman for seventeen terms, and the longest-running Speaker of the California Assembly (1980-1995). Elsewhere in the US, Randy Meyer, mayor of Sheboygan Falls WI, has been blind since surviving cancer in early childhood. Some other blind mayors on the recent international scene: Apolinar Salcedo, mayor of Cali, Colombia; Richard Lees, mayor of Taunton, Somerset, England.

That's all I've got right now. Anyone have more to add? I've probably left out some important names...

*UPDATE: Yes, I sure did leave out some important names! In comments, Day in Washington quickly added Thomas P. Gore (1870-1949), who served in the Senate (1907-1921). (No close relation to Al Gore or his family, but TP Gore was the grandfather of Gore Vidal. Also, interestingly, Thomas P. Gore's given name at birth was Governor Thomas Pryor Gore--but he wasn't ever an actual governor.) Thanks Day! Keep them coming.

**SECOND UPDATE: H-Disability network members came up with a couple more: Joan Tucker suggested Senator Floyd Morris, who is the current Minister of State in Jamaica's Ministry of Labour and Social Security; and Roger Daniels suggested MP David Blunkett, a member of Tony Blair's cabinet. Thanks!

***THIRD UPDATE: Another couple from the H-Disability discussion thread: Harilyn Rousso asked if there were any blind women in elected office; so I searched a little further and found Anita Blair (b. 1916), who was elected to the Texas state legislature for one term (1953-55). She was blind from a car accident at age 20, and was the first person in El Paso to receive a guide dog (she even made a film about that, called "A Day with Fawn"). Blair's got a listing in Nancy Baker Jones and Ruthe Winegarten's Capitol Women: Texas Female Legislators, 1923-1999 (University of Texas Press 2000): 130-131. And there's a 1952 Time magazine article about her winning the Democratic nomination that year. But she sounds worth a research paper, at minimum, somebody? Cathy Kudlick also pointed to Henry Fawcett (1833-1884), a member of Parliament in the 1860s and 1870s, Postmaster General too (1880-1882), and husband of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett.

****BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! (3/13): The website Political Graveyard has a very comprehensive listing for "politicians with physical disabilities" (which, in their categories, includes blindness). More blind legislators there: Ellis Barkett Bodron (1923-1997), who spent more than thirty years in the Mississippi State legislature; Pennsylvania's Matthew Anthony Dunn (1886-1942) was in the House of Representatives, 1933-41; Nehemiah Hezekiah Earll (1787-1872--can't beat that name) served one term in Congress, 1839-41, representing New York; Robert D. Mahoney (b. 1921) served almost twenty years in the Michigan state house of representatives; T. Euclid Rains Sr. (c1921-2000) was in the Alabama state house of representatives (1979-91), but was also known as an avid beekeeper and Little League coach; and Mo Udall (1922-1998) was a professional basketball player and US Representative from Arizona (1961-91)--he had a glass eye from age 6.

*****STILL MORE! (3/14): Hernando de Soto Money (1839-1912) was a longtime US Representative from Mississippi (1875-85, 1893-97), and was appointed to the Senate in 1897 to fill a vacancy (he was elected in his own right in 1899, re-elected in 1905, and was at one point minority leader). His obituary in the New York Times noted that "He was long troubled with an affection of the eyes, which made him almost blind."

And while I'm here, Stephen Kuusisto wrote a fine, fine op-ed piece on Paterson for the New York Times today.

******STOP THE PRESSES! (3/15): Bob C. Riley of Arkansas (1924-1994) was acting governor of his state for eleven days in 1975, and was blind from a 1944 WWII injury. Eleven days -- covering the gap between Dale Bumpers becoming a Senator and David Pryor's swearing-in -- isn't exactly a governorship, but if this technicality is relevant to your needs, call Paterson the second blind governor in US history--but the first to have a substantial term to serve.

Glenn Votes (or, access to the polls, 1940-style)

[Image description--a black-and-white news photo shows a man carrying another man across wooden planks leaving a building, with signs indicating that it's a polling location.]

This image is from Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990, an online exhibit of Los Angeles Times photos, hosted by UCLA Libraries. I've drawn from this archive before, but this photo in contrast (or comparison) to so many photos from the polls this last week caught my attention anew. Glenn Switzer, the man being carried above, was a veteran disabled in World War I. To vote in Duarte, California, in 1940, he had to be carried by another man, Walter Howard. The ground looks muddy; those wooden planks are a makeshift sidewalk for pedestrian voters, but they're insufficient for Switzer's independent access, and they probably kept a lot of other folks from even trying to vote that November.

January 14: Harold Russell (1914-2002)

Boy, you ought to see me open a bottle of beer.

--"Homer Parrish," as played by Harold Russell

Born on this date in 1914 in Nova Scotia, Harold Russell, pictured at right with the two Oscars he won in 1947 for a single role, in Best Years of Our Lives. Though he was Canadian-born and raised, he was living in the US and working as a meatcutter when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941; he joined the Army the very next day. While making a training film in 1944, a defective fuse blew up and both hands had to be amputated. He used hooks thereafter, with a grace that, by all accounts, dispelled dubious onlookers' concerns.

Russell appeared in an Army documentary about rehabilitation, Diary of a Sergeant, while he was a student at Boston University. He was spotted by director William Wyler, and cast to play a disabled veteran in The Best Years of Our Lives. He won two Oscars for the role: one a "special" Oscar for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans," and one for Best Supporting Actor, as voted by the Academy. After the hubbub surrounding his Oscar wins, Russell returned to Boston University and finished a degree in business.

Russell published an autobiography, Victory in my Hands (1949). For many years he was National Commander of the American Veterans (AMVETS), and chaired the President's Commission on the Employment of the Handicapped.

National Library of Medicine's historical image collection online

A message on H-Sci-Med-Tech pointed me to the National Library of Medicine's History of Medicine image collection online--wow. It's an amazing collection of images from all times and places. Many recent public service posters and program covers, but also much older stuff, like the lithograph I've included at left, titled "Souvenirs of War": it's captioned in French, and from the uniforms I'm assuming early 19c. The caption is in French, and repeats a refrain, "ah, quel plaisir d'etre un soldat!"

[Further image description: All four men visible are using different orthopedic supports--one man in the distance is walking with crutches; another closer to the viewer is also using two crutches, but has his leg hitched up; a third man, in the center of the frame, is using two simple "peg-leg" style lower-limb prosthetics, and a thin cane; the fourth man, on the right, is in a box-like chair with small wooden wheels; he may also have his head/neck wrapped (it's hard to tell).]

MacArthur Fellows 2007: Disability researchers in the mix

One of this year's newly announced batch of MacArthur Fellows is Yoky Matsuoka (b. 1971) an engineer at the University of Washington-Seattle. Matsuoka designs very high-tech anatomical models, including an intricate robotic hand, exoskeletal appliances to improve fine-motor use, and another project that uses wearable haptic devices in post-stroke therapies.

Another, Jonathan Shay (b. 1941, portrait at left), is a Boston-based psychiatrist and classicist who takes humanistic approaches to psychological injury in Vietnam (and now Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq) War veterans. His book titles may give a good flavor of his work: Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (1994) and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (2002). Shay is himself a stroke survivor who has experienced post-stroke paralysis.

Conference: When the Soldiers Return

The conference ‘When the Soldiers Return’ will be held in Australia at the University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, 28-30 November 2007. This conference will bring together scholars investigating the legacy of war, its effects on the broader society and culture, and the central role returned soldiers play in these processes.

Check out just some of the papers on the program that deal with disability (and there are surely others, but these titles stuck out for me):

Sandy McFarlane and Keith Horsley, "Florence Nightingale: A Sufferer of a Post-Deployment Syndrome"

Margaret Goldswain, "The War-Damaged Soldier in Australia after the Great War"

Melanie Oppenheimer, "'Fated to a life of suffering': Graythwaite, the Australian Red Cross, and Returned Soldiers, 1916-1939"

Keith Horsley and Sandy McFarlane, "Post-Deployment Syndromes Following Wars in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries"

Kristy Muir, "'There were no ticker tape parades for us': Homecomings of Veterans with Mental Health Problems"

Jim Porteous, "Rehabilitation of Injured or Ill Australian Defence Force Members"

Jen Hawksley, "Histories from the Asylum: 'The Unknown Patient'"

Kerry Neale, "'Without the Faces of Men': The Return of Facially Disfigured Australian Veterans from the Great War"

Marina Larsson, "'The Part We Do Not See': Disabled Australian Soldiers and Family Caregiving after World War I"

Stephen Clarke, "The Long Shadow of War: The New Zealand Experience of 'Burnt-Out Diggers' during the 1920s and 1930s"

Curious to learn more about any of these projects? The program (linked above) includes abstracts for all of them.

Illustration above: a stamp that promotes Esperanto as a way to end war, with a simple illustration in green of a uniformed man on crutches; from the 1920s, I think? (Lost the cite. Bad historian.)

"Convalescence and California: The Civil War Comes West"

From a post today on H-California (wish I could make this lecture--but I'll be at a conference in San Francisco):

The Department of History at CSU Northridge will hold the annual W.P. Whitsett Lecture in California and Western history on Friday, April 20th at 8 p.m. in the Grand Salon of the University Student Union at CSU Northridge. Professor William Deverell, Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and Professor of History at the University of Southern California, will lecture on "Convalescence and California: The Civil War Comes West".

The public is invited. The lecture will be followed by a reception. Since seating is limited, please call the Department of History at 818-677-3566 to make a reservation and to obtain information on parking.

Professor Deverell has a forthcoming study on The Redemptive West: Convalescence, Healing, and the Post-Civil War Nation. His Whitsett lecture will explore several themes from this study, most notably the extent to which soldiers and their families, their lives shattered by the war, looked to California for hope and rejuvenation, just as the nation looked to the far West for national redemption.

Postscript: While looking up links for this post, I came across an interesting photo collection online: they're images of the 75th reunion at Gettysburg in the summer 1938. Surviving Civil War veterans (and they must all have been in their 90s) from across the United States, Confederate and Union alike, took buses and trains to Gettysburg for a last gathering. The photos are moving, and a great many of them include men in wheelchairs, or with canes. (I've been in Gettysburg in July a couple times--it was really steamy, miserably hot and humid--I hope the tent city that was erected for the reunion was more comfortable for all those old veterans.)

Only the tip of the iceberg

In scanning the Sunday morning menu of news programs, the non-hygienic and deplorable conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Facility was the topic du jour. As one would expect, there was rhetoric both trying to explain actions taken to remedy the problem, as well as, aggressive statements minimizing the issue.

The journalist Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who conducted a thorough four month investigation of the facility, explained that she had spoken with the various parties involved. Initially she had been contacted by a person who knew someone who was very frustrated with the poor living conditions at this renowned military health facility. She soon discovered that it was not one or even ten people who were appalled by these conditions but a significant number of patients' families and others who had access to the interior of this outpatient infirmary.

Now this story has opened a Pandora's Box from which different voices are resounding and into which the public is peering.

I have utmost respect for those women and men who are returning from Iraq, with and without medical impairments. What disturbs me is that the same deplorable conditions and substandard care and services are every day occurrences in the lives of many people with disabilities, as well as the elderly, who are living in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The United States government is quick to covet credit as the world's most developed and advanced country yet under its very eyes, we see physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in these facilities.

There have been sporadic investigative reports through the years of the conditions in nursing homes but there is never a resonating unified public outcry for surveillance and for humane corrective action to be enforced.

We all respect and honor those who have been injured by a historical misadventure, the Iraq war, of which they had no part in creating. We the public should not express any less shock or demand any less purposeful and immediate action against the living conditions that demoralize people with disabilities and the elderly who live in facilities in situations that would never be tolerated by these in power if they were themselves to residence of the same facilities.