The Disability History Association Podcast

Maria Cristina Galmarini discusses her latest book,  Ambassadors of Social Progress: A History of International Blind Activism in the Cold War. Episode Image: Cover of  Ambassadors of Social Progress: A History of International Blind Activism in the Cold War  by Maria Cristina Galmarini. The cover features an image of members of the World Council’s Executive Committee visiting institutions of...

Miriam Rich discusses her upcoming book, Monstrous Conceptions: Race, Reproduction, and Medical Science in America, 1830-1930 . Episode Image: Cover of A Descriptive Catalogue of the Monstrosities in the Cabinet of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement , published 1848. On the light brown background are the cursive red words “Jackson (J.B.S.),” a sticker with a library call number...

Tulika Singh discusses her work on depictions of embodiment and disorder in early Indian medical texts. Episode Image: This image, which has an ink inscription at the bottom stating “Perforating the Eye with a Lancet in the Left Hand,” is a pencil drawing on white paper depicting the execution of one of the procedures for couching treatment of cataracts, as observed by the surgeon Peter Breton in...

Andrew J. Hogan discusses his new book, Disability Dialogues: Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions . Episode Image: Cover of Disability Dialogues: Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions by Andrew J. Hogan. The background is light green, with a blue line underlining the title. Download mp3 file here. Download pdf transcript here. About Our Guest A...

Nora O’Neill, an MD/PhD student at Yale University, discusses her research on feminist disability activism in 1980s/1990s Boston. Episode Image: A close-up photograph of a white t-shirt with a pink logo. In the center is the female sex symbol, a cross topped by a circle, which makes up the wheel of the wheelchair symbol that sits on top. The caption reads “Disabled Female and Proud.&#8...

Doug Crandell discusses his latest book,  Twenty-Two Cents an Hour :  Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages . Episode Image: Cover of Twenty-Two Centers an Hour: Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages by Doug Crandell. The cover is white with twenty-two pennies laid out in four columns. The title is printed among the rows of pennies. Download mp3 file h...

Allison C. Carey, Pamela Block, and Richard K. Scotch discuss their co-authored book,  Allies and Obstacles: Disability Activism and Parents of Children with Disabilities . Episode Image: Cover of Allies and Obstacles by Allison C. Carey, Pamela Block, and Richard K. Scotch. The cover is white with a light blue border framing the title of the book and a painting underneath the title. The painting...

Sandy Sufian discusses her latest book, Familial Fitness: Disability, Adoption, and Family in Modern America . Episode Image: Cover of Familial Fitness by Sandra M. Sufian. The cover is white with an indigo blue newborn’s footprint on it. The footprint looks like the prints taken for birth certificates right after a baby is born. Download mp3 file here. Download pdf transcript here. About our Gues...

Guest host Isabelle Avakumovic-Pointon talks with Dr. Maria Bucur, Dr. Frances Bernstein, Dr. Maria Cristina Galmarini, and Dr. Magdalena Zdrodowska about the history of disability in Eastern Europe. Episode image: A disabled Soviet veteran with no legs sits in a wheelchair that rolls several inches above the ground. He sits on a street curb surrounded by standing military personnel on his right h...

Guest host Emma Wathen interviews Sami Schalk about her new book, Black Disability Politics . Episode Image: Cover of Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk. The words are a faint yellow color set against a black background, with red horizontal bars above and below the title “Black Disability Politics.” Download mp3 file here. Download pdf transcript here. About Our Guest Dr. Sami Sc...

Ryan Lee Cartwright discusses their new book, Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity . Episode Image: Cover of Peculiar Places by Ryan Lee Cartwright. The cover is a pastiche of craft-like images set against a beige backdrop. The images include a rough wooden cabin, a ladder, lace doilies, and a reddish mountaintop. Download mp3 file here. Download pdf transcript here....

Lisa Iezzoni discusses her new book, Making Their Days Happen: Paid Personal Assistance Services Supporting People with Disability Living in Their Homes and Communities Episode Image: Cover of  Making Their Days Happen , by Lisa I. Iezzoni. The cover features a painting of a wide yellow bungalow, with ramps to the front door and side deck. The house has a vast front law and neat hedges a...

Hannah Zaves-Greene discusses her work on Jews and the “public charge provision” in US immigration history. Episode Image: An extract of the 1917 US Immigration Act. The text begins: “Sec. 3. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All Idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons; persons who have had one or more attacks...

Leah Richier discusses her work on mental hospitals in the US South. Episode   Image :  Patient ledger from South Carolina State Hospital. Photograph of the spine of a decaying nineteenth-century ledger book. The book is sitting on a table, with a chair back and window visible in the background. Typed archival labels on the book’s spine read “SC State Hospital: Admissions and Discharges,...

Jim Odato discusses his new book on disability activist and Mouth editor Lucy Gwin. Episode Image: This Brain Had a Mouth: Lucy Gwin and the Voice of Disability Nation , by James M. Odato. The cover shows a black-and-white portrait of Lucy Gwin sitting by a computer. She is a white woman with short dark hair, wearing a dark shirt. Download mp3 file here. Download pdf transcript here. About Our Gue...

Chelsea Chamberlain discusses her research on the history of Pennsylvania’s Elwyn School. Episode Image: Black and white engraving of Elwyn School. The image shows a large four-storey building with several wings, sitting on manicured grounds. Several people walk on paths in front of the building. The engraving is labelled “Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children.”...

Susan Burch discusses her new book on the individuals, families, and communities who were affected by Canton Asylum. Episode Image:  Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and beyond Institutions , by Susan Burch. The cover shows an image of a quilt with colourful circles on a white field. Each circle features different patterned fabrics radiating out from a round blue center. Download mp3...

Martin Atherton discusses his career and research in Deaf Studies, deaf history, and beyond! Episode Image:  Deafness, Community and Culture in Britain: Leisure and Cohesion, 1945-95 , by Martin Atherton. The book cover features a black-and-white photo of a group of about 25 people posing in front of a bus. They are wearing suits and coats. Download mp3 file here. Download pdf transcript here...

Philippa Campsie discusses her new article on Charles Barbier, Louis Braille, and the story of raised-point writing. Episode Image: Raised point writing from Charles Barbier’s Essai sur divers procédés d’expéditive française . The image has three grids. On the left, twenty-five letters of the alphabet are mapped on a 5 by 5 grid. Each letter would correspond to a set of coordinates. In...

Nicholas Hrynyk (University of Toronto) discusses his work on queer and disability history, including his recent article on HIV/AIDS, masculinity, disease, and disability . Episode Image: Cover of The Body Politic ‘s October 1981 issue. The magazine subtitle is “A Magazine for Gay Liberation.” One of the featured headlines reads “‘Gay’ cancer? Or mass media scar...

Ravi Malhotra (University of Ottawa) discusses his new book, co-authored with Benjamin Isitt, about the life and work of American-Canadian socialist radical E.T. Kingsley. Episode Image: Able to Lead , by Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt. The cover features a black-and-white image of E.T. Kingsley, a middle-aged white man who stares intently at the camera. Download mp3 file here. Download pdf tran...

Micah Khater (Yale University) discusses her dissertation on the history of Black women, escape, and Alabama prisons. Episode Image: Wetumpka Prison, Alabama, c. 1910s. The image is sepia-toned, and shows an approximately three-story brick building with ornamental wood trim. Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Download mp3 file here. Download pdf transcript here. About Our Guest Mi...

Nicole Belolan discusses her work on the material culture of gout in early America, as well as public history, pedagogy, and more!  Episode Image: Thomas Rowlandson, Comfort in the Gout, Hand-colored etching (London, 1785), 10 3/4 × 14 5/16 in., The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959, 59.533.115, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Black and white etching of a wealthy...

Bruce Dierenfield and David Gerber discuss their new book, Disability Rights and Religious Liberty in Education: The Story of Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District . Episode Image: Cover of Disability Rights and Religious Liberty in Education , by Bruce J. Dierenfeld and David A. Gerber. It shows two adults with dark hair holding the hands of a small child. Behind them, a road sign reads &...

Emer Lucey (University of Wisconsin-Madison) discusses her dissertation on memoirs and guidebooks by and for parents of children with disabilities. Episode Image: Clara Park’s The Siege (1967), one of the first parents memoirs about a child with autism. The cover shows a black and white image of two blonde girls against a blue background. The text reads, “The story of Elly, withdrawn b...