Bits of work in progress, more to say but it’s late and I’m very tired. I’ll probably fill in more details in this post rather than post anew. This post follows on from this and this and this.
On Wednesday, September 13th, 1922, an explosion blinded W. A. Nease (more…)
I’m not nearly as up on material about disability as I want to be. From my very limited reading, people tend to talk about a medical model of disability - defined as an outlook that takes disability to be primarily derived from people’s own bodies, thus an individual and biological condition - and about a social model of disability - defined as an outlook that takes disability to result primarily from social conditions which could be changed. [I don’t have the book in front of me just now so I’m gonna be vague on some details, this is probly a good habit for me to have, to write about stuff w/ out having it right in front of me and w/ out quoting a ton, anyways I’ll add the missing details later.] I’ve been reading this collection edited by Longmore and [INSERT NAME WHEN LATER], called the New Disability History.
There’s a really good essay [BY WHO? TITLE?] about facilities for disabled children in the late 19th and early 20th century U.S. The article argues that people he calls rehabilitationists had a social model of disability as well as elements of a medical model. They occupied what he calls a middle ground between the two. Eventually the medical model came to prominence.
The social rehabilitationist vision focused largely on work and employment, helping disabled people overcome barriers to their labor market participation, one major barrier being employment discrimination. There’s a lot more to say about all this, but what struck me reading the article was that the social model or rather a social model of disability pre-dated a medical model in the U.S., and that the two continued to conflict in different times and places, so they don’t serve as neat period markers. This is also useful for some of what I want to do with regard to workmen’s compensation and second(ary) injury funds/special indemnity funds, as way to characterize what I’m on about. That is, the impulse behind SIFs involved a social understanding of disability.
Some notes, didn’t want to forget this so I typed it up, it follows on from the stuff on employment discrimination. Need to get to bed now.
In sum: Injuries increased workers’ need for money while lowering their ability to get money in the form of wages. Workers used legal means as one way to deal with this situation - specifically, to get money. The legal environment changed, which changed workers’ abilities to get money, but this basic dynamic still played out across the legal context regardless of changes in that context. Recourse to law was at best a coping mechanism.
1. Workers sold their time and their bodies and their abilities to employers temporarily. Injuries took parts of their bodies permanently.
2. Injuries may have taken some of their abilities permanently, and took their status as able-bodied.
3. Injuries rendered workers temporarily unable to work, because of the need to convalesce. Lack of work cut off one source of money, namely wages.
4. Injuries also increased workers’ need for money, because of the need to purchase medical care and perhaps orthopedic equipment.
5. Injuries often made workers less able to work and less employable, perhaps unemployable, due to a limited degree to their bodies and abilities and to a large degree to employers’ hiring practices.
Look into each, especially 2-4, look at 5 in relation to workmen’s comp and second injury funds. Map onto legal change, state administrative and policy/legislative change. Part of what I’ve been saying, said in the post on employment discrimination stuff, is that attempts to alleviate some of 3 and 4 increased the labor market dynamic within 5 (with effects as well on workers who were disabled for reasons other than workplace injury).
This is a thing, not sure what. Somewhere between a think piece, the start of research goal or plan, and a rough draft for something. Stilted/wooden in tone but writing it out helped me out.
Disabled people routinely report discrimination in hiring, consigning them to unemployment or lower paying jobs than their able-bodied counterparts. The scope and sources of contemporary employment discrimination based on ability are beyond what I can address here. For now, I want to address some aspects of employment discrimination based on ability in the early to mid-twentith century United States. I want to begin with what will sound like an ugly assertion: employment discrimination against disabled people made sense for much of the twentieth century. (more…)
Among Marx’s more powerful phrases is his assertion of the “coining of children’s blood into capital.” (more…)
Nettie pressed on the fabric with her palm to hold it flat as she inched it toward the spinning felt-covered rollers. The rollers took the edge of the tablecloth, pulling it, so that the fabric now moved on its own under Nettie’s hand. Her skin stuck to the wet linen for a moment too long; now her hand was between the rollers. Nettie screamed and tried to pull her hand free. The rollers pulled her forward with the linen tablecloth, grinding her palm against the steam-heated iron roller inside the machine. (more…)