Not BADD

 It's been a few years since May 1 was Blogging Against Disablism Day, but I still think of BADD when the calendar turns. This year, WikiProject Women in Red is having a virtual editathon on Women & Disability during May. (Yes, you can join in!) I figure I can make an appearance here and report what I'm doing for that editathon, which will mostly be writing new biographical articles, plus adding images or otherwise improving existing articles.

Here's what I've done for the event so far (beginning in late April 2023, to get a running start on the event). I mostly work on US subjects, and deceased subjects, but sometimes others. Sometimes I work on men's biographies, but usually only as a tangent; but when those are relevant I'll list them here too.

1. I destubbed the article on writer Susan Nussbaum, which was previously one sentence. 4/22/23

2. I added an image to the article on music educator Almeda C. Adams. 4/26/23

3. I started a new article on Floy Schoenfelder (1919-2000), co-founder of the Polio Survivors Foundation. 4/29/23

4. I added references and otherwise tidied the article on artist Lucille Wallenrod. 4/30/23

5. I added a 1957 photo of Rosalyn Faye Lee and Jack R. Gannon to Gannon's article. 5/1/23

6. I started a new article on educator Elizabeth Simpson Burke, aka Sister Joan Margaret (1906-2005). 5/1/23

7. I added an image and some references to an article on Haitian violinist Romel Joseph (1959-2015). 5/1/23

8. I improved the article on basketball player Junius Kellogg (1927-1998), with an image and other additions. 5/2/23

9. I started an article on rehabilitation specialist and college dean Elizabeth Eckhardt May (1899-1996). 5/3/23

10. I started an article on Hungarian-born philanthropist Marion Mill Preminger (1903-1972), who served on the President's Committee for the Employment of the Handicapped in the 1960s. 5/4/23

11. I started an article on Georgia medical records librarian Thelma Van Norte (1912-1985), who trained blind medical transcriptionists, and worked on patient records at Georgia State Hospital. 5/4/23

12. I added a 1966 photo of Harold Russell with Thelma Van Norte to the article on Harold Russell. 5/4/23

13. I started an article on American Foundation for the Blind field representative Lotta S. Rand (1868-1956).  5/6/23

14. I started an article on librarian Etta Josselyn Giffin (1863-1932), 1st director of the National Library for the Blind. 5/7/23

15. Kinda tangential, but I started an article about writer and photographer Beatrice Pitney Lamb (1904-1997); she worked with the League of Women Voters and the United Nations before turning her eye and pen to India. She was also Christopher Reeve's maternal grandmother. 5/15/23

16. I started an article on Philadelphia clubwoman Rose Goldsmith Stern (1866-1931), who advocated for deaf education and for supports for deaf veterans of World War I, as chair of the Welfare Work for the Deaf subcommittee of the National Council of Jewish Women. 5/18/23

17. I also started a WikiQuote page for Rose Goldsmith Stern. 5/18/23

18. I added a reference to the existing article on Sarah Fuller (1836-1927), teacher and co-founder of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. 5/19/23

19. I added a photo and infobox to the article on oralist educator Harriet Burbank Rogers (1834-1919). 5/19/23

20. I started an article on Annetta W. Peck (1871-1958), executive secretary of the New York League for the Hard of Hearing. 5/19/23

21. I started an article on Canadian poet Annie Charlotte Dalton (1865-1938), billed as "the Poet Laureate of the deaf." 5/20/23

22. I also started a WikiQuote page for Annie Charlotte Dalton. 5/20/23

23. I started an article on lip-reading advocate and educator Elizabeth Helm Nitchie (1880-1961). 5/21/23

24. I started an article on Tulsa disability rights advocate Jill Zink Tarbel (1924-2009). 5/23/23

25. I started an article on Mouth magazine publisher and activist Lucy Gwin (1943-2014). 5/25/23

26. I started an article on activist and writer Connie Panzarino (1947-2001). 5/25/23 

27. I started an article on activist and artist Anna Stonum (1958-1999). 5/28/23

Stay tuned, I'll be adding more most days of May 2023.

BADD 2016: Nerys Johnson's "every atom of concentration"

Okay, I'm here for BADD 2016, because how could I break our eleven-year streak of participation? I couldn't.  I'm not so much of a blogger these days, but I'm willing to add my bit to the big event.  For our past ten appearances in the series: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. (For the record, the 2007 and 2008 entries are two of my favorite blog posts I've ever written, on any blog, or any topic.  BADD has been good for me.)
And.... I'm still on a Wikipedia kick. Just finished "Awaken the Dragon," a month-long event by WikiProject Wales, to improve Wikipedia content about Wales and Welsh people. I had fun looking for relevant biographies that needed an article, and as of today I've worked on 37 new articles since April 1, and improved ("destubbed") 7 others.

Were there any disabled people? Of course there were! Because there always are. I actually wrote the entry on physically-disabled surgeon Hugh Morriston Davies (1879-1965) after finding a note about him that I'd written here, at DSTU, almost six years ago.  Rev. Daniel Davies (1797-1876) was a blind preacher noted for his erudition; I first found him when the National Library of Wales uploaded some photographs of him to Flickr Commons. Aristocrat Olive Talbot (1842-1894) was an example of a nineteenth-century "invalid"--she rarely left home because her physical issues made it difficult, but she corresponded with interesting friends, and spent her inheritance funding church renovation projects in Wales.

And then there's artist Nerys Johnson (1946-2001) (pictured at left, a middle-aged white woman seated in a colorful smock, holding a paint brush in her right hand.)  Johnson had rheumatoid arthritis from childhood; she was also a painter and a curator in the north of England, noted for her bold works and original exhibit ideas.  And she had a thing or two to say about the disablism of well-meaning admirers.

"I am not an artist because of my disabilities. I am appalled when people see my painting as a hobby, and comment how relaxing it must be. If they just knew how it takes every ounce of energy I've got, every atom of concentration." 

(from this 2000 interview)

If you're ever even tempted to compliment someone on a hobby that's really a vocation, because they're disabled--that might be disablism. If you want to comment "oh, that must be such good therapy" to someone who creates for joy or for a living, but definitely not as therapy--that might be disablism too.

When I woke up this morning, Nerys Johnson didn't have a Wikipedia article; now she does. Happy BADD! 

Go here to read all the other BADD 2016 contributions.

For Stacey

Stacey asked me to keep a lookout for historical people who had muscular dystrophy--and I said "sure!" because that's right up my alley.  So I started poking around on Wikipedia, of course. Some stories that caught my attention this morning are below, in chronological order by date of birth. As usual, it isn't the most diverse list; there's definitely room for a wider array of stories on Wikipedia. Suggested additions are most welcome! (I'm only counting deceased people as "historical"--just to have some kind of cutoff.)


Richard Lindsay Batten (1920-1974) was a British orthopaedic surgeon who established the first blood bank in Nigeria, and advocated effectively for motorcycle helmets in the UK. He had myotonic dystrophy, a progressive form of muscular dystrophy that affected him more in his later life.

Mel Powell (1923-1998) was an American jazz pianist and composer who worked with Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Django Reinhardt, among other greats. He began using a wheelchair (sometimes a cane) in his twenties, and focused on composition when he needed to stop touring. He was the founding dean of the school of music at California Institute of the Arts.  He won the Pulitzer Prize in Composition in 1990. (You've probably heard music by Mel Powell if you've watched enough old Tom and Jerry cartoons--he composed for those, in addition to his more serious work.)

Quentin Crewe (1926-1998) was an English travel writer and restaurant critic whose New York Times obituary carried the remarkable headline "Quentin Crewe, 72, Bon Vivant Who Was Unfazed by Disability", with the further explanation that he had "not so much suffered from, as gloried in" his muscular dystrophy. He traveled in his customized wheelchair -- including two years crossing the Sahara, and two years living in Kyoto -- and wrote his books by typing one-handed. He wrote a gossipy memoir, Well, I Forget the Rest: The Autobiography of an Optimist (1991), of his adventures.

Alfredino Ferrari

Alfredo "Dino" Ferrari (1932-1956), yes, from that Ferrari family.  Alfredo was the son of company founder Enzo Ferrari, and an automotive engineer too, before he died at 24, from complications of his Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The "Dino" car series was named in his honor. There's also a Formula One racing venue named for him and for his father.

Sister Mary Louise St. John (1943-2003) was an American Catholic gay rights activist and a Benedictine nun who used a wheelchair from her youth. She studied world literature and psychology at Skidmore College before entering her religious order. At a conference in 1989, she declared, 'To alienate my lesbian identity from the identity of the Godness within me would be to dismember myself.'' At the same event, she spoke about the challenge of claiming her sexuality as a wheelchair user. She was cofounder of the Womynspace coffeehouse in Erie, and spoke at that city's first gay rights rally in 1998. Sister Mary Louise served as a business manager, tutor, and retreat guide at her motherhouse. She was also on the board of the local Community Resources for Independence.  Here's her obituary in the Erie Gay News, with a small blurry photo of her using a power wheelchair.

Christine la Barraque (c1878-1961), and more new disability content on Wikipedia

Hey! A new post at DSTU. 

As I've mentioned, in recent years I've been putting some energy into Wikipedia. I like writing new entries there, because it feels like that's going to reach a much bigger audience than a journal article or a paywalled reference. And, as part of WikiProject Disability, some of my entries are about disability topics (of course). Since last BADD in May, I've started new entries for baseball coach Mary Dobkin, businessman Dwight D. Guilfoil Jr., South African activist Maria Rantho, wheelchair manufacturers Everest & Jennings, blind biochemist Dilworth Wayne Woolley, playground builders Shane's Inspiration, and blind singer/lawyer Christine la Barraque. I also built out an existing stub entry on educator Elizabeth E. Farrell, during the "Justin Dart Jr. Virtual Edit-a-thon 2015" in August.


None of these are exhaustive entries; they're a good solid start, I think, but if anyone reading this blogpost has more to add, with reliable sources to back up any new information, please jump in! Christine la Barraque has me especially curious right now (because I just wrote about her on Friday). She seems, pretty definitely, to have been the first blind woman to pass the bar in California; but was she the first in any state (as some sources suggest)? Was she the first blind woman to graduate from the University of California, in 1896 (when she was about 18 years old, by the way)? Anytime "the first" is on the table, there are questions and complications: who counts as blind? or graduating? or a woman? La Barraque was said to have been born in France, but exactly where is sketchy and mentions contradict each other. If she was, her parents came to America with a blind child, through immigration screens intended to prevent that scenario. So I would love to know more about them, too. (I think they lived in Tres Pinos or Paicines, California--when she was living in Boston at the time of the San Francisco earthquake, she sent a telegram to the governor of California asking after "my people in Tres Pinos.")

La Barraque wasn't an obscure singer or advocate; she performed for Helen Keller and Mark Twain, she was a founder and president of the San Francisco Workers for the Blind, she testified before the Massachusetts Legislature, she toured blind schools in Italy, she performed all over the US and apparently also in Canada. I've seen mentions of her working with disabled veterans after both World Wars, but not enough to include in the entry (yet). 

BADD 2015: Wikipedia Against Disablism, Part 2

Ahem.  Hello? Hello?

Okay, I'm here for BADD 2015, because how could I break our ten-year streak of participation? I couldn't.  I'm not so much of a blogger these days, but I'm willing to add my bit to the big event.  For our past nine appearances in the series:

2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. (For the record, the 2007 and 2008 entries are two of my favorite blog posts I've ever written, on any blog, or any topic.  BADD has been good for me.)

Last year I wrote about why Wikipedia needs more and better content on disability topics, and how anyone can help; and how that fights disablism, by shifting language, removing cliches, decreasing melodrama, respecting personhood, perhaps in small ways, but for a big diverse audience that will never see your blog or your journal article.  I'm still pretty involved there, and in the past year I've found more ways to discover stories to improve Wikipedia's disability content; so I'm still preaching that same sermon today.

But first:

Headline from a 1910 Aberdeen Herald newspaper, from Aberdeen, Washington, reads "Ableism the Issue; All Others Sunk into Insignificance in this County; All kinds of Diversions are Attempted by the Abel Press, but are not Successful. What is Abel Spending So Much Money For?" From Newspapers.com

Eliza Suggs (1876-1908), temperance activist

That headline didn't actually have anything to do with disability or discrimination, but I was still startled to see the word "Ableism" appear in a newspaper from over a century ago!  I found this because I acquired a Newspapers.com subscription through The Wikipedia Library, a project that matches experienced Wikipedia editors with scholarly resources that aren't always available for off-campus folks.  So far it's been extremely useful, and hardly a day passes without finding something fascinating.  Like the tidbit above. 

One of the ways I'm using searchable old newspapers like this is to find the disability stories that are hiding, that are lost, that we forgot, that we need to remember.  Not all of them made the big national papers, but they survive in local dailies, and sometimes there's plenty to meet Wikipedia's criteria for notability and reliable sources, and start a new entry. Maybe everyone knows about Helen Keller, or thinks they do, enough to put her on US currency (again). But there are so many others worth learning about!  Some American biographical examples, from recent wanderings on Wikipedia or in old US newspapers:

1. Eliza Suggs (1876-1908):  "Carried in arms or wheeled about in a carriage, her frail hands and well developed head have accomplished wonders, obtaining a fair education, which makes her a valuable assistant, sometimes as secretary of religious organizations and work. In former years she assisted her father, more or less, in evangelistic work, and she has presided in public meetings with marked dignity and ability." Suggs was born in Illinois, to parents who met while they were enslaved on a Mississippi plantation; she had osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), and was a temperance activist alongside her preacher father, and later on her own.  I didn't write this entry but I'm glad somebody did.  Here's her memoir online, along with a photo of Miss Suggs (above, right).

2. Anita Lee Blair (1916-2010) was the first blind woman to serve in any US state legislature.  I wrote about her on DSTU a few years ago, and finally got her Wikipedia entry started earlier this year.  I found a campaign ad of hers from 1952 in a Texas newspaper recently, too, featuring her guide dog Fawn, and text proclaiming her achievements and her independence.

"Fear" (1981) by Elizabeth Layton;
a drawing of an older woman peeking
out from a closet with a fearful expression

3. Elizabeth Layton (1909-1993) was an artist based in Kansas who found her art late in life, in a drawing class she took at age 68, hoping it would help with her lifelong struggles with depression, and with more acute grief following the death of her son.  It did help, and it also brought her national acclaim:  in 1992 she was the focus of a show at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art.  I started her Wikipedia entry last week.  At left, a 1981 drawing by Elizabeth Layton, titled "Fear."  (Were you expecting sentimental art from an old lady?  Her drawings were edgy, even controversial.)

4. Dwight D. Guilfoil Jr. (1926-1989) was a businessman and a disabled veteran, who advocated for hiring disabled workers, and used his own company to demonstrate the possibilities.  Guilfoil doesn't have a Wikipedia entry yet, but I think he'd be a great candidate for one.  For now, check out an essay he wrote titled "Let's Stop 'Handicapping' Americans," which appeared in syndication, in newspapers across the US, in 1960.

UPDATE (February 2016): Dwight D. Guilfoil Jr. has a wikipedia entry now.

5. Mary Dobkin (1902-1987) was a immigrant child in Baltimore when she lost both feet to frostbite as a little girl. This early experience, and a lifelong love of baseball, made her a tireless advocate for poor kids in her adopted city; she coached kids' teams, integrated during the Jim Crow era, and took particular interest in providing sports opportunities for disabled kids.  There was a television movie made about her in 1979, but until today, no Wikipedia entry.  So I'll get right on that.




By the end of today, California time, there will be a new Wikipedia entry on Mary Dobkin, in honor of BADD 2015.  (I'll light up her name as a link when the entry is up.)  Anyone want to join in?  Plenty of other stories to tell, and every well-told story helps.

BADD 2014: Wikipedia Against Disablism

Manke Nelis (1919-1983), a Dutch singer and musician whose right leg was amputated after a motorcycle accident in the 1950s; in this image, he is an older man on a sports field, singing into a microphone, with his arms raised.  His sweatshirt reads "Nelis Goes to Hollywood." Image from Wikimedia Commons (of course).

(Blowing dust from the mike)

Tap tap tap.... hello? testing... hello?

Yeah, it's been a long time since we posted any new content here on DSTU.  But today is Blogging Against Disablism Day, and I have it on good authority (from Goldfish directly) that we're the only blog that participated in all eight previous BADDs, so I'd hate to break that streak.  We're here for BADD. 

Our previous eight appearances:  2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006. (For the record, the 2007 and 2008 entries are two of my favorite blog posts I've ever written, on any blog, or any topic.  BADD has been good for me.)

If you clicked any of those links, you'll know I usually blog about disability history for BADD--about the ways we use and record history, the stories we forget, and the stories we need to remember and retell.  This year, I'm on the same soapbox, but this time, no rant--instead, a challenge. 

For the past couple years, I've been putting more and more time and energy into editing on Wikipedia.  It's not easy, but it's interesting, and I seem to have a knack for it. I'm slowly learning how to do more and more there. I know schoolkids aren't supposed to use Wikipedia, but I hope they do anyway, because I'm consistently impressed with the way new entries are combed for typos, outlandish declarations, and unsupported claims of notability.  Writing on Wikipedia makes me think about the details.

I mostly create biographical entries for women, artists and scientists and museum folk not previously represented with full entries.  In addition to starting new entries, I make many small edits on existing entries--and some of those small edits involve shifts in language, removing cliches, decreasing melodrama, respecting personhood.  In other words, I find ways to use Wikipedia to fight disablism when I spot it.   Might seem extremely minor, but these entries are consulted by many thousands more readers than a journal article or a blog post will ever draw.  And the beauty of crowdsourcing is in the cumulative effect of many little contributions and improvements.

So now the challenge:  join me.  Or maybe join WikiProject Disability, which is the gathering of Wikipedians interested in disability topics.  Editing from a base of support and coordination like a WikiProject helps in learning the ropes. Or try an edit-athon--there are several going on in any given month--you can participate in person or virtually.  Edit-athons are supportive events, and tend to bring more attention to their products.   Can you contribute images or sound clips to Wikimedia, or verified quotes to Wikiquote, for use in Wikipedia entries?  Maybe you can translate an entry, or add a Wikipedia assignment to your course syllabus.

There's plenty of work to do out there--and Wikipedia is one pretty nifty place to do some of it.