1 10 12 https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/bc970afea3bff06562ca28f5ab36ef9b.jpg a6e4e165f595ee0dfe9a152990a6615c Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 798 Height 534 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey headline:N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey caption:N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey Credit: Niall McCrae. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey This grand structure was designed by W B Moffatt. Originally a charitable institution, its last fifty years were served under the NHS as a hospital for the mentally handicapped. This photogrph was taken in 1997, just prior to its closure. Photograph 1997 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:126:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:50:"N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey";s:8:"headline";s:50:"N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey";s:7:"caption";s:579:"N0028879 Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey Credit: Niall McCrae. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey This grand structure was designed by W B Moffatt. Originally a charitable institution, its last fifty years were served under the NHS as a hospital for the mentally handicapped. This photogrph was taken in 1997, just prior to its closure. Photograph 1997 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource A contemporary photograph shows the Earlswood Asylum, an impressive red brick building, from the road. A tree and an expanse of green lawn make up the foreground. Photograph of Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey (1997) by Niall McCrae. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. The dream of the monks and hospitallers<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> of old has been realized—alms-giving has become an art, indeed, it may be said, a fine art. Among all the institutions of the country there are none so well organised, so liberally conducted, or so carefully and thoughtfully adapted to their purpose, as those which are designed to relieve the sufferings and mitigate the misfortunes of humanity. Here in England there is scarcely a disease either of the mind or body, scarcely even a deformity, for whose alleviation some hospital has not been provided by the inexhaustible charity of the people. And our hospitals [start 565] and asylums vie in architectural magnificence with the mansions of the rich and great. When the intelligent foreigner is making his way towards London by the South Eastern Railway, and sees on every side magnificent buildings rising majestically from woods and gardens rich in stately timber, and glowing with rare plans and flowers, he is apt to inquire the names of the great English milords who own those splendid seats. This Italian place on the left, with the British flag floating proudly from its summit. Surely this must be the residence of a royal prince? No, monseiur, it is the residence of some two or three hundred poor creatures who are suffering from incurable disease [...] Descending from the noble terrace by a flight of stone steps, I come upon the whole of the inmates of the Asylum, disporting themselves upon the lawn. They number in all three hundred and sixty-five, two hundred and sixty being males, and one hundred and five females. They are of all ages, ranging from a grey-haired old lady of sixty, to a child of five years; and of all ranks, from the sons of prosperous merchants, it may be noblemen, down to the children of poor clerks and petty tradespeople. The Asylum at Earlsowood is not absolutely a charity. All who can afford it, pay something for their maintenance, and in some instances pay handsomely. Those who cannot afford to pay are elected by the votes of the subscribers, and are maintained gratuitously. The receipts of the Asylum are thus, to a certain extent, a common fund for the support of all the inmates; although those who maintain themselves receive special advantages according to the amount of their payments. But none of the inmates, however poor they may be, are deprived of any of the essentials of comfort. A patient who pays a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds a year may have a separate apartment and an attendant entirely to himself; but as regards the necessaries and comforts essential to health and enjoyment of life, the rich and the poor are on the same footing. I fully expected that the sight of so many idiotic creatures in a body would be exceedingly painful.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> It certainly was painful; but far less so than I could possibly have imagined. Contrary to my anticipation they were all clean , and neat and tidy in their dress. Moreover, the majority of them exhibited an activity of body and a cheerfulness of expression which I had never before witnessed in persons so manifestly deficient in mental power. The manifestations are very similar in all cases,--a deformed head or jaw, a wide loose mouth showing the gums, large irregular teeth, a fixed stare, and an imbecile smile that comes and goes in a mechanical manner. These peculiarities told plainly that the persons I saw before me were idiotic; but their manner and bearing conveyed no idea of their being useless and helpless. The kindly system of the institution had done its work. Many of these poor creatures, when they were first brought to Earlswood, were in a condition inferior almost to the brutes. They were confirmed in filthy habits; they were at times perfectly torpid and completely insensible. All the gates of their understanding were as firmly locked as if they had been sealed by the hand of death. They had ears and could not hear; eyes and could not see; tongues and could not speak. And now, here on this lawn, were these self-same creatures, all more or less awakened to life and understanding, running and leaping, laughing and chatting, asking and answering questions, and contending with each other in a high spirit of emulation in all kinds of games, while the workshops, the garden, and the farm offered a hundred specimens of their work in almost every department of art and industry. [...] On the reception of a pupil, the first step is to inquire from friends the history of the case, and to discover the peculiar predilection and repugnancies of the individual. Certain objective facts, as weight, height, shape, condition of the organs of sense, and powers of prehension and locomotion, are carefully registered. Then follow personal observation with comparison of habits and propensities with the accounts received from friends. These are the data for treatment, and instructions in accordance with them are given to the attendant or nurse. The first efforts are directed to the eradication of bad habits, such as tearing the clothes and wallowing in the dirt. After this, if there exist sufficient power, the pupil has proposed to him, occupations: such as unravelling coca fibre for matting, slitting rods for baskets, and the result of is labour, whatever it may be, is always received with praise instead of blame. When the pupil is indolent, morose, or stubborn, the example of good fellow-pupils is tried, and the imitation of their conduct is encouraged. If he prove incapable from low physical power, the physician's skill is exercised on diet, attention to the condition of the skin, and due medical treatment. The physical state is held to be of the greatest importance, and the appliance of gymnastic exercise is regulated by it. These exercises are first to the upper extremities, and then to the lower and the trunk, and the lessons are enlivened by music. From the examination of many hundred cases, Dr. Down has found that a malformation of the mouth and the palate is a physical characteristic of nearly all idiots. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of them are mute, semi-mute, or indistinct in utterance. But even the worst of such cases are successfully treated at Earlswood. The method pursued is curious. For example, if the sounds to be caught were those of the letter T, the teacher would first hold up a top, which the pupils are made to name collectively; then a letter, and lastly a pot. In the same manner for D, he would show pictures of a dog, a ladder, and some object coloured red. Hence, when a learner can name every object in the collection, he is able to utter the required words correctly. The result has been that many who could scarcely articulate a sound, can now speak intelligibly and with tolerable correctness. Pictures play an important part on conveying ideas to the pupils, and many of them have learned all they know from pictures. Some of them, who are incapable of reading and writing, have become expert draughtsmen, as may be seen from various specimens of their artistic works which adorn the walls of the Asylum. Another ingenious mode of conveying instruction, is by engaging the pupils in playing at shop-keeping. A counter is set out with various articles in daily use, at which a boy presides as shopkeeper, while the others come forward in turn and act as buyers. “It is most curious,” says Mr. Sidney,<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> “to see what a puzzle it often is to find the correct weight; when it is found, the class is well questioned upon it, and, indeed, on every other weight the shopman touches, before it is put onto the scale. Then there is further perplexity in getting the correct quantity of the required substance, as, for instance, sugar, into the scale... [Omitted further description of the difficulties of weighing the goods.] All this causes a regular excitement till the due proportions are achieved; and then comes the moment of pay, which is one of great excitement, the whole class trying to check every step in the reckoning. Combinations of pence and halfpence are trying things to get over; and sometimes the purchaser who cannot calculate them uses cunning, and tries to pay with a silver coins, and asks for change, thus throwing his perplexities on the shopman.” The Asylum is at once a hospital, a school, and a workshop within; without, a gymnasium, a garden, and a farm. In the workshops the inmates practise tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering, mat-making, and the like. The clothes of the inmates and the attendants are nearly all made by imbeciles, who have learned their trades in the Asylum. They all take a great interest in their work, and are very proud of the results. Some of the lads act as cooks. On a visit to the kitchen, Mr. Sidney found twelve of the pupils, not one of whom, a year previously, could have been trusted near an oven or a fire, neatly dressed in white, helping the regular officials of the kitchen with the greatest order and zeal. One poor fellow acted as a scullery-boy, and to show how completely his heart was in his humble occupation, on being asked which he liked best, Earlswood or the establishment where he had previously been, he answered, “O Earlswood great deal;” and on being further question “Why?” added, “Because we have a bigger sink.” It should be observed, that the pupils are not forced to engage in occupations which they do not like. Each one is allowed to choose the employment for which he has a fancy. Some of them occupy themselves in drawing, and in making models and toys, simply for their own amusement. One of these, a youth of sixteen, has completed a most beautiful model of a frigate fully equipped and rigged with every rope, sail, and spar. The model of of considerable size, and is executed with marvellous neatness and skill. I was informed that the constructor had never seen a ship, and took his first notion from a picture on a pocket-handkerchief, being afterwards assisted by drawings in the Illustrated London News. In the progress of his work, he made a great discovery, namely, that boiling wood rendered it capable of being easily bent. He had never heard of this process, so that the discovery was really his own. With the permission of Dr. Down, this pupil took me to his room to show me the model His articulation was so imperfect, and his vocabulary so limited, that I could scarcely understand a word he said. He was, I was assured, a true idiot, who could scarcely read or write; yet he could draw admirably, and had made this wonderful ship. Though he could measure well, as his work testified, he had no idea of figures, or of money. I asked him how much the ship had cost him. He said, “Three thousand pounds.” The girl's side of the Asylum comprises, besides the dining-hall and dormitories, a sewing school, and a play-room. In the school the girls are taught to read by the aid of large letters chalked on black boards; they are also employed in useful work; in the afternoon they are allowed to make fancy articles which may be seen exhibited in the reception-room. In another apartment there is a baby class taught entirely by pictures. In these rooms are stands of flowers and ferns prettily arranged, rendering the place cheerful and attractive. Some of the girls have learned to read and write very well. The farm, situated at the end of the garden, gives regular employment to twelve of the inmates, and in hay and harvest time brings others from the workshops, who profit greatly by the change. Strolling into the yard, I met one of he idiot farmers dressed in a smock-frock and a wideawake hat.<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> He certainly did not look more idiotic than some farm servants, not supposed to be deficient in mental capacity, whom I had seen outside the Asylum gates. He took me to the cow-house and showed me the cows. There were twenty of them, all in god condition and well provided with straw, and over each stall their attendant had placed a label bearing the cow's name in highly ornamental text. The lad who accompanied me was a good farmer; but a perfect idiot. He could not count the pigs in a sty, though there were barely a dozen of them; but he was a most useful member of the establishment for all that. He spoke very imperfectly. I asked him if he were happy there. He said, “Yes, very happy, but no money.” I asked him what he would do with money if he had any. He said, “Buy sweetstuff.”<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a> A friend came to see him, and he gave the friend particular instructions to send him a seed cake. The farm supplies the establishment with the whole of milk and butter consumed by the inmates of the Asylum. Amusement enters largely into the system pursued by Dr. Down. Besides the daily sports on the lawn and in the gymansium, a theatrical performance is given at Christmas, and a fête at Midsummer. The charade performances have proved highly successfull in stimulating into lasting vigour several whom it had been previously impossible to rouse from idiotic depression and apathy. The leading parts are sustained by inmates, assisted by the attendants; the scenery is painted by a youth who, though an excellent artist, is incapable of describing his work intelligibly, or of referring to it except in a jumble of incoherent words. All the woodwork is done by boys in the carpenter's shop. In all these amusements the pupils have the hearty assistance of Dr. Down and Mrs. Down, who are regarded by all in the establishment with the strongest affection. I saw many unmistakable evidences of the regard in which the doctor is held, during my visit. Whereever he appeared on the grounds, the boys and girls ran to him, to talk to him, to ask him questions, and to fondle him. The men and women attendants, too, seemed to be all favourites with the poor imbeciles. I observed no indication that any of them inspired fear. I saw one man humour a tiresome boy with the utmost patience for fully half an hour, and in the end he succeeded in diverting him from the absurd desire he wished to gratify. I do not know upon what principle the attendants are chosen, but I noticed that they were al “good looking,” which suggests the theory that good looks and a kind disposition generally go together. The inmates all like the place. Some of them who have gone home for a few weeks have expressed a desire to return to Earlswood and their friend Dr. Down, before the expiration of their leave. One boy actually packed up and walked to the Asylum, saying he could not stay away from “home” any longer. Seeing how they were surrounded by every comfort, and indulged in every way, I could not feel surprised at this; but considering the labour and patience required of those who are employed to watch and tend them, I certainly was not prepared for the statement of one of the female attendants—that she was very happy at Earlswood, that she had been there three years, and that she should not like to go to another place. It was one the fête-day that I visited Earlswood—a day long and anxiously looked forward to by all the inmates. The amusements on the lawn continued from one o'clock until dusk, consisting of cricket, croquet, Aunt Sally, racing and jumping matches, a performance of Punch and Judy, glees by the singing class, negro melodies by the Earlswood Troupe, and the ascent of a fire balloon.<a title="" href="#_ftn6">[6]</a> Under the influence of the emulation excited by the racing and jumping for prizes, ranging from a shilling to a penny, the idiotic expression vanished from the faces of the patients in a magical way. In several instances I found it difficult to say whether they were idiots or not. One lad achieved some astonishing feats in bar-jumping, trying again and again until he had accomplished his purpose. I was informed that this boy, when he first entered the Asylum, was incapable of any physical effort whatever. His energies, both mental and physical, had been roused chiefly by gymnastic exercises. In all the sports, I noticed that Dr. Down and the attendants joined on equal terms with the patients, and thus set them all perfectly at their ease. The only refractory subject was a fat boy, whose accomplishments consisted in standing on his head, and in the execution of a dance in frog fashion, which he was ready to perform any number of times on the slightest encouragement. The fat boy's idiosyncrasy was to be always out of humour and always grumbling. He was last in all the races, but would insist upon a prize; in the pole-climbing he had to be hoisted up on the shoulders of an attendant. When the attendant dropped him, he came forward to the doctor in a triumphant manner, and held out his hand for a prize. In all cases he had one. They were all extremely fond of money, but the amount was of no consequence. They were just as well pleased with a penny as with a shilling. The results of the system pursued at Earlswood are very great, very astonishing. Are they desirable? Is it incumbent upon those who have the charge of idiots, to do their utmost to rouse their dormant faculties and restore the broken and defaced image to the likeness of Him who made it? If these questions are to be answered in the affirmative, to do anything less than is done at earlswood would be to fail in a great and sacred duty. Dr. Down's system is purely one of kindness, and it was not long before I perceived that his uniform and scrupulous kindness, his minute attention to every case, his liberal employment of every means calculated to divert the mind and promote the health of the body, were the true cause of the great expense of which some persons have complained. There is no doubt that the inmates of Earlswood might be kept and maintained for considerably less money; but this could only be done by reducing the number of attendants, and the success attained, by dispensing with many sanitary precautions, by adopting mechanical restraints, and by otherwise limiting the comforts and enjoyments of the inmates. For example, I found in the grounds some twenty or thirty attendants going about among the patients, watching them without appearing to watch them, laughing and chatting, joining in their sports, and taking infinite pains to divert their minds from the particular notions which possess them. In the good old times, this was done by a third of the number of attendants; but then they saved the labour and the money of the patrons by chaining the patients to their bedsteads, by strapping them to boards, and by beating them until they were insensible. A blow is a cheap and effective quieter, there is no doubt. Dirt, filth, and unwholesome food, are also cheap, but they are nasty too, and, I trust, wholly distasteful to the humane and Christian feeling of the times in which we live. Relatively the expenses at Earlswood may be larger than absolutely necessary, but I was quite convinced from what I saw, that the system pursued by Dr. Down could not be carried out without great liberality. The number of attendants; the various workshops, with all their fittings and appliances; the schools, the play-rooms, the works of art and ornament, the organised entertainments, the cheerful gardens; are all necessary and essential to the subtle process by which these poor idiots are coaxed, and petted, and insensibly led into developing their latent faculties, and assuming, as near as possible, the attributes of useful and intelligent human beings. One item of expense may be reasonably objected to—that of the mere ornamental parts of such an edifice. It surely can never be necessary to burden a charitable institution with an enormous rent in the form of interest of capital, or an incubus in the much more depressing form of a heavy building debt. <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Hospitaller: According to the OED: “A member of a religious order, brotherhood, or sisterhood, formed for charitable purposes, esp. for the care of the sick and infirm in hospitals. Many such have existed from the 13th c. or earlier.” </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> The term “idiot” as David Wright points out, was “packed with social, legal, and medical meanings,” and understanding the history of its use is part of understanding how it became a derisive term (Earlswood 10). For a history of the term “idiot” see David Wright, Mental Disability in Victorian England, pages 9-10, and Patrick McDonagh, Idiocy: A Cultural History, 12-15. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Reverend Edwin Sidney, a clergyman and benefactor of the Earlswood Asylum, who watched the progress of the institution firsthand and published several accounts, including: A Visit to Earlswood Asylum (London, 1859). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[4]</a> A “smock-frock” is a loose outer-garment worn by rural labourers, often made of hard-wearing wool or linen. A wideawake (or “wide-awake”) hat was a men's hat with a broad brim and a low crown, made of black or brown felt, reminiscent of those worn by Quakers. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[5]</a> Men with cognitive disabilities were stereotypically thought to be unable to manage money and also to concentrate instead on gustatory pleasures, especially sweets. George Eliot's short story, “Brother Jacob,” also turns to this theme. See McDonagh, Idiocy, pages 165-168 for a reading on this topic. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[6]</a> <a href="http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Aunt-Sally.htm"> Aunt Sally</a> is a throwing game where contestants try to knock over “Aunt Sally,” often a pipe. It is traditionally played in pubs or on fairgrounds. Punch and Judy is a traditional puppet show featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy; while there is no definitive storyline, they are often shown bickering and hitting each other with bats. A fire balloon is a nineteenth century folk toy made of tissue paper, string, and a cup with tallow and a wick; the heat from the candle would propel the balloon for thirty minutes to an hour. Unfortunately when it landed it was likely to cause a fire. </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Happy Idiots Description An account of the resource This article, which appeared in Charles Dickens's publication All The Year Round in 1864, describes a journalist's visit to the Earlswood Asylum, the first institution for the care of the cognitively disabled in England. It was founded by J Langdon Down (now best known as the doctor who identified Down syndrome) in 1847. The term “idiot” (or sometimes “imbecile”) was commonly used to designate a person who was seen has having a permanent cognitive disability from birth or an early age. An attempt to distinguish “idiocy” legally and medically from “lunacy” was made in the Lunacy Act of 1845, which stated that an “idiot” was legally a person “whose mind from his birth by a perpetual infirmity is so deficient as to be incapable of directing him in any matter which requires thought or judgement” while a “lunatic” was legally “sometimes of good and sound memory” and sometimes not, while any other person “of morbid condition of intellect” who did not fit either of these categories was “a person of unsound mind” (quoted in Wright Earlswood Asylum 16). The need for a third category suggests that attempts to label cognitive difference were more difficult in practice than in theory, and that idiocy was not a stable or transparent category for the Victorians. In describing the conditions of the Earlswood Asylum, the journalist deploys language common to reports on other educational institutions and asylums for the physically and cognitively disabled, comparing the initial condition of the patients to one “inferior almost to the brutes” and suggesting that institutional care humanizes them. The Earlswood Asylum was not a place where patients expected to be institutionalized for life. David Wright suggests that “institutionalization, even during the so-called Victorian heyday of the asylum, was only one part of a lifelong strategy of families to care for and control their disabled family members” (Earlswood Asylum 8). Contrary to our contemporary view of cognitive disability, especially a condition like Down Syndrome, as more or less a fixed state, at the Earlswood Asylum it is taken as a mutable condition. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Andrew Halliday Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived “Happy Idiots.” All the Year Round. (23 July 1864): 564-569. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23 July 1864 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Karen Bourrier Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A contemporary photograph shows the Earlswood Asylum, an impressive red brick building, from the road. A tree and an expanse of green lawn make up the foreground. Photograph of Royal Earlswood Hospital, Redhill, Surrey (1997) by Niall McCrae. Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London </a>under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library No: N0028879</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Drew, John and Tony Williams. <a title="Dickens Journal Online" href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" target="_blank">Dickens Journal Online</a>. University of Buckingham. <http://www.djo.org.uk/> [Contains digitized versions of the full run of Household Words and All the Year Round.]</li> <li><a title="Museum of Learning Disability" href="http://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/" target="_blank">Langdon Down Museum of Learning Disability</a>. <<a href="http://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/">http://langdondownmuseum.org.uk/</a>></li> <li>McDonagh, Patrick. Idiocy: A Cultural History. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2008.</li> <li>Wright, David. Downs: The History of a Disability. New York: Oxford UP, 2011.</li> <li>---. Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum, 1847-1901. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.</li> </ul> All the Year Round Charles Dickens Cognition Institutions life writing https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/851adf33366a97e044b9fba10341e9c8.jpg 130ae5f28852cb9b0c9d70c70b5edd8e Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 781 Height 538 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:V0013623 School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to headline:V0013623 School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read, caption:V0013623 School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read, Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read, Avenue Road, London: seen from the road. Coloured lithograph by E. T. Dolby, n.d., after H. E. Kendall, 1838. after: Edwin Thomas Dolby and Henry Edward KendallPublished: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:64:"V0013623 School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to ";s:8:"headline";s:69:"V0013623 School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read,";s:7:"caption";s:531:"V0013623 School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read, Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read, Avenue Road, London: seen from the road. Coloured lithograph by E. T. Dolby, n.d., after H. E. Kendall, 1838. after: Edwin Thomas Dolby and Henry Edward KendallPublished: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource A coloured lithograph shows the School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read from the road, as passerbys hurry past. The school is a stately brick building surrounded by foliage. Coloured lithograph by E. T. Dolby, n.d., after H. E. Kendall, 1838. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Poor Guy! He is burning as he has burnt any time since that fifth of November on which he attempted to “blow Scotchmen back to Scotland.” He is blazing in the midst of tar-barrels and brushwood. The great bonfire pouring out masses of flame and sparks—careful officer of the Fire Brigade keeping watch meanwhile—lights up an odd scene.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> We are in a great square on a November night, dim walls enclosing it. Rockets are shooting far into the wintry sky, Roman candles are jetting out starts of many-coloured flame. Catherine-wheels whizz round on tree trunks; squibs are spurting our their short but sparkling life; crackers banging and barking on the ground, noisy, demonstrative, and soon extinct, like fussy politicians; and, besides all theses, there is plenty of high pyrotechnic art from Mr. Brock’s<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> famous laboratory—set-pieces, Chinese trees, fiery fountains and the like. Plenty of noise, plenty of fire, and plenty of light. Round the bonfire dance merry figures –rushing hurriedly now and then to the window whence the fireworks are liberally dealt out—exulting in the noise, the crackle, the fun generally; glorying in Guy Fawkes and his sublime cremation. They are “knowing,” these shadowy forms of boys and half-grown men. They keep the fire at a respectful distance, save when one, bolder than the rest, gives a tar-barrel a kick to bring out the sparks in golden showers. They never light their fireworks at the wrong end, as has happened to philosophers before now, but manage them deftly and skillfully. They are enjoying themselves immensely; and, as they last glorious wheel dies out, the last cracker and the last maroon explode, they open their throats with a hearty cheer—a three times three- in honour of, it may be supposed, the Protestant succession. They have thoroughly enjoyed the festival of St. Guy; and, when the embers on the fire sink low, go indoors to bed, satisfied, but not satiated, with the fun of the evening. The odd part of this fête is that the celebrants are blind—many of them wholly unconscious of the light of the day, people to whom life is one long Arctic night, unillumined by lamp or heavenly or earthly make. There are others who, although their blindness is unhappily complete enough to prevent them from distinguishing objects, yet they are dimly conscious of sunrise and sunset. The latter enjoy the fireworks keenly, perhaps more keenly than those who see perfectly; but it is difficult to understand the fun of fireworks to the utterly blind. That they produce no effect on some people, is proved by the demeanour of the industrious man, who has retreated out of the noise and bustle into a quiet corner in the dark, and is working away at basket-making as if his life depended upon getting that pretty basket, with the white and red stripes, done this very night. The glare of the bonfire, when the flames shoot up on this side, just reveals the pattern of the work on which he is busied; but he is otherwise so completely in the dark, that ordinary people can barely make out his figure in the corner. He is absorbed in his task. Great wheels spin round unheeded by the basket-maker; maroons thunder out their warning in vain. One perpetually moves his busy fingers among the osier-meshes, woven with strips red or white, selected with unerring accuracy but this one solitary man who cares not for Guy Fawkes or his fête. Alas, poor fellow! He cannot “remember the Fifth of November,”<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> for he has never heard of that or anything else. He is not only blind, but absolutely stone deaf; yet is he a capital basket-maker; and an honest and good-honoured fellow, if you only know how to talk to him by taking one of his hands, and touching it rapidly in various parts, as Miss Quarman is now doing. He is not absolutely dumb, but articulates a few words—a very limited vocabulary—and then goes back to work with a will, ignoring the high jinks going on around him utterly and completely. But the boys who are only blind are as “jolly” as those proverbial youths whose birth or occupation is associated with “sand.”<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> Miss Quarman and Mr. Sander have as much as they can do to distribute Roman candles, squibs, and crackers to the numerous applicants, who appear singularly well acquainted with the properties of various kinds of fireworks. It is difficult to realize that these boys are blind. When hurrying towards the window they never miss it, and, what is stranger still, never blunder over one another; and they have the keenest appreciation of the difference between a squib and a cracker. The Roman candle and the Jack-in-the-box are the prime favorites, next comes the cracker, and lastly squibs and golden rain. The triumphs of pyrotechny—set-pieces, wheels, and coloured rockets—are comparatively unheeded, a single maroon being worth a boxful of them. The boys—and, in a quiet way, the girls—of the institution in the Avenue-road, under the care of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read,<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a> have had a glorious holiday on this Fifth of November. There has been much fun over the dressing of the guy, and carrying him round. It was curious to see those little ones, who has not assisted in the “make up,” approach, one by one, to “look at,” as they call it—in ordinary literal English to “feel”—the guy. These young blind folk, when they touch anything, always “look at” it, and, if they have met and touched persons, say, “I saw him to-day,” in the most offhand and matter-of-course way. On the subject of blindness they are extraordinarily sensitive, and express their dislike to any questioning concerning their infirmity. Blind is, in fact, among the blind, an expression of contempt. As a rule they find their way about with remarkable skill; but should some poor awkward fellow blunder by accident over a chair or up against one of his schoolfellows, the reproof generally takes the form: “You must be blind.” Perhaps the strangest and most interesting time to see any institution for the blind is at dusk. While others are blundering and floundering about, the blind people move hither and thither noiselessly and accurately. An odd effect is felt on entering the printing-office of the school in Avenue-road, late on a winter afternoon. The house is dark, the passage is dark, the office is darker still, but there are the printers, setting up type and pulling proofs with all possible celerity and exactitude. The master printer courteously proposes to light a candle for the sake of visitors, who perhaps “cannot see very well.” […] Some odd stories are told of the basket-makers, who evince a marked preference for very sharp knives, to trim and split their osiers withal, and have a marked objection to being stared at by Philistines—that is, people who can see. At one time they were greatly annoyed, as they were in the act of soaking their osier-twigs in a tank, specially provided for that purpose, to find that there was a stranger among them, an enterprising loafer, who had climbed over the tall fence in order to have a closer view. He repented of his audacity, for the blind youths pounced on him, and ducked him in the tank till he was half-drowned. Many more curious tales are told of the blind, one of which they refuse to believe themselves—viz., the story of the girl whose fingers, having been so hardened by manual labour that she could not learn to write on the Lucasian system, learnt to read with her lips.<a title="" href="#_ftn6">[6]</a> Others they assert to be absolutely correct and trustworthy, especially a wonderful instance of sagacity in a fellow-pupil who, since she left the school—having mastered every accomplishment taught there—has married a blind husband, is an excellent housekeeper, cooks her husband’s dinner, makes and actually “cuts out,” and fits her children’s clothes, washes, starches, and irons her husband’s shirts, and plays piano like an angel. I am a person of facile faith, hating the trouble of doubting things, and therefore believe implicitly in the existence of this accomplished lady; but I feel obliged to mention, after the excellent example set by Herodotus, and followed by Sir John Maundevile, “Verilie I have not see hir.”<a title="" href="#_ftn7">[7]</a> <h2>Notes</h2> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> For more information on Victorian Britain’s sometimes violent celebration of Guy Fawkes day and on attempts to suppress these celebrations, see J.A. Sharpe’s Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day (London: Harvard UP, 2005). <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Founded in the early 18th-century, Brock’s Fireworks, later known as C.T. Brock & Co.’s Crystal Palace Fireworks, was a fireworks manufactory located in the south of London. It was known both for the accidental explosion of its Whitechapel factory in 1825 and for holding successful fireworks displays for the public, known as Brock’s Benefits. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> The phrase is common in popular songs about Guy Fawkes, many of which include the refrain “Remember, remember, the fifth of November, / Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.” <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[4]</a> Sand boys transported and sold sand used for flooring and for other domestic purposes. The reference to jolly sand boys is in part a reference to Charles Dickens’ 1840 novel Old Curiosity Shop which features an inn called “The Jolly Sandboys.” <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[5]</a> The Society for Teaching the Blind to Read was founded in 1838 and was located at 1 Avenue Road, Regent’s Park, London. A Guide to the Institutions and Charities for the Blind in the United Kingdom, published in 1884, explains that the Society’s goal was “to provide instruction for the Blind in ordinary branches of Education, with music, in a resident school; also to teach them trades” (31). At the time the Guide was published, the Society had 26 females and 30 male student boarders. In “The Blind of London,” an essay published in The Times in 1860, Edmund Johnson noted that the primary object of the Society was “to teach the blind to read, with an especial view to their eventually reading the Holy Scriptures” (16). He goes on to explain that no student, no matter how eager he or she might be to “acquire knowledge of an art of a more material advantage” is permitted to “learn any of the additional branches of instruction until he or she can read tolerably well in one of the Gospels, an acquirement generally made within three months of his or her admission.” (16). The Guide to the Institutions and Charities for the Blind in the United Kingdom notes that female students were taught to knit, while male students learnt how to print books in the Lucas embossed script. Boys also learnt chair caning and basket making. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[6]</a> The “Lucasian” system referred to here is one of many raised-print script systems developed and used in the course of the nineteenth-century to print text to be finger read by blind readers. It takes its name from its inventor, Thomas Lucas. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[7]</a> The author uses references to <a title="Wikipedia Entry on Herodotus" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus" target="_blank">Herodotus</a>, the famously cautious ancient Greek historian, and to <a title="John Mandeville Wikipedia Entry" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mandeville" target="_blank">John Maundeville</a>, the 14th-century world traveler, who is believed to be as mythical as the ‘facts’ about foreign places attributed to him, to express skepticism about the housekeeping and parenting abilities of a visually disabled woman. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Blind Guy Fawkes Description An account of the resource “Blind Guy Fawkes” is noteworthy for how it both participates in and diverges from a representational pattern. The introduction into Britain of raised-print books in the first decades of the nineteenth century and the proliferation of finger reading skills that followed resulted in both the founding of new schools and charities dedicated to the education of blind people and extensive press coverage of the accomplishments of this newly literate group. This article, which was published anonymously in Charles Dickens’ weekly family magazine All The Year Round, describes an evening visit to the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read, a boarding school for young people with visual disabilities founded in 1839. While its author describes both the academic and vocational training provided by the Society, he or she chooses to open with and focus on the students’ rowdy celebration of Guy Fawkes’ day. Portraying a group of blind students as playful, pleasure-seeking, and energetic, the article’s author eschews the highlighting of difference, common in articles of this kind, in favor of an emphasis on experiences, aptitudes and interests that this group of blind children hold in common with sighted children. While many articles on the education of people with visual disabilities published in the period portray blind students as industrious, serious, devout and suffering, this article offers a more nuanced portrait, in large part by withholding information about the disabilities of the children being described. Information about the location of this celebration and the children’s visual disabilities is withheld for several paragraphs. It is only after describing the rowdy behavior of the children and their agility and pleasure that the author identifies them as having visual disabilities. While the article opens with an expression of pity, “Poor Guy!,” the pity expressed is for the effigy of Guy Fawkes and not for the children, who mark the anniversary of Guy Fawkes’ treason in the same spirit and in the same way as sighted children: by preparing a Guy for burning and by setting off fireworks. The result is a progressive, straightforward and positive portrait of blind children and of the everydayness of their lives. This is not to suggest that this article avoids all of the pitfalls common to the Victorian press’ handling of the experience of visual disability. The author describes visually disabled people as “people to whom life is one long Arctic night, unillumined by lamp of heavenly or earthly make,” a poetic lament of a kind common to reporting on disability. Similarly, the author’s discussion of blind people’s use of the word “see” to describe experiences of perception has a regrettable ethnographic feel. While the reporter is eager to share an anecdote that demonstrates the capabilities of a group of blind boys (a story about how they detect and punish an unwelcome sighted boy who spies on them by dunking him in a trough), he or she doubts a story that the students share about the existence of a highly successful blind housewife. While the author focuses on the experiences of students with visual disabilities, the article also caters to public fascination with the experiences of people with multiple sensory disabilities, fascination well documented by the century’s extensive press coverage of the education and lives of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. In this article, the author portrays a blind and deaf basket maker as a skilled and diligent workman but dwells on his isolation from fellow students and on his exclusion from the night’s celebrations. This representation of a blind and deaf person links the article to a section from American Notes (1842) in which Charles Dickens described his visit to the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, both celebrating the accomplishments of the rapidly developing field of blind education and lamenting the presumed suffering and isolation of Laura Bridgman, the school’s star pupil. While both “Blind Guy Fawkes” and Dickens’ American Notes expressed and catered to public interest in the education of people with disabilities, they differ in their portrayal of blind children. “Blind Guy Fawkes,” with its lively descriptions of bold and boisterous children, is a reminder to modern readers that press reports on educational institutions for people with disabilities are far from homogenous in their approach to their shared subject matter. They document different facets of the lives of people with disabilities and, in doing so, they communicate different ideas about disability. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anonymous Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived “Blind Guy Fawkes.” All the Year Round (November 25, 1876): 255-258. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 25 November 1876 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vanessa Warne Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A coloured lithograph shows the School of the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read from the road, as passerbys hurry past. The school is a stately brick building surrounded by foliage. Coloured lithograph by E. T. Dolby, n.d., after H. E. Kendall, 1838. Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1196471" target="_blank">Wellcome Library no. 38645i</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Bourrier, Karen. “Reading Laura Bridgman: Literacy and Disability in Dickens’s American Notes.” Dickens Studies Annual 40 (Summer 2009): 37-60.</li> <li>Drew, John and Tony Williams. <a title="Dickens Journal Online" href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" target="_blank">Dickens Journal Online</a>. University of Buckingham. <http://www.djo.org.uk/> [Contains digitized versions of Household Words and All the Year Round.]</li> <li>Gitter, Elisabeth. The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-Blind Girl. New York: Farrar, 2001.</li> <li>Johnson, Edmund C. The Blind of London. London: John Mitchell, 1860.</li> <li>Oliphant, John. Early Education of the Blind in Britain, ca. 1790-1900: Institutional Experience in England and Scotland. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2007.</li> <li>Turner, Mansfield and William Harris. A Guide to the Institutions and Charities for the Blind in the United Kingdom. London: Simpkin and Marshall, 1884.</li> <li>Warne, Vanessa. “‘So that the sense of touch may supply the want of sight’: Blind Reading in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” Media, Technology, and Literature in the Nineteenth Century: Image, Sound, Touch. Colette Colligan and Margaret Linley eds. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011. 43-64.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English All the Year Round Blindness Charles Dickens Institutions Journalism life writing https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/4c227392db77ae2698895747dbd45067.jpg b5f10d2c10d6a6090aa1e80972279e00 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 1024 Height 750 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This coloured photo shows the harbour in San Remo; three boats sail on the blue Riviera, with villas and hills in the distance. Photomechanical print, photochrom, colour. ca. 1890 to 1900. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. San Remo combines, in a modified degree, the invigorating qualities of Nice with the warmth of Mentone, but without its closeness; and is thus peculiarly adapted for diseases of the chest,<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> especially if the digestive organs are impaired. It lies due south, in the middle of a large bay, at the east end of which the Capo Verde, and at the west the Capo Nero, run far out to sea, and form a sufficient shelter against the winds from both quarters. Gently sloping hills, covered with orange, lemon, and olive trees, rise from these capes, one above another, in the form of an amphitheatre, extending far back till they join a chain of lofty mountains, the highest of which, Monte Bignone, rising 4300 feet, lies exactly behind the town, and these mountains again are protected by the Maritime Alps. Begnone and its fellows form one continuous range, there is not a single gap through which the wind can rush; of all the numerous valleys radiating from the town not one leads to a pass, they simply run up between the lower hills till they lose themselves, vanishing in the sides of the mountains. The lowest elevation at which the range can be crossed is 2000 feet. Unless people have seen the place they will hardly understand this description, but the truth of it is perceived at once from any of the lower hills, or, better still, by taking a boat about a mile out to sea. Of course it is a matter of the greatest importance to invalids to step at once out of the house into the lemon and olive groves without risk of exposure to wind and dust; and this advantage San Remo possesses more than any place I know, as the olive groves reach down almost to the water’s edge, and the delight of wandering amongst them none but those who have tried can know. Their immense extent also keeps the air cool in the warmer parts of the season by preventing radiation, such as takes place from the bare rocks at Mentone, making it too hot for English residents after the middle of April. […] Hitherto I have never stayed at San Remo later than the end of April, but so much has always been said to me by the natives about the salubrity of their climate in May, and they have so often assured me that it was one of their pleasantest months, that this year I was induced to try it, and we therefore remained there instead of going as usual to Germany. The weather during the whole of April had been most charming, as nearly approaching to perfection as I can imagine. Bright, beautiful, calm, cool mornings, a delightful sea breeze springing up about ten and continuing till almost half-past five, when it again calmed down, and there was a delightful twilight, cool and refreshing, of nearly two hours. The nights were also quite cool. We remained until the twenty-fifth of May, and the same description will apply to the weather during the whole of that month; it was charming, hot, but never so much so as to cause us inconvenience, while the amount of verdure prevented that intolerable glare which is so trying to the eyes in less wooded localities. […] The weather is often hotter in England in April and May than we found it at San Remo.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> As I shall mention elsewhere, the hotel keepers are going to build houses for the convenience of bathers, hoping to make San Remo the great summer bathing place of the Riviera. It will, I am convinced, be ere long the great winter sanatorium for diseases of the chest. Amongst other recommendations, physicians all agree that it is particularly good in cases of haemorrhage, the air is so soothing. <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> In the nineteenth century “diseases of the chest” often referred to tuberculosis, but could also refer to emphysema or bronchitis (which are now known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> The average temperature of the month of May, up to the 26th, was, maximum 79°, minimum 57°, Farenheit. [author’s footnote] </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource San Remo as a Winter Residence Description An account of the resource Invalidism may seem to limit mobility, confining one to the four walls of the sickroom. But, for those who were well enough and wealthy enough, the Victorians actually made an industry of travelling for the sake of one’s health. Thus, far from being immobile, an invalid could actually undertake quite a strenuous travel itinerary. Within England, one could visit a hydropathy establishment, such as <a title="Ben Rhydding" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/1">Ben Rhydding</a>, in Yorkshire, or a seaside resort town. San Remo was one of many popular Mediterranean locations for invalids hoping to avoid an English winter altogether. The author of the excerpt below, a self-declared invalid, writes a practical guide for Englishmen and women wishing to winter abroad, in sunny San Remo. Aspinall compares San Remo favourably to Madeira (“depressing and debilitating” 2), Egypt (“hot and dusty, and the food little calculated to suit a delicate digestion” 2) Naples, Rome and Sorrento, and Nice as a favoured spot for convalescents. He gives practical advice on the hotels (with names like Hôtel Victoria and Hôtel d’Angleterre, it is easy to see that hotels were catering to the English abroad), and specific directions for scenic walks and donkey rides in this Victorian version of Lonely Planet for invalids. In Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1880), San Remo is one of the tubercular Ralph Touchett's haunts, where he wiles away "a dull, bright winter beneath a slow-moving white umbrella" (242). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource [Aspinall, W.B.] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived W. B. Aspinall. San Remo as a Winter Residence. London: John Churchill and Sons, 1865. Pages 10-13. Available online at <a title="San Remo as a Winter Residence" href="http://archive.org/details/sanremoasawinte00aspigoog" target="_blank">archive.org</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Karen Bourrier Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This coloured photo shows the harbour in San Remo; three boats sail on the blue Riviera, with villas and hills in the distance. Photomechanical print, photochrom, colour. ca. 1890 to 1900. Courtesy <a title="San Remo Library of Congress" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001699351/" target="_blank">Library of Congress</a>, in the public domain (<a title="Library of Congress" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001699351/resource/" target="_blank">LC-DIG-ppmsc-05986</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Bar-Yosef, Eitan. “The ‘Deaf-Traveller’, the ‘Blind Traveller’ and Constructions of Disability in Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing.” Victorian Review 35.2 (2009): 133-154.</li> <li>Frawley, Maria. Invalidism and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.</li> <li>Haley, Bruce. The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.</li> <li>James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Ed Nicola Bradbury. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.</li> </ul> Class Invalidism Medicine Mobility Travel Writing https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/1c33dec5afde0bfded4d301aa14f9da6.jpg 9c21d51da135b927e72745214f67e70b Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 453 Height 536 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource John McL. Ralston’s illustration shows Dolor testing out his flying cloak inside the tower, with his hands to his ears. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. He hesitated, not wishing to be impolite. “Don’t you think it’s—just a little old and shabby for a prince?” The old woman laughed—long and loud, though very sweetly. “Prince, indeed! Why, if all the princes in the world craved for it, they couldn’t get it, unless I gave it them. Old and shabby! It’s the most valuable thing imaginable! Very few ever have it; but I thought I would give it to you, because—because you are different from other people.” “Am I?” said the Prince, and looked first with curiosity, then with a sort of anxiety, into his godmother’s face, which was sad and grave, with slow tears beginning to steal down. She touched his poor little legs. “These are not like those of other little boys.” “Indeed!—my nurse never told me that.” “Very likely not. But it is time you were told; and I tell you, because I love you.” “Tell me what, dear godmother?” “That you will never be able to walk or run or jump or play—that your life will be quite different from most people’s lives: but it may be a very happy life for all that. Do not be afraid.” “I am not afraid,” said the boy; but he turned very pale, and his lips began to quiver, though he did not actually cry—he was too old for that, and, perhaps, too proud. Though not wholly comprehending, he began dimly to guess what his godmother meant. He had never seen any real live boys, but he had seen pictures of them; running and jumping; which he had admired and tried hard to imitate, but always failed. Now he began to understand why he failed, and that he always should fail— that, in fact, he was not like other little boys; and it was of no use his wishing to do as they did, and play as they played, even if he had had them to play with. His was a separate life, in which he must find out new work and new pleasures for himself. The sense of the inevitable, as grown‐up people call it—that we cannot have things as we want them to be, but as they are, and that we must learn to bear them and make the best of them—this lesson, which everybody has to learn soon or late—came, alas! sadly soon, to the poor boy. He fought against it for a while, and then, quite overcome, turned and sobbed bitterly in his godmother’s arms. She comforted him—I do not know how, except that love always comforts; and then she whispered to him, in her sweet, strong, cheerful voice— “Never mind!” “No, I don’t think I do mind—that is, I won’t mind,” replied he, catching the courage of her tone and speaking like a man, though he was still such a mere boy. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Little Lame Prince Description An account of the resource Dinah Mulock Craik’s Victorian fairytale The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak (1874) tells the story of Prince Dolor, whose legs are disabled after a nurse drops him at his christening. Following the death of his father, the king of Nomansland, the infant Prince Dolor is secretly banished to a distant tower by his wicked uncle. Dolor grows up in the tower, unaware of his position as the true king of Nomansland and, as the excerpt below suggests, equally unaware of his identity as a person with disability until his fairy godmother, Stuff-and-nonsense, provides him with a magical travelling cloak that allows him to leave the castle. The adventures Dolor has on the cloak teach him lessons that make him a better ruler when he is eventually reinstated as Nomansland’s king. In the excerpt below, Stuff-and-nonsense gives Dolor his magical travelling cloak, explaining that she does so because he cannot walk. Craik wrote prolifically about the <a title="Craik Olive" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/5">lives of people with disabilities</a>, and explored in her fiction the consequences of being deemed physically different in a world that privileges “normalcy.” Significantly, Craik’s portrayal of disability reveals that the Victorian perception of disability was complex and, at times, self-contradictory. The following excerpt paints disability as immutably and pitiably “different,” producing for the fairytale’s audience a sentimental lesson on accepting one’s circumstances; however, at the same time, the scene demonstrates that the primary problems of disability are social, not physical. What makes Dolor weep is his social isolation, not his physical difference. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Craik, Dinah Mulock Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dinah Mulock Craik, The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak: A Parable for Young and Old. Illus. John McL. Ralston. London: Daldy, Ibitser & Co., 1875. Pages 59-61. Available <a title="Little Lame Prince" href="http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/vwwp/view?docId=VAB7135" target="_blank">online</a> at the Indiana Women Writer's Project. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1874 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kylee-Anne Hingston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource John McL. Ralston’s illustration shows Dolor testing out his flying cloak inside the tower, with his hands to his ears. The Little Lame Prince (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1875), Microform, Archival Survival, Inc. (1990): film 7314.1 Relation A related resource <ul><li>Dowker, Ann. “The Treatment of Disability in 19th and Early 20th Century Children's Literature,” Disability Studies Quarterly 24.1 (2004). Available <a title="Little Lame Prince Article" href="http://www.dsq-sds.org" target="_blank">online</a>.</li> <li>Hingston, Kylee-Anne. "Prostheses and Narrative Perspective in Dinah Mulock Craik's The Little Lame Prince." Women's Writing. Forthcoming in 2013.</li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture, The Corporealities Series (Ann Arbour: U of Michigan P, 2004) 48. </li> <li>Mitchell, Sally. Dinah Mulock Craik. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983. Available <a title="Sally Mitchell Dinah Craik" href="http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/craik/index.html" target="_blank">online</a> on the Victorian Web.</li> </ul> Childhood Children's Literature Dinah Mulock Craik Fairy Tale Literature Prosthesis https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/6844a26923c493325651cc5c81092d36.jpg e32a14f3a8b9b5826c42f05c889eab5d Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 482 Height 642 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Silas Wegg stands on his peg leg, holding a candle to examine a skeletal leg that Mr. Venus, seated, holds up for inspection. “Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus in Consultation” by Sol Eytinge. Wood engraving, Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg's was the hardest little stall of all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache to look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the tooth-ache to look at his nuts.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Of the latter commodity he had always a grim little heap, on which lay a little wooden measure which had no discernible inside, and was considered to represent the penn'orth appointed by Magna Charta.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> Whether from too much east wind or no—it was an easterly corner--the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all as dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a close-grained, with a face carved out of very hard material, that had just as much play of expression as a watchman's rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks occurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather suggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expected—if his development received no untimely check—to be completely set up with a pair of wooden legs in about six months. . . . [Mr. Boffin approaches Wegg’s stall and opens conversation with him.] “Noddy Boffin,” said that gentleman. “Noddy. That's my name. Noddy—or Nick—Boffin. What's your name?” “Silas Wegg.—I don't,” said Mr Wegg, bestirring himself to take the same precaution as before, “I don't know why Silas, and I don't know why Wegg.”<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> “Now, Wegg,” said Mr Boffin, hugging his stick closer, “I want to make a sort of offer to you. Do you remember when you first see me?” The wooden Wegg looked at him with a meditative eye, and also with a softened air as descrying possibility of profit.<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> 'Let me think. I ain't quite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight of notice, too. Was it on a Monday morning, when the butcher-boy had been to our house for orders, and bought a ballad of me, which, being unacquainted with the tune, I run it over to him?' “Right, Wegg, right! But he bought more than one.” . . . [Boffin admits to eavesdropping on Wegg’s ballad singing to the butcher.] “I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming to it! I was going to say that when I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration amounting to haw. I thought to myself, ‘Here's a man with a wooden leg—a literary man with—’” “N—not exactly so, sir,” said Mr Wegg. “Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you want to read or to sing any one on 'em off straight, you've only to whip on your spectacles and do it!” cried Mr Boffin. “I see you at it!” “Well, sir,” returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head; “we'll say literary, then.” “‘A literary man—WITH a wooden leg—and all Print is open to him!’ That's what I thought to myself, that morning,” pursued Mr Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large an arc as his right arm could make; “‘all Print is open to him!’ And it is, ain't it?” “Why, truly, sir,” Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; “I believe you couldn't show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn't be equal to collaring and throwing.”<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> While even Wegg’s fruit displays characteristics akin to a wooden leg, this passage could also be read in context with genuine contemporary concerns regarding the adulteration of food. See Anthony S. Wohl’s “<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health1.html">Adulteration and Contamination of Food in Victorian England</a>” on The Victorian Web. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Wegg’s measurements are also woodenly rigid, and are even administered by a wooden measuring device. A “penn’orth” is a penny’s worth. For more on Victorian currency, see Marje Bloy’s “<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/currency.html">British Currency before 1971</a>” on The Victorian Web. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> While Wegg is seemingly unaware of his name’s origin, to the reader it is really quite obvious: Wegg is an elision of “wooden” and “leg”. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[4]</a> The crippled beggar was a common trope in Victorian literary and non-fiction texts. Here, Wegg sneakily alters his tone as soon as the possibility of accruing profit arises thus associating him with the often-deployed motif. As Martha Stoddard Holmes identifies, whereas “The victimized afflicted child is a figure of pure intensity and authentic pathos; the villainous begging impostor, in contrast, evokes the emotional clarity of rage, but also ambivalence of suspicion, or the conviction that pathos or ‘emotional excess’ is fakery, a coin that disabled people use to trick the nondisabled into inappropriate giving” (Fictions of Affliction 8). While Wegg does not explicitly use his afflicted state to evoke sympathy, his money-grabbing mannerisms and deceptive strategies associate him firmly with nineteenth-century cripple stereotypes. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[5]</a> As we learn later in the novel (to comical effect), Wegg really is no literary man at all. While orating to Boffin, he stumbles over sentences, mispronounces a number of words and surreptitiously avoids answering any questions. His lumbering, clumsy reading style could perhaps be described as . . . wooden! </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Our Mutual Friend Description An account of the resource <a href="http://archive.org/stream/ourmutualfriend00883gut/old/mfrnd10.txt">Our Mutual Friend</a>, first published in serial form from 1864–1865, is a novel that literalises George Henry Lewes’s observation that Charles Dickens’s characters are wooden puppets that are brought to life by incident (“Realism and the Art of the Novel” 98): the author uses Silas Wegg, a man who is both a peg leg user and depicted as wooden in appearance, character and action, to explore the greed-provoking influence of material culture. While it is not entirely surprising that Dickens presents Wegg as villainous, since he is physically marked as different by his disability, as Adrienne E. Gavin has suggested, the inclusion of a peg leg corresponds with an apparent obsession that the author had with lower limb prosthesis. In addition to Our Mutual Friend, wooden legs also appear in <a href="http://archive.org/stream/thepickwickpaper00580gut/580.txt">The Pickwick Papers</a>(1838), <a href="http://archive.org/stream/theoldcuriositys00700gut/700.txt">The Old Curiosity Shop</a> (1840–41), <a href="http://archive.org/stream/barnabyrudgeatal00917gut/old/rudge10.txt">Barnaby Rudge</a>(1841), <a href="http://archive.org/stream/martinchuzzlewit00968gut/old/chuzz10.txt">Martin Chuzzlewit</a> (1843–44) and <a href="http://archive.org/stream/davidcopperfield00766gut/766.txt">David Copperfield</a> (1849–50). A number of prosthesis wielding characters also appear in Household Words, a weekly magazine established and edited by the author, which ran from 27 March 1850 to 28 May 1859. These include the wooden-legged Dust scavenger Peg Dotting from “Dust; Or Ugliness Redeemed” (13 July 1850), the wooden-legged man described in an article published on New Year’s Day in 1859 (“New Year’s Day”) and the respectable amputee milliner’s daughter Mary Wigley from Sarah Smith’s short story “The Lucky Leg” (19 March 1859) to mention but a few. What each of these examples demonstrates is not only that Dickens was familiar with cultural and fictional representations of lower-limb amputees but that he was in fact preoccupied with issues relating to prosthesis use. Wegg’s use of a rudimentary peg leg can be read as symptomatic of his class status early on in the novel. Peg legs were in fact the cheapest and most basic devices available to amputees. Having been in circulation for several centuries, these devices consisted, in the commonest instances, of a hollow wooden bucket or cup (into which the stump would fit) fixed to a wooden peg that would reach the ground (in the place of a foot). For slightly more money, other adaptations could also be made to better fit the amputee’s stump: a leather sheath could be attached for improved comfort or a knee joint could be incorporated so that the peg could be bent whilst sitting-down. Despite these possible modifications, however, the peg leg was considered to be a low-end product. Since these devices were most commonly used by the working class and street beggars, they therefore became synonymous with low status and small income. Wegg’s occupation at the novel’s outset, then, as the owner of a street stall that sells ballads, fruit and other miscellanies, is intimately tied to his prosthesis use: as we learn, he is unable to secure regular employment with a nearby house, probably because of the limited physical capacities that were associated with limb-loss and prosthesis use. Like many disabled characters and prosthesis users depicted in nineteenth-century literature, Wegg is associated with a number of negative traits. What is particularly interesting in this instance though, and which can be considered a trope of Dickens’s fiction more widely, is the peculiar linkage between personal object and character that is displayed by Wegg. Specifically, in this instance, the peg leg user is portrayed as wooden (just like his leg) in nearly every respect imaginable. Examples elsewhere in Dickens’s oeuvre of characters that display characteristics that reflect the material properties of a particular object with which they are intimately associated, include Miss Murdstone from David Copperfield, who carries around a “hard steel purse”; as David recalls, “I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was” (Chapter 3). In a similar way to how prosthesis-wearing characters depicted elsewhere were said to reflect, in character, the material properties of their devices—for instance in the case of Miss Ruff in Anthony Trollope’s <a href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/16">The Bertrams</a>, who is as cold, hard and fixed in her mannerisms as her glass eye is in material—here Wegg’s prosthesis reflects him as much as he does it. Unlike “the Oaken Lady” of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “<a href="http://archive.org/stream/drheideggersexp00hawtgoog#page/n20/mode/2up">Drowne’s Wooden Image</a>” (1844)—a wooden figure head for a boat that is so mesmerisingly mimetic an effigy that “she” is thought to have come to life when “her” original comes to town—, the aesthetic effect of Wegg’s wooden artificial part is not only blatant, but all-consuming; as we will see in the following passage, in appearance he is more wooden than the oak figure skilfully carved by the craftsman Drowne in Hawthorne’s tale. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. 1864–65. London: Everyman, 2000. Pages 48–52. Also available <a href="http://archive.org/stream/ourmutualfriend00883gut/old/mfrnd10.txt">online</a> at archive.org. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryan Sweet Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Silas Wegg stands on his peg leg, holding a candle to examine a skeletal leg that Mr. Venus, seated, holds up for inspection. “Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus in Consultation” by Sol Eytinge. Wood engraving, 7.5 cm wide by 10.1 cm high. Illustration for Chapter 7 of Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend in the Lee & Shepard (Boston), and Charles T. Dillingham (New York) 1870 Illustrated Household Edition. Image scanned by <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/pvabio.html">Philip V. Allingham</a>. Courtesy of <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org">The Victorian Web</a>. Relation A related resource <ul><li>Gavin, Adrienne E. “<a href="http://omf.ucsc.edu/london-1865/victorian-city/wooden-legs.html">Dickens, Wegg, and Wooden Legs</a>”. Our Mutual Friend: The Scholarly Pages. Dickens Project. Santa Cruz: n.p., 1998. n. pag. Our Mutual Friend: The Scholarly Pages. Web. 18 Dec. 2012.</li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004.</li> <li>Lewes, George Henry. “Realism and the Art of the Novel”. Literary Criticism of George Henry Lewes. ed. Alice R. Kaminsky. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964. 94–105.</li> <li>Morgentaler, Goldie. “Dickens and the Scattered Identity of Silas Wegg.” Dickens Quarterly 22.2 (2005): 92–101.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Charles Dickens Class Literature Mobility Novel Prosthesis Technology https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/ff3ff4b6d69ad75c393097ccbd3e94cb.jpg 0db76012c44426486226dec3a696c6ec Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 337 Height 549 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This black and white photograph shows <a title="Wikipedia for Elizabeth Gilbert" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Margaretta_Maria_Gilbert" target="_blank">Elizabeth Gilbert</a> wearing a cape and shaded glasses.  From the Frontispiece of the book Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, Frances Martin, 1887 [available at <a href="http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493">http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493</a>]  Elizabeth Gilbert, the founder of the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, lost her sight in early childhood as a result of scarlet fever. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. I was walking along a rather lonely road, humming a tune to myself – a most indefensible habit, which I only name as it accounted for my being suddenly stopped by a civil voice – “Ma’am, if you please” I turned, and now first noticed a young man who had just passed me by, stepping out quickly and decisively, with a stick in his hand and a bundle on his shoulder. “Ma’am, if you please, would you direct me to …?” naming a gentleman’s house close by, which I was proceeding to point out to him, when I perceived he had no eyes. It was a well-featured and highly intelligent countenance, with that peculiarly peaceful expression that one often sees on the faces of the blind; but of his calamity there could be no doubt: the eyes, as I said, were gone: the eyelids closed tightly over nothing.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Yet his step was firm, and his general appearance so active and bright, that a careless passenger would scarcely have detected that he was blind. Of course I went back with him to the door he named – in spite of his polite protestations that there was not the least necessity – “he could find it easily” – how, Heaven knows: also, I had the curiosity to lies in wait a few minutes, until I watched him come cheerily out, shoulder his big bundle, plant his stick on the ground and walk briskly back – whistling a lively tune, and marching as fast and fearlessly as though he saw every step of the road. “Have you done your business?” My friend started, but immediately recognised the voice. “Oh yes thank you, Ma’am. I’m all right. Very much obliged. Good Morning.” He recommenced his stopped tune, and pursued his way with such determined independence, that I felt as if more notice of him would be taking an unwarrantable liberty with his misfortune. But his cheerful face quite haunted me, and I speculated for a long time what ‘business’ he could be about, and how he dared trust himself alone, in the great wilderness of London and its environs, with no guide except his stick. At last I remembered he might be one of the ‘travellers’ belonging to an institution I had heard of (and the foundress of which, by coincidence, I was going that day to meet) – the ‘Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind.’<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> <h2>Notes</h2> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Sealing the eyelids over the sockets suggests this man may have lost his eyesight as a result of an ophthalmic infection which caused the eyeballs to rupture. See Mary Wilson Carpenter, Health, Medicine and Society in Victorian England (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2010): 128-148 for further information on blindness. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> The Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind continues today under the name ‘Clarity’. A video clip, made by Clarity, to celebrate the 200-year anniversary of Charles Dickens is available at <a href="http://www.claritymatters.org/blog/charles-dickens-and-clarity/">www.claritymatters.org/blog/charles-dickens-and-clarity/</a>. Here Clarity staff members discuss Dickens’ essay and the degree to which things have changed or remained the same since the nineteenth century. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Blind! Description An account of the resource When Dinah Mulock Craik, the author of John Halifax, Gentleman and The Little Lame Prince, wrote her essay, ‘Blind’, about the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, in 1861, she was engaging in an active discussion about the education of the visually impaired in the mid-nineteenth-century. Charles Dickens had written an essay in 1859 entitled ‘At Work in the Dark’ and Craik’s friend and flatmate, Francis Martin, published another in 1864 for Cornhill Magazine entitled ‘Blind Workers and Blind Helpers’. Each essay promotes the valuable work of the association, in providing education and retraining for the visually impaired, and explains how readers can help and support the association, and by extension the people who work there, through the purchase of brushes, baskets and mats etc made by the pupils and workers at the association. In the following extract, which opens Craik’s essay, we are told of a chance encounter between a sighted person (Craik) and a young visually impaired man. Craik portrays the man as being at ease and confident in his movement and remarks on his firm step and active appearance, walking as if he ‘saw every step of the road’. Whilst Craik presents a more personal encounter with the man than Dickens does in his essay, nineteenth-century attitudes to blindness are evident. Craik expresses surprise at the man’s ability to walk through the city independently, a common view as it was widely believed that the blind were incapable of living productive lives and were often treated as children in need of protection. Craik’s insistence that she accompany the man to the door, despite his protestations, reveals how the sighted struggled to understand how the blind could manage without their help. The extract also highlights the way in which the blind were seen as a curiosity or spectacle by the sighted as Craik lies in wait, virtually spying on the man, in order to observe how he found his way without assistance. In addition to this we can see how blindness was considered to be a tragedy or ‘misfortune’ as the face of the young man continued to ‘haunt’ Craik long after their meeting has ended. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dinah Craik   Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dinah Mulock Craik, The Unkind Word and Other Stories, Volume II (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1870): 1-12.  Available at: <a href="http://archive.org/stream/unkindwordothers02crai#page/n7/mode/2up">http://archive.org/stream/unkindwordothers02crai#page/n7/mode/2up</a>  Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1861 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Theresa Miller Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This black and white photograph shows <a title="Wikipedia for Elizabeth Gilbert" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Margaretta_Maria_Gilbert" target="_blank">Elizabeth Gilbert</a> wearing a cape and shaded glasses.  From the Frontispiece of the book Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, Frances Martin, 1887 [available at <a href="http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493">http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493</a>]  Elizabeth Gilbert, the founder of the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, lost her sight in early childhood as a result of scarlet fever. Relation A related resource <ul> <li>Carpenter, Mary Wilson. Health, Medicine and Society in Victorian England. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2010. </li> <li>Frances Martin, Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, 1887. Available at: <a href="http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493">http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493</a></li> <li>Stoddard Holmes, Martha.  Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009 [2004].</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Blindness Dinah Mulock Craik Institutions Journalism life writing https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/0f1e1e4b36e4d6ba81e11ade96dd1eab.jpg df74c52653c74bdcbaac3c00b95b985c Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 1050 Height 922 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String byline:Picasa IPTC Array a:1:{s:6:"byline";s:6:"Picasa";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The frontispiece of The Pillars of the House, Vol.I, Herbert Gandy, shows Felix and Wilmet kneeling at the foot of their father's deathbed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Felix found Geraldine cowering down in her chair, with her hands clasped together over her forehead. She looked up at him, as if startled by his entrance. ‘O Felix, how could you?’ broke from her. ‘My dear, I could not help it. Has it been so very distressing?’ ‘Oh!’ with a great gasp, ‘I’m sure to refuse a man is the most horrible thing in the world – except to accept him!And such a man too – so great and good and kind. You shouldn’t have let him do it, Felix.’ ‘Don’t scold me, Cherry; how was I to know you would not like it?’ ‘Felix! an old man like that!’<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> ‘Well, that’s decisive,’ said Felix, laughing at the tone; ‘but, indeed, I did think you admired him very much.’ ‘So I do – but not in that way – not so as to bear to see him lower himself – and – and have to grieve him –’ and the tears started from her eyes. ‘But you know, he only could have done it because he saw a poor little lame thing and wanted to take care of her.’ ‘I think it goes a good deal deeper than that, Cherry.’ ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Cherry. ‘How very disagreeable it is that such things will happen; I thought, at any rate, that I was safe from them; and he was such an old man, and such a kind friend, that I was so proud of; and now I have vexed him so – and it is all over.’ ‘Do you really regret it? are you sure you did not speak only in the first surprise?’ ‘Felix! you! you to be against me!’ [...] ‘Cherry dear, don’t you think we ought to look at it reasonably? If you do not feel as if you cared for him – like a novel – yet still –’ ‘Hush, Felix! he is much too good to be accepted any other way.’ ‘I am not sure that he thinks so.’ ‘I do, then!’ said Cherry, raising her head up indignantly. ‘I should be ashamed to marry a man without! A lame, sickly, fretful thing like me ought to bring real love at least, to make up to a man for being bothered with her. Come, Felix, have done talking sensible nonsense! I know you don’t wish it, so don’t pretend.’ ‘I am making no pretence. It would be a dreadful business for me; but at the more I think I ought to make you consider.’ ‘Consider! Oh! I’ll consider fast enough; that beautiful drawing-room, with the statues, and the conservatory – and a carriage – and going to Italy! Do you think I am going to be bribed by things like that?’ ‘No; but to have one so fatherly, kind, and tender –’ ‘As if one wanted one’s husband to be fatherly! [...] I like him, I tell you; but not so much as the tip of your little finger!’ ‘Perhaps not now; but – ’ ‘Felix! You don’t want to get rid of me? I know you were right to argue with Wilmet,<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> and persuade her, because she had let her heart go, and only was afraid to acknowledge it; but mine isn’t gone, and couldn’t go. If I had not learnt to work, and had not a work to do, I might try to think of freeing you from a burthen; but now that I have, why should I upset it all, and wrench myself away from you? When I lean against you, I have got my home, and my rest, and all I want here. I never go away from you but I feel that I do want you so; and when one feels that, what’s the use of looking out for somebody else?’ ‘Dear little Sweetheart! Yes!’ as she lay contentedly against him, with his arm round her; ‘it only makes me tremble that you should give up a home like that, and risk so much upon my one life. [...]’ ‘I should love you better dead that any other man alive!’ cried Cherry impetuously. ‘I won’t do it, Felix! so spare your dutiful remonstrances! I do hate them so, and I know you don’t mean them!’ <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Mr.Grinstead is forty-six. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Wilmet is the eldest sister in the family, who has already become engaged, and is subsequently married. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Pillars of the House Description An account of the resource One of Charlotte M. Yonge’s last great family sagas, The Pillars of the House (1873) prominently features disability. Several of the thirteen orphaned Underwood siblings experience disability or chronic illness: Felix, the eldest, struggles against the weakness of the lungs he has inherited from his father, who died of tuberculosis; his younger sister Geraldine has a tubercular ankle, which impairs her mobility and ultimately causes her to have her foot amputated; and the youngest brother, Theodore, is deaf, mute and developmentally disabled. The novel’s attitude towards disability and impairment is captured in the family motto, which Yonge included as a subtitle, “Under Wode, Under Rode”. The dying Reverend Underwood explains this to Felix, on his death-bed: “ ‘Bear thy cross, and thy cross will bear thee, like little Geraldine’s cross potent – Rod and Rood, Cross and Crutch – all the same etymologically and veritably.’” (1.35) This image of the Cross as prosthesis indicates the central place disability came to have in Yonge’s understanding of Christian experience. Having said this, Yonge’s representation of disabled characters in The Pillars of the House is highly various, and while physical suffering is clearly shown to be spiritually salutary, Geraldine Underwood is no saintly invalid. Although Geraldine refers to her diseased ankle as her “cross” (1.357), she does not endure pain passively: instead, she chooses to have her foot amputated, so that she can play a more active role in the family home. In fact, domesticity does not turn out to be her true calling, and she pursues her artistic talents, eventually going to stay in London to study art, and having her paintings successfully displayed at the Royal Academy. While she is in London, she receives a proposal of marriage from her new friend, the wealthy and distinguished sculptor Mr. Grinstead, which she refuses.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> The extract below is taken from the scene in which she informs Felix of her decision. What is striking in this passage is that Geraldine appears to cite her disability as a reason not to marry, primarily in order to justify a decision she has already made for other reasons. As the scene develops, it becomes clear that she does not want to leave her adored brother Felix, nor to give up her new-found career as an artist. Disabled women are rarely depicted as marriageable in novels of this period,<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> but in this episode, Yonge represents Grinstead as being deeply in love with Geraldine, and Geraldine’s refusal as stemming from her aversion to the match, rather than from a sense of inferiority. While the heroine of Dinah Mulock Craik’s 1850 novel <a title="Link to Olive" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/5">Olive</a>, another disabled artist, can be seen to overcome her self-hatred through her marriage, Geraldine Underwood asserts herself in this refusal scene, and is shown to be “peaceful and happy” (2.172) in her chosen life as a celibate artist and sister. <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> In the sequel to The Pillars of the House, The Long Vacation (1895), Geraldine is shown to have married Mr. Grinstead many years later, after Felix’s death. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> For a discussion of this, see Martha Stoddard Holmes, Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004) </div> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Yonge, Charlotte Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Pillars of the House, Charlotte M. Yonge (1873), (repr. Macmillan: London, 1889), 2 vols. Vol. II, Chapter XXX, 132-134. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1873 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Clare Walker Gore Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The frontispiece of The Pillars of the House, Vol.I, Herbert Gandy, shows Felix and Wilmet kneeling at the foot of their father's deathbed. Relation A related resource <ul><li> Colón, Susan E., “<a title="Colon Article" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09699081003754998#.UgivP23hcy0" target="_blank">Realism and Reserve: Charlotte Yonge and Tractarian Aesthetics</a>”. Women’s Writing 17.2 (August 2010): 221-235. </li> <li> Elizabeth Hale, “<a title="article link" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09699081003755151#.UgiwkW3hcy0" target="_blank">Disability and the Individual Talent: Adolescent Girlhood in The Pillars of the House and What Katy Did</a>”. Women’s Writing 17.2 (August 2010): 343-360. </li> <li> Juckett, Elizabeth C., “Cross-Gendering the Underwoods: Christian Subjection in Charlotte Yonge’s The Pillars of the House”, Antifeminism and the Victorian Novel: Rereading Nineteenth-Century Women Writers. Ed. Tamara Wagner Amherst, N.Y.: Cambria Press, 2009. </li> <li> Losano, Antonia, The Woman Painter in Victorian Literature. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2008. </li> </ul> Charlotte Yonge Gender Invalidism Literature Mobility Novel https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/999cce7e0d14ddd37ad898e6e403bc96.jpg 7195eedfc35ffc4dcb129e6c9a92bc30 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Of course, we all know the instrument entitled the phonautograph,<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> and these curves were drawn by an improved form of phonautograph.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> There was a cone into which you spoke, which condensed the air from your voice; at the small end of the cone, you had a stretched membrane, which vibrated when a sound was produced, and, in the course of its vibration, it controlled the movement of a long style of wood,<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> about one foot in length, and those curves were drawn by the style upon a surface of smoked glass, which was dragged rapidly along. I myself uttered the vowels that are here shown, viz., e, a, eh, ah aah; these vowels were sung at the same pitch and with the same force, but you will observe that each is characterized by a shape of vibration of its own. In fact, when you come to examine the motion of a particle of air, there can be no doubt that every sound is characterized by a particular motion. [ . . . ] I attempted to construct one modelled as nearly as possible on the mechanism of the human ear, but upon going to a friend in Boston, Dr. Clarence J. Blake, an aurist, he suggested the novel idea of using the human ear itself as a phonautograph, and this apparatus we constructed together. It is a human ear. The interior mechanism is exposed, and to a part of it is attached a long style of hay. Upon moistening the membrane and the little bones with a mixture of glycerine and water, the mobility of the parts was restored, and on speaking into the external artificial ear, a vibration was observed, and after many experiments we were able to obtain tracings of the vibration on a sheet of smoked glass drawn rapidly along. Many of those were very beautiful, and I am sorry I have not any of them here to-night to show you, but as it is foreign to our subject, it is perhaps as well. I would merely direct your attention to the apparatus itself, as it gave me the clue to the present form of the telephone. <div> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Bell is referencing Leon Scott’s 1857 invention, the phonautograph. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> This is an account of Bell’s 1877 Salem lectures, which explains his frequent references to visuals for the audience. The first account of these lectures appeared in the 31 March 1877 issue of Scientific American and was accompanied by pictorial illustrations. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a style is “[a] sharp instrument or point for engraving, tracing, etc.” (3076). See “Style.” Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 6th ed. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource As disability theorists such as Douglas Baynton, Jonathan Rée, Lennard J. Davis, Jennifer Esmail, and Jan Branson and Don Miller explain, in both America and England in the mid-nineteenth century, attitudes toward sign language shifted: whereas in the first half of the nineteenth century, “finger speech,” as signing was sometimes called, was largely approved of as a means for deaf-mutes to be included in the Christian community, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the public began to treat deaf signers as menacing outsiders who needed to be assimilated into the larger speaking community.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Oralists, those educators against signing, rejected signing as a primitive language, one that demeaned its users to the level of brutes (Rée 83). Oralist reformers thus fought for the removal of sign language from the curriculum of deaf schools and looked to emergent sound and writing technologies to help the pre-lingual deaf learn to speak English—and to speak it “properly.” In teaching the deaf to speak English, oralists sought a way to “soften” the “distasteful, loud, or harsh voices of deaf speakers” (Esmail 174). Bell’s father, Melville Bell, attempted to do so in the 1860s by developing a phonetic system of writing termed “Visible Speech.” Such a “universal alphabetics,” as he called it, was supposed to teach those with pre-lingual deafness how to properly enunciate English words by visually representing the shapes of sounds. Unfortunately for Bell, the system proved largely unsuccessful because deaf students could not hear themselves speak and therefore could not accurately reproduce sounds (Esmail 184). As a consequence of the inability of Visible Speech to narrow the divide between spoken language and its graphic representation, Alexander Graham Bell, a teacher of deaf children and an ardent oralist who fought for the eradication of sign language, determined to create a device that would serve as a feedback mechanism by visually representing the sounds that his deaf students were making, thus enabling them to check themselves against the tracings of “correct” speech sounds. With the assistance of Clarence J. Blake, an American ear specialist, Bell attempted to modify and repurpose Leon Scott’s 1857 invention, the phonautograph, a mechanism that used the principles of resonance to transcribe speech sounds (Sterne 31–36). Whereas Scott’s tool featured a membrane-like “diaphragm,” Bell and Blake’s 1874 “ear phonautograph” employed an actual human ear taken from a corpse to transduce sound waves into writing (Sterne 35, 31; Esmail 185). The deaf students’ vocal emissions, funneled through a metal mouthpiece, would vibrate the dead man’s ear, which would, in turn, activate a stylus to make tracings of the voice’s “shapes” onto smoked glass (Sterne 31). With the ear phonautograph, sound is thus experienced as disembodied—as alien to the speaker—and “heard” through the amputated organ of the corpse. As Esmail notes, “[T]he sound that is the source of these visual traces is wholly absent from both their ‘speaking’ and their visual ‘listening’” (Esmail 186). This prosthetic hearing device cleared the way for the invention of other sound technologies that treat sound as dislocated from the body in order to mechanically reproduce it. In fact, as Bell indicates in the lecture excerpted below, the telephone owes its realization to the ear phonautograph. <h3>Note</h3> <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> See Douglas Baynton, “‘A Silent Exile on This Earth’: The Metaphorical Construction of Deafness in the Nineteenth Century,” The Disability Studies Reader, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2010); Jonathan Rée, I See a Voice: Deafness, Language and the Senses—A Philosophical History (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999); Lennard J. Davis, Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body (London: Verso, 1995); Jennifer Esmail, Reading Victorian Deafness: Signs and Sounds in Victorian Literature and Culture (Athens, OH: Ohio UP, 2013); and Jan Branson and Don Miller, Damned for Their Difference: The Cultural Construction of Deaf People as Disabled, A Sociological History (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet UP, 2002). </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Bell, Alexander Graham. “The Telephone.” The Musical Standard 13.698 (15 December 1877): 375–76. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1879 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Janechek Relation A related resource <ul><li> Blake, Clarence J. “The Use of the Membrana Tympani as a Phonautograph and Logograph.” Archives of Ophthalmology and Otology 5.1 (1876): 108–13. See <a href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=b2c1AQAAMAAJ">https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=b2c1AQAAMAAJ</a> </li> <li> Esmail, Jennifer. Reading Victorian Deafness: Signs and Sounds in Victorian Literature and Culture. Athens, OH: Ohio UP, 2013. </li> <li> Sterne, Jonathan. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2003. </li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Moncel, Count Du. The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1879. 45. See <a href="https://archive.org/details/telephonemicrop00moncgoog">https://archive.org/details/telephonemicrop00moncgoog</a>. Title A name given to the resource The Ear Phonautograph Deafness Prosthesis Technology https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/fb32d389da8b7819ba4e831598371425.jpg 2baeb3b4db322a53d34161814c73f5cb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Now, after lessons, he<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> would occasionally be persuaded to quit that beloved study, and take a walk along the loch side, or across the moor, to show his pupil the country of which he, poor little fellow! was owner and lord. He did it at first out of pure kindness, to save the earl from the well-meant intrusion of neighbours, but afterward from sheer pleasure in seeing the boy so happy. To him, mounted in Malcolm’s arms and brought for the first time into contact with the outer world, everything was a novelty and delight. And his quick perception let nothing escape him. He seemed to watch lovingly all nature, from the grand lights and shadows which moved over the mountains, to the little moorland flowers which he made Malcolm stop to gather. All living things too, from the young rabbit that scudded across their path, to the lark that rose singing up into the wide blue air--he saw and noticed every thing. But he never once said, what Helen, who, as often as her house duties allowed, delighted to accompany them on these expeditions, was always expecting he would say, Why had God given these soulless creatures legs to run and wings to fly, strength, health, and activity to enjoy existence, and denied all these things to him? Denied them, not for a week, a month, a year, but for his whole lifetime – a lifetime so short at best; – “few of days, and full of trouble.” Why could He not have made it a little more happy? Thousands have asked themselves, in some form or other, the same unanswered, unanswerable question. Helen had done so already, young as she was; when her mother died, and her father seemed slowly breaking down, and the whole world appeared to her full of darkness and woe. How then must it have appeared to this poor boy? But, strange to say, that bitter doubt, which so often came into Helen's heart, never fell from Child’s lips at all. Either he was still a mere child, accepting life just as he saw it, and seeking no solution of its mysteries, or else, though so young, he was still strong enough to keep his doubts to himself, to bear his own burden, and trouble no one. Or else – and when she watched his inexpressibly sweet face, which had the look you sometimes see in blind faces, of absolutely untroubled peace, Helen was forced to believe this – God, who had taken away from him so much, had given him something still more – a spiritual insight so deep and clear that he was happy in spite of his heavy misfortune. She never looked at him but she thought involuntarily of the text, out of the only book with which unlearned Helen was very familiar—that “in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” <h3>Note</h3> <div><a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Mr Cardross, the Earl’s minister and tutor, and Helen’s father.</div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource A Noble Life (1866) is Dinah Mulock Craik’s second novel to feature a disabled protagonist. It resembles her earlier novel, Olive (1850) in representing disability as a spiritually uplifting and morally improving experience, which renders the protagonist selfless, compassionate and pious. However, whereas Olive is able to pursue a career and marry, despite being “deformed”, the protagonist of A Noble Life, the Earl of Cairnforth, has to come to terms with a life of almost total self-denial. The orphaned Earl is born with multiple disabilities, described as “the smallest, saddest specimen of infantile deformity”, his body “thin, elfish, and distorted, every joint and limb being twisted in some way or other” (1.24). The doctor suggests it would be a mercy if he simply died, but the narrative works to validate the minister’s counter-argument that “God can work out His wonderful will, if He chooses, through the meanest means – through the saddest tragedies and direst misfortunes” (1.28). Although in adulthood the Earl has weak health and restricted mobility – he is carried everywhere and can only just hold a pen – he is shown to be a capable and reforming landlord, and above all to exert a good influence upon everyone he meets. His love for the minister’s daughter, Helen Cardross, is depicted as tragically impossible – since he accepts that he can never marry – but after her unworthy husband’s early death, he adopts and co-parents her son. The passage below is typical in highlighting the Earl’s moral virtues but also his reserve, implying that there is something unspeakable in the experience of disability, which somehow cuts the Earl off from those around him, forcing them to speculate about his true feelings. Although he is only a child at this point in the novel, he is already represented as being both morally superior and enigmatic to those around him. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Craik, Dinah Mulock. A Noble Life. Vol 1. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1866. Pages 125-8. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Clare Walker Gore Relation A related resource <ul><li> Bourrier, Karen, ed. Women’s Writing 20.3 (2013) Special Issue: Re-Reading Dinah Mulock Craik. </li> <li> Mitchell, Sally, Dinah Mulock Craik. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1983. </li> <li> Stoddard Holmes, Martha. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. </li> <li> Walker Gore, Clare, "Noble Lives: Writing Masculinity and Disability in the Late Nineteenth Century." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 36.4 (2014): 363-375. </li> </ul> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1866 Title A name given to the resource A Noble Life Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dinah Craik Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Hurst and Blackett Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Eilean Donan Castle, reflects the Scottish setting of A Noble Life. Image courtesy <a title="Eilean Donan Castle" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilean_Donan">Wikipedia </a>under a Creative Commons License. Dinah Craik Masculinity Novel Orthopaedic Disability https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/808b46dd6ea7968d1fd078d547cdae01.jpg 66505229236caf8973e661a0fc830074 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Philadelphia: American Artificial Limb Company, 1865, 27. Image courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. Description An account of the resource Illustration of the mechanism inside a Palmer Patent Leg. From The Palmer Arm and Leg, Adopted for the U.S. Army and Navy by the Surgeon-General, U.S.A. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Brigadier-General Bartlett. [This gallant General has risen from the rank of Captain while using the Palmer Leg in the service. Amputation above the knee.] Boston, Mass., January 6, 1865. Dear Sir: I have now used the Palmer Leg (full length) for more than two years. During most of that time I have been on active duty in the field. It has stood the severe test of campaigning, exposure to all weathers, and constant use in the saddle, admirably; not better than I had hoped, but far better than I expected. I have never been kept off duty an hour by any fault in its mechanism. I willingly bear testimony to its merits, and express my satisfaction with the result of the test to which I have subjected it. (It is not bullet-proof—few legs are!) I am, sir, very respectfully, W.F. Bartlett, Brigadier-General <div> </div> *** James S. Stackhouse, Esq. Philadelphia, January 9, 1865. Dr. B. Frank. Palmer. Dear Sir: On the 22d of April, 1857, it was my misfortune to lose a foot and ankle-joint by a railroad accident. Since wearing your Artificial Leg, I have, the greater portion of the time, been employed on the Pennsylvania Central Railroad in the capacity of conductor, and in the position have run, at different times, the most difficult trains on the road (accommodation trains<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>), from the fact of these requiring greater activity on the part of the conductor, such as jumping on and off at stations, passing quickly through the train from one car to another, &c. It affords me great pleasure to add my testimony to the superiority of your limb. In fact I can scarcely realize that I have suffered so severe a loss as that of a foot. During the six years I have worn the leg I have thoroughly tested it in the most trying position in which a leg, particularly an artificial leg, can be used, and am happy to say I have never found it wanting. Should you wish to refer any parties to me for information concerning the good qualities of my limb, I would be happy to see them at my residence, No. 1344 Coates Street. I remain yours, truly, Jas. S. Stackhouse, Conductor P.R.R.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> <div> **** </div> The Opinion of a Lady [Syme Operation.]<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> Irving House, Twelfth Street, Near Broadway, New York, January 12, 1865. Dear Doctor: Having derived so much benefit from your skill in the adaptation of an artificial foot, I cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude—daily increasing as it is—for I more and more experience the ease and facility movement through your invaluable invention. The 17th of last March my foot was amputated. The period of deep distress, and the frightful future of helplessness then opening before me in my 22d year, can only be realized by those of similar sad experiences. Unfortunately, not a few, in this day of crippled humanity from war’s sad footprints, will understand me. When Dr. Olcott,<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> of Brooklyn, after close investigation of the subject, made me acquainted with your wonderful invention, I confess I had but little faith in the possibility of so far repairing my loss; but, from your care, I found myself not only able to throw aside my crutches, but was surprised immediately to find myself an independent walker. The second day of the trial I walked, without crutch or cane, full two miles; and now, after five months’ use, part of that time travelling, I find that I can run up and down stairs, walk without limping, and, with a perfect feeling of security, make my way through the crowds of a metropolis; indeed my most intimate friends would scarcely suspect the presence of an artificial foot. It would be an easy matter to conceal my loss, were I so disposed; but my sympathy with the unfortunate, and my gratitude to you, my dear Doctor, forbids anything of the kind; and I ask you to permit me to offer my public testimony to your skill, and will ever hold myself ready to gladly respond to any inquiries from those who may be interested. I remain yours, gratefully, Mrs. John B. Eagan. <h3> Notes</h3> <div><a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> Local trains that make frequent stops, often carrying both passengers and freight.</div> <div><a title="" href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> The Pennsylvania Railroad, founded in 1846.</div> <div><a title="" href="#_ftnref3">[3]</a> An amputation technique pioneered by James Syme (1799-1870), which removed the foot by disarticulating the ankle, removing the malleoli, and using a heel flap to cover the ends of the tibia and fibula.</div> <div><a title="" href="#_ftnref4">[4]</a> Cornelius Olcott, who graduated from the Medical Department of the University of the City of New York in 1849 and practiced at 104 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn.</div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Illustration of the mechanism inside a Palmer Patent Leg. From The Palmer Arm and Leg, Adopted for the U.S. Army and Navy by the Surgeon-General, U.S.A. (Philadelphia: American Artificial Limb Company, 1865), 27. Image courtesy of the <a title="National Library of Medicine" href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/">National Library of Medicine</a>, Bethesda, MD. Description An account of the resource In 1846, B.F. Palmer filed the first patent for an artificial leg in the United States. His product, characterized by its smoothly articulated knee, ankle, and toe joints, as well as its elegant and lifelike appearance, was an immediate success. It won awards at dozens of industrial fairs and competitions in the United States, but Palmer was most proud of his invention’s performance at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Not only did the Palmer Patent Leg win a silver medal, it was also celebrated in the London Times and lampooned in Punch, a popular satirical magazine.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> By 1857, Palmer had sold nearly three thousand of his famed appliances, and almost five hundred of them belonged to women. The Civil War (1861-65) resulted in thousands of amputations and dramatically changed the retail landscape for prostheses. The number of patents issued for artificial legs in the United States more than quadrupled from 21 between 1846 and 1860 to 88 between 1861 and 1873.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> In 1862, the United States government agreed to supply artificial limbs to injured soldiers, and manufacturers fought vehemently for both government contracts and the patronage of wounded clients. Palmer’s advertising included this brochure, The Palmer Arm and Leg, Adopted for the U.S. Army and Navy by the Surgeon-General, U.S.A., which featured testimonials from surgeons and artificial limb wearers, both military and civilian. The three letters excerpted here articulate three different experiences of disability in nineteenth-century America, but their perspectives remain limited, as they were curated and likely edited by a manufacturer who aggressively controlled his product’s reputation. Still, the testimonials illustrate how the artificial limb intersected with popular ideals of military masculinity, as well as men’s physical command over railroads and other symbols of industrial growth and achievement, even as these technologies were responsible for much civilian limb loss. Both men and women put a premium on physical activity and ease of movement, and many of these advertising letters, including the third excerpted here, also appealed to the conventions of sentimentalism. In the end, Palmer’s greatest achievement was his ability to present the artificial limb as a desirable consumer product, bearing the diverse values and priorities of his time and place. <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> “The Great Exhibition,” Times [London] (19 September 1851): 4; “Palmer’s Legs,” Punch (27 September 1851): 137. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> Laurann Figg and Jane Farrell-Beck, “Amputation in the Civil War: Physical and Social Dimensions,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 48 (1993): 461. </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Palmer Arm and Leg, Adopted for the U.S. Army and Navy by the Surgeon-General, U.S.A.. Philadelphia, PA: American Artificial Limb Company, 1865. 30, 41, 42-43. Full text available at <a title="Archive link" href="https://archive.org/details/101462403.nlm.nih.gov">https://archive.org/details/101462403.nlm.nih.gov</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Caroline Lieffers Relation A related resource <ul><li> Figg, Laurann, and Jane Farrell-Beck. “Amputation in the Civil War: Physical and Social Dimensions.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 48 (1993): 454-475. </li> <li> Hasegawa, Guy. Mending Broken Soldiers: The Union and Confederate Programs to Supply Artificial Limbs. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012. </li> <li> Herschbach, Lisa. “Prosthetic Reconstructions: Making the Industry, Re-making the Nation.” History Workshop Journal 44 (1997): 22-57. </li> <li> Life and Limb: The Toll of the American Civil War. National Library of Medicine Web Exhibit. 2011. Curated by Manon Parry. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/lifeandlimb/index.html . </li> </ul> Title A name given to the resource The Palmer Patent Leg Language A language of the resource English Prosthesis