1 10 13 https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/78e981d9936899a347106d72adaef088.jpg 7b203ac401640e93e2df0502b6633d77 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 378 Height 532 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:V0015892 A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog headline:V0015892 A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog with caption:V0015892 A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog with Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog with a begging bowl. Etching by J.T. Smith, 1816. 1816 By: John Thomas SmithPublished: 30 April 1816 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:"V0015892 A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog";s:8:"headline";s:69:"V0015892 A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog with";s:7:"caption";s:452:"V0015892 A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog with Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog with a begging bowl. Etching by J.T. Smith, 1816. 1816 By: John Thomas SmithPublished: 30 April 1816 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 In this black and white etching, a blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog, who carries a begging bowl. Etching by J.T. Smith, 1816. 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 1880 to 1901 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 stands, a patient figure, where the crowd Heaves to and fro; a sound is in his ears As of a vexed sea roaring, and he hears In darkness, as a dead man in his shroud. Patient he stands, with age and sorrow bowed, And holds a piteous hat of ancient years; And in his face and gesture there appears The desperate humbleness of poor men proud What thoughts are his, as, with the inward sight, He sees the glad unheeding Fair go by? Is the long darkness darker for that light And sorrow nearer when such mirth is nigh? Patient, alone, he stands from morn to night, Pleading in his reproachful misery. 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 Blind Beggar' Description An account of the resource When <a title="Arthur Symons Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Symons" target="_blank">Arthur Symons</a> (1865-1945) published his sonnet “The Blind Beggar” in 1892, he added to an already large body of literature that links the experience of visual disability with begging.  Noteworthy among texts from the period that portray blind beggars is William Wordsworth’s posthumously published autobiographical poem <a title="The Prelude" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/11" target="_self">The Prelude</a> (1805, 1850). Whereas Wordsworth’s sighted speaker experiences an epiphany about the limitations of human knowledge while looking at a blind man, Symons’ speaker is far less assured and comes away from his encounter with a blind beggar with questions instead of answers.  Whereas for Wordsworth’s speaker, the blind man is useful both for how he prompts the speaker to greater insight and for the way in which he conveniently embodies human experience, for Symons’ speaker, the encounter with a blind man prompts him to wonder about the mental and emotional life of the blind man and about the blind man’s experience of social isolation.  Interested both in the experience of sensory disability and in the social marginalization and financial dependency that the poem attributes to the beggar’s disability, the speaker leaves the questions he asks unanswered.   He produces, nonetheless, a detailed, predictable and problematic portrait of the blind beggar.  The beggar, who is characterized by both the poem’s final word, “misery,” and by the thrice-repeated adjective “patient,” is isolated from the carefree crowd, described as “the glad unheeding Fair.”  Symons’ characterization of the blind man as passive is most apparent, and most troubling, in a simile that compares the blind man to a corpse.  Imagining the sensory experiences of a blind person, Symons’ speaker proposes that the blind man “hears/ In darkness, as a dead man in his shroud.”  While the simile enacts a doubling of the blind man’s disability, suggesting that the blind man can neither see nor hear, it is most remarkable for its disturbing identification of disability with death.  The poem, characterized by its mix of dehumanizing and empathetic statements, is usefully read in relation not only to other poems that feature blind beggars but also in relation to prose commentaries on the presence of blind beggars in nineteenth-century city streets.  When Charles Lamb defended the rights of blind beggars in his 1822 essay “A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis,” he argued against campaigns to remove blind beggars from the streets, asserting that the claims being made on private charity by visually disabled men were legitimate and that freedom of movement and social contact with a wider community were highly valued by, and beneficial to, people with visual disabilities.  In contrast, Andrew Halliday, writing in Volume 4 of London Labour and the London Poor (1851-1861), commended the London Mendicity Society, an organization whose aim was to bring an end to public begging, in part by encouraging police to arrest street beggars.  While Halliday views “blind men and cripples” as having a more legitimate claim than most beggars to public sympathy and charity, he is ill at ease with the presence of some beggars in public places.  He writes: “The officers of the Mendicity Society have cleared the streets of nearly all the impostors, and the few who remain are blind men and cripples […] I cannot think, however, that the police exercise a wise discretion in permitting some of the more hideous of these beggars to infest the street” (4:431-3). Focused on a personage who was arguably the public face of visual disability in the nineteenth century, the blind street beggar, Symons’ sonnet contributed not only to a well-established literary tradition of linking blindness with begging but also to an important and ongoing debate about begging, charitable giving and the presence of impoverished visually disabled people on Britain’s public streets. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Symons, Arthur Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Symons, Arthur “The Blind Beggar” (1892). Poems by Arthur Symons. Vol. 1. London: Heinemann, 1927. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1892 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Vanessa Warne Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In this black and white etching, a blind beggar walks past two figures guided by his dog, who carries a begging bowl. Etching by J.T. Smith, 1816. Courtesy <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" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1174340" target="_blank">Wellcome Library no. 16453i</a>). Relation A related resource <ul> <li>Lamb, Charles.  “A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis.” Essays of Elia and Last Essays of Elia.  London: J.M. Dent, 1972. 134-41</li> <li>Mayhew, Henry.  London Labour and the London Poor.  4 vols. 1861-62.  Reprint.  New York: Dover, 1968.</li> <li>Warne, Vanessa.  “Clearing the Streets: Blindness and Begging in Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor.” City Limits: Perspectives on the Historical European City. Glenn Clark, Judith Owens, and Greg Smith eds.  Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2010.</li> <li>Wordsworth, William.  <a title="The Prelude" href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/11" target="_self">“The Prelude [Excerpt],” </a>  Annotated by Vanessa Warne.  Nineteenth-Century Disability: A Digital Reader.  </li> </ul> Arthur Symons Blindness Class Literature Poetry William Wordsworth https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/2adda1e630f00e48db84953cb856a238.png f6b719fad1f7649b7e9cf12a35b53257 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 1880 to 1901 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. Was ever Hell conceived By mortal brain, by brain Divine devised, Darker, more fraught with torment, than the world For such as I? A creature maimed and marr’d From very birth. A blot, a blur, a note All out of tune in this world’s instrument. A base thing, yet not knowing to fulfil Base functions. A high thing, yet all unmeet For work that’s high. A dweller on the earth, Yet not content to dig with other men Because of certain sudden sights and sounds (Bars of broke music; furtive, fleeting glimpse Of angel faces ’thwart the grating seen) Perceived in Heaven. Yet when I approach To catch the sound’s completeness, to absorb The faces’ full perfection, Heaven’s gate, Which then had stood ajar, sudden falls to, And I, a‐shiver in the dark and cold, Scarce hear afar the mocking tones of men: “He would not dig, forsooth; but he must strive For higher fruits than what our tillage yields; Behold what comes, my brothers, of vain pride!” [ . . . ] <h3>EPILOGUE.</h3> We knocked and knocked; at last, burst in the door, And found him as you know—the outstretched arms Propping the hidden face. The sun had set, And all the place was dim with lurking shade. There was no written word to say farewell, Or make more clear the deed. [ . . . ] Meantime there is much talk about my friend. The women say, of course, he died for love; The men, for lack of gold, or cavilling Of carping critics. I, Tom Leigh, his friend I have no word at all to say of this. Nay, I had deem’d him more philosopher; For did he think by this one paltry deed To cut the knot of circumstance, and snap The chain which binds all being? 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 second poem in Amy Levy’s second published collection attests to her longstanding interest in mental illness. As a fin-de-siècle poet, essayist, and novelist, Levy (1861-1889) was one of the most prominent female voices for the significance of mental difference. Levy’s poetry consciously engages with a long line of mostly-male nineteenth-century authors, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, Robert Browning, and James Thomson. In doing so, she highlights earlier, less direct, engagement with mental illness that often goes unexplored. “A Minor Poet,” first published in 1884, revolves around two perspectives. Readers meet the first speaker as he begins his third suicide attempt.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> The first two attempts may have been unsuccessful, but he has high hopes for “luck in threes” (3). The second speaker, a friend by the name of “Tom Leigh,” appears early in the text, but readers only hear his perspective in the epilogue, when he discovers the first speaker’s remains. The excerpted passages below highlight Levy’s interest in interpretations of the non-normative mind. “A Minor Poet” considers why someone would commit suicide, how it might feel to perceive the world from within such a mind, and if it is possible to form a generalizable answer for either question. Tom Leigh underscores how much “talk” has taken place as observers try to interpret the suicide (115). Women, apparently, tend to blame personal pain, while men cite professional grievances. Even Tom begins the poem by trying to use philosophy to reason the nameless speaker out of his melancholy. In contrast, the main speaker of the poem resists the observers’ desire to pin a motivation on his suicidal intent. Instead, he focuses on sensation and how it feels to be, first, out of sync with the world and, then, to leave it entirely. The speaker teaches his readers about what it means to see, hear, touch, and desire as “[a] blot, a blur, a note/ [a]ll out of tune in this world’s instrument” (54-5). In doing so, he not only offers a window into a single mind, but also destabilizes the assumption that there must be a logical reason behind the speaker’s actions. By the end of the epilogue, it seems that Tom has come to a similar conclusion. After a list of potential reasons for his friend’s suicide, he refuses to offer his own interpretation and, instead, ends his text with a question. <div> <h3>Note</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> One year before this collection, Levy published an essay entitled “James Thomson: A Minor Poet.” As such, the first speaker has been read as representing both Thomson and Levy herself. </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Levy, Amy. A Minor Poet and Other Verse. 1884. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1891. Full text available at archive.org. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1884 Relation A related resource <ul><li> Hetherington, Naomi and Nadia Valman. “Introduction.” Ed. Naomi Hetherington and Nadia Valman. Amy Levy: Critical Essays. Athens: Ohio UP, 2010. 1-24. Print. </li> <li> Laird, Holly. “The Death of the Author By Suicide: Fin-de-Siecle Poets and the Construction of Identity.” Ed. Joseph Bristow. The Fin-de-Siecle Poem: English Literary Culture and the 1890s. Athens:Ohio UP, 2005. 69-100. Print. </li> <li> New, Melvyn. “Introduction.” The Complete Novels and Selected Writings of Amy Levy, 1861-1889. Ed. Melvyn New. Gainsville: University Press of Florida,1993. 1-52. Print. </li> <li> Randolph, Lyssa. “Verse or Vitality? Biological Economies and the New Woman Poet.” Ed. Naomi Hetherington and Nadia Valman. Amy Levy: Critical Essays. Athens: Ohio UP, 2010. 198-220. Print. </li> <li> Weisman, Karen. “Playing with Figures: Amy Levy and the Forms of Cancellation.” Criticism 43.1 (2001) 59-79. Print. </li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The black and white photograph shows the author looking directly into the camera. It was first published in Women’s World 3 (1890): 51, with the legend “From a Photograph by Montabone, Florence.” Image Courtesy Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons License. Title A name given to the resource A Minor Poet Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Amy Levy Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Rachel Herzl-Betz Mental Illness Poetry https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/681c4799c738f2a09e88e9334bc7738c.jpg 9e3c71dfb90abb524079ee9eb15a8d32 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 795 Height 400 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:V0048744 An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muy headline:V0048744 An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridg caption:V0048744 An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridg Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. 1887 By: Eadweard Muybridge and University of Pennsylvania.Published: 1887 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:"V0048744 An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muy";s:8:"headline";s:69:"V0048744 An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridg";s:7:"caption";s:439:"V0048744 An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridg Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk An amputee on crutches. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. 1887 By: Eadweard Muybridge and University of Pennsylvania.Published: 1887 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 In a series of photographs presented in a table with three columns and twelve rows, a naked man who is missing one foot walks on crutches. https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/0b12d75567f6e0ba28e58a1a8d2ede97.jpg ec9ad0500e9c4448cadf23fc46e2f63d 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 788 Height 286 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:V0048745 A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending fro headline:V0048745 A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a c caption:V0048745 A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a c Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a chair and moving. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. 1887 By: Eadweard Muybridge and University of Pennsylvania.Published: 1887 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:"V0048745 A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending fro";s:8:"headline";s:69:"V0048745 A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a c";s:7:"caption";s:492:"V0048745 A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a c Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a chair and moving. Photogravure after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. 1887 By: Eadweard Muybridge and University of Pennsylvania.Published: 1887 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 In a series of black and white photographs presented in a table with three rows and four columns, a disabled child crawls on and off a chair. https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/256b4df7d4b118277568f467a48e5455.jpg d101bfd0e729b8a45e2f2956efa01e40 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 778 Height 475 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:L0015804 Muybridge "Animal locomotion"; deformed child headline:L0015804 Muybridge "Animal locomotion"; deformed child caption:L0015804 Muybridge "Animal locomotion"; deformed child Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Deformed child walking on arms and legs. 1887 By: University of Pennsylvania. and Eadweard MuybridgeAnimal locomotion Eadweard James Muybridge Published: 1887 Printed: 1887) 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:54:"L0015804 Muybridge "Animal locomotion"; deformed child";s:8:"headline";s:54:"L0015804 Muybridge "Animal locomotion"; deformed child";s:7:"caption";s:454:"L0015804 Muybridge "Animal locomotion"; deformed child Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Deformed child walking on arms and legs. 1887 By: University of Pennsylvania. and Eadweard MuybridgeAnimal locomotion Eadweard James Muybridge Published: 1887 Printed: 1887) 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 In a series of photographs with three rows and four columns, a disabled child crawls. His ribs are visible and he crawls on his feet rather than on his knees. In some of the photographs he smiles. https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/f59c80a96337e730fa87f0ada60f8c82.jpg 41033c53a1844abb8a296378b2240955 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 635 Height 375 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:L0050336 A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking headline:L0050336 A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking with caption:L0050336 A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking with Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking with a nurse. Collotype after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. One of 781 collotypes which form Eadweard Muybridge\'s magnum opus, Animal locomotion, 1887. This work originated in an attempt to settle the argument which arose in 1871 between Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad, and Robert Bonner, owner of the New York Ledger, as to whether a trotting horse ever had all four feet off the ground at once. Both men were prepared to enter the controversy fully and to contribute ideas and practical means to prove his side of the argument. Muybridge\'s solution was to photograph each stage in the trot of a horse called Occident owned by Stanford. Some of Muybridge\'s photographs did appear to show Occident with all four of his feet lifted at the same time clear of the ground. The research and photography for Animal Locomotion was carried out for the University of Pennsylvania in 1884-1885, using and improving the techniques developed in the 1870s. Of the 781 plates, 95 were devoted to the horse and 124 to other animals. The other 562 are devoted to men, women, and children, nude, semi-nude, and draped, walking, running, dancing, getting up and lying down, wrestling, boxing, leaping, etc. For further information see G. Hendricks, Eadweard Muybrige, London 1975, and R.B. Haas, Muybridge: man in motion, Berkeley 1976 Plate to: E. Muybridge, Animal locomotion, Philadelphia 1887, plate 541 1887 By: University of Pennsylvania. and Eadweard MuybridgePublished: 1887 Printed: 1887) 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:"L0050336 A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking ";s:8:"headline";s:68:"L0050336 A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking with";s:7:"caption";s:1860:"L0050336 A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking with Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking with a nurse. Collotype after Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. One of 781 collotypes which form Eadweard Muybridge\'s magnum opus, Animal locomotion, 1887. This work originated in an attempt to settle the argument which arose in 1871 between Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad, and Robert Bonner, owner of the New York Ledger, as to whether a trotting horse ever had all four feet off the ground at once. Both men were prepared to enter the controversy fully and to contribute ideas and practical means to prove his side of the argument. Muybridge\'s solution was to photograph each stage in the trot of a horse called Occident owned by Stanford. Some of Muybridge\'s photographs did appear to show Occident with all four of his feet lifted at the same time clear of the ground. The research and photography for Animal Locomotion was carried out for the University of Pennsylvania in 1884-1885, using and improving the techniques developed in the 1870s. Of the 781 plates, 95 were devoted to the horse and 124 to other animals. The other 562 are devoted to men, women, and children, nude, semi-nude, and draped, walking, running, dancing, getting up and lying down, wrestling, boxing, leaping, etc. For further information see G. Hendricks, Eadweard Muybrige, London 1975, and R.B. Haas, Muybridge: man in motion, Berkeley 1976 Plate to: E. Muybridge, Animal locomotion, Philadelphia 1887, plate 541 1887 By: University of Pennsylvania. and Eadweard MuybridgePublished: 1887 Printed: 1887) 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 In a series of black and white photographs, a naked woman with an orthopaedic disability walks with the aid of a clothed attendant. The photographs are presented in a table with three rows and twelve columns. 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 1880 to 1901 Description An account of the resource Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Photograph 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 Animal Locomotion Description An account of the resource In 1887, <a title="Wikipedia Muybridge Entry" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge" target="_blank">Eadweard Muybridge</a> (1830-1904), the American photographer, published Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movement, an eleven-volume collection of photographs of instantaneous or consecutive movement. It features photographs of ‘abnormal movement,’ including: An amputee on crutches, <a title="Wellcome Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1185959" target="_blank">plate 537</a>; A double amputee climbing on to a chair, descending from a chair and moving, <a title="Wellcome Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1185960" target="_blank">plate 538</a>; Deformed child walking on arms and legs,<a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1658436" target="_blank"> plate 539</a>; A girl with multiple cerebral-spinal sclerosis walking with a nurse, <a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1185962" target="_blank">plate 541</a>. Figures were photographed without clothes, allowing for the unobstructed scrutiny of their bodies, and in front of grids, which invited viewers to treat the pictures as scientific studies. In Animal Locomotion, Muybridge arranged his photographs according to a hierarchy, with male and female nudes presented in the first volumes, followed by draped males and females, then children. Volume 8, which was devoted to the abnormal movements of males, females and children, appeared ahead of photographs of animals, domestic and wild. By arranging the photographs in this way, Muybridge positioned those with disabilities lower than those with ‘healthy’ bodies and just above animals. He also included photographs of athletes, which juxtaposed his photographs of the disabled, in turn reflecting late nineteenth-century conceptions of health and beauty, which proved especially relevant for artists and scientists of the day. Muybridge is considered to be an important figure in the history of photography and cinema. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Muybridge, Eadweard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1887 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Keren Hammerschlag Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Four series of photographs, each with between twelve and forty five frames, show people with disabilities, naked, in various stages of locomotion.  There is a man on crutches walking, a man with no legs getting on and off a chair, a disabled child crawling, and a woman with an orthopaedic disability walking with the aid of a clothed attendant.  Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements.  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=b1185959" target="_blank">Wellcome Library no. 28116</a>i; <a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1185960" target="_blank">Wellcome Library no. 28117i</a>; <a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1185961" target="_blank">Wellcome Library no. 28118i</a>; and <a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1185962" target="_blank">Wellcome Library no. 28119i</a>). Relation A related resource <ul> <li>Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. 1872-1885. 11 vols., 781 plates. Philadelphia: University of Pennslyvania, 1887.</li> <li>Philip Brookman, with contributions by Martha Braun, Andy Grundberg, Corey Keller, Rebecca Solnit, Eadweard Muybridge, exhibition catalogue, London: Tate Publishing, 2010.</li> <li>Eadweard Muybridge:  Defining Modernities. Kingston University and Kingston Museum, UK.  <a title="Eadweard Muybridge Site" href="http://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk/</a></li> </ul> Childhood Eadweard Muybridge Invalidism Mobility Photography Visual Culture https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/b8adb47826a9c84dcd49d446641781df.png 7a9c61fe960cf7039aaee49f26e01bc1 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 1880 to 1901 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. Tom was born blind, and, learning nothing from sight, manifested in his early infancy so entire a want of intellect as to induce the belief that he was idiotic as well as blind. His imbecility and helplessness secured for him the sympathy and care of the family in his infancy; when he began to walk and run about the yard, his amusing peculiarities made him a pet. His first manifestation of interest in anything was his fondness for sounds; the first indication of capacity, his power of imitating them. Musical sounds exerted a controlling influence over him; but all sounds, from the soft breathings of the flute to the harsh grating of the corn-sheller, appeared to afford him exquisite enjoyment […] The first effort to teach him was made one evening when the family was at supper, (Tom, as usual at meals times, being present,) when his owner, upon being informed that his mother, as an excuse for not teaching him something, had said he had not sense enough to learn anything, replied, “That is a mistake. A horse or a dog may be taught almost anything, provided you always use precisely the same terms to express the same idea. Show him what you mean, and have the patience to repeat it often enough. Tom has as much sense as a horse or a dog, and I will show you that he can be taught.” He thereupon arose from the table, and approaching Tom, said to him, “Tom, sit down,” Tom, of course as was expected stood still and repeated the words. He repeated the order and sat him upon the floor. He then said to him, “Tom, get up.” Tom sat still and repeated the order. He then repeated the order and lifted Tom to his feet. He then ordered Tom to sit down, which he did promptly—to get up, and he sprang to his feet […] He was perfectly delighted by cries of pain. When his mother whipped any of the older children he would laugh and caper, and rub his hands in an ecstasy of enjoyment, and soon would be found whipping himself, and repeating the words of the mother and the cries of the child. He enjoyed so highly the crying of children that he would inflict pain upon them, for the pleasure of hearing them cry; and a constant watch had to be kept on him when he was about younger children. He once choked a younger brother nearly to death, and at another time burnt an infant sister so badly as to produce fears of a fatal result. To this day any exclamation or expression indicative of pain gives him great pleasure; and though he will express sympathy for the suffered, and prescribe remedies for his relief, he cannot restrain his expressions of pleasure. Doubtless it is the strength and the intensity of expression given to sounds produced by pain, that afford the enjoyment. […] When he was three or four years of age, it was observed that he passed most of his time with his face upturned to the sun, as if gazing intently upon it, occasionally passing his hands back and forth with rapid motion before his eyes; that was soon followed by thrusting his fingers into his eyes with a force which appeared to be almost sufficient to expel the eye-balls from their sockets; from this he proceeded to digging into one of them with sticks, until the blood would run down his face. All this must have been pleasant to him, or he would not have done it; and there is no doubt that he is indebted to the stimulus thus applied to his eyes, for the measure of sight he now enjoys. […] The mere technicalities of music Tom learns without difficulty. Its substance he seems to comprehend intuitively. To teach him the notes, it was necessary only to sound them, and tell him their names. With the elements and principles of music he seems to be familiar, long before he knew any on the names by which they were indicated […] Considering that in early life he learned nothing, and later but little from sight, that he is possessed by an overmastering passion, which so pervades his whole nature as to leave little room for interest in anything else, and the gratification of which has been indulged to the largest extent, it is not surprising that, to the outside world, he should exhibit but few manifestations of intellect as applicable to any of the ordinary affairs of life, or that those who see him only under its influence should conclude that his is idiotic. 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 Thomas Greene Wiggins, better known as “Blind Tom,” was an autistic savant with an encyclopedic memory. He is known for his mind-boggling ability to replicate music and other sounds after only one hearing. Wiggins was born into slavery in Columbus, Georgia in 1848. His master, Wiley Jones, was reluctant to care for a blind infant slave and sold Wiggins to his neighbor, General Bethune. By six Wiggins had found the Bethune piano and managed to replay exactly songs performed by his white master’s family. By eight Wiggins was contracted to a traveling showman named Perry Oliver who promoted him as a “freak.” With Oliver he performed all over the United States and Europe. His extraordinary talent for imitation, music and memory earned him an invitation to play before President James Buchanan at the White House. He was the first African American musician to officially perform in the White House. Unfortunately, emancipation failed to deliver Wiggins from the shackles of slavery. His enormous fame sullied by the deep-rooted racism of the period. Audiences often confused Wiggins’s autism with “idiocy,” and reinforced the widespread belief that people of African descent were mentally inferior to whites and incapable of caring for themselves. Through “Blind Tom” we learn just how easily misinformation about autism allowed antebellum Americans to continue to conflate race with disability. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The Marvelous Musical Prodigy, Blind Tom: The Negro Boy Pianist, Whose Performances at the Great St. James and Egyptian Halls, London, and Salle Hertz, Paris, Have Created Such a Profound Sensation : Anecdotes, Songs, Sketches of the Life, Testimonials of Musicians and Savans, and Opinions of the American and English Press, of "Blind Tom." Sun Book and Job Printing Establishment, 1867. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1867 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource George Gordon-Smith Relation A related resource <ul><li> Davis, Rebecca Harding. “Blind Tom,” Selected Writing From the Borderlands: Stories of the Civil War Era. Eds. Sharon M. Harris and Robin Cadwallader. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 2010 </li> </ul><ul><li> O’Connell, Dierdre. The Ballad of Blind Tom, Slave Pianist: America’s Last Musical Genius. New York: The Overlook Press, 2009. </li> <li> Southall, Geneva Handy. Blind Tom, Black Pianist-Composer, Continually Enslaved. London: Scarecrow Press, 2002. </li> </ul> Title A name given to the resource Blind Tom Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Head and shoulders photograph of Blind Tom by John J. Bethune, 1880. Image courtesy <a title="Blind Tom Wikimedia Commons" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blind_Tom_Wiggins.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a> under a Creative Commons License. Blindness Celebrity Cognition https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/575f6f2bdd8657306182d472178086e6.jpg b8d973c68cb81d3baaaf9d48cc6265bf 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 1880 to 1901 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 first saw the light on the 5th of August, 1860, I was born in Lee Street, Wharf Street, Leicester. The deformity which I am now exhibiting was caused by my mother being frightened by an Elephant; my mother was going along the street when a procession of Animals were passing by, there was a terrible crush of people to see them, and unfortunately she was pushed under the Elephant's feet, which frightened her very much; this occurring during a time of pregnancy was the cause of my deformity. The measurement around my head is 36 inches, there is a large substance of flesh at the back as large as a breakfast cup, the other part in a manner of speaking is like hills and valleys, all lumped together, while the face is such a sight that no one could describe it. The right hand is almost the size and shape of an Elephant's foreleg, measuring 12 inches round the wrist and 5 inches round one of the fingers; the other hand and arm is no larger than that of a girl ten years of age, although it is well proportioned. My feet and legs are covered with thick lumpy skin, also my body, like that of an Elephant, and almost the same colour, in fact, no one would believe until they saw it, that such a thing could exist. It was not perceived much at birth, but began to develop itself when at the age of 5 years. I went to school like other children until I was about 11 or 12 years of age, when the greatest misfortune of my life occurred, namely - the death of my mother, peace to her, she was a good mother to me; after she died my father broke up his home and went to lodgings; unfortunately for me he married his landlady; henceforth I never had one moment's comfort, she having children of her own, and I not being so handsome as they, together with my deformity, she was the means of making my life a perfect misery; lame and deformed as I was, I ran, or rather walked away from home two or three times, but suppose father had some spark of parental feeling left, so he induced me to return home again. The best friend I had in those days was my father's brother, Mr. Merrick, hair Dresser, Church Gate, Leicester. When about 13 years old, nothing would satisfy my step-mother until she got me out to work; I obtained employment at Messrs. Freeman's Cigar Manufacturers, and worked there about two years, but my right hand got too heavy for making cigars, so I had to leave them. I was sent about the town to see if I could procure work, but being lame and deformed no one would employ me; when I went home for my meals, my step-mother used to say I had not been to seek for work. I was taunted and sneered at so that I would not go home for my meals, and used to stay in the streets with an hungry belly rather than return for anything to eat, what few half-meals I did have, I was taunted with the remark – ‘That's more than you have earned.’ Being unable to get employment my father got me a pedlar's license to hawk the town, but being deformed, people would not come to the door to buy my wares. In consequence of my ill luck my life was again made a misery to me, so that I again ran away and went hawking on my own account, but my deformity had grown to such an extent, so that I could not move about the town without having a crowd of people gather around me. I then went into the infirmary at Leicester, where I remained for two or three years, when I had to undergo an operation on my face, having three or four ounces of flesh cut away; so thought I, I'll get my living by being exhibited about the country. Knowing Mr. Sam Torr, Gladstone Vaults, Wharf Street, Leicester, went in for Novelties, I wrote to him, he came to see me, and soon arranged matters, recommending me to Mr. Ellis, Bee-hive Inn, Nottingham, from whom I received the greatest kindness and attention. In making my first appearance before the public, who have treated me well -- in fact I may say I am as comfortable now as I was uncomfortable before. I must now bid my kind readers adieu.” 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 story of Joseph Carey Merrick began in 1862, when he was born to Mary Jane and Joseph Merrick of Leicester, but the story of the Elephant Man did not start until several years later. It was when he was a toddler that tumours first appeared on Merrick's body. They continued to grow and multiply throughout his short life, the result of what is now generally understood to be <a title="Proteus Syndrome" href="http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/proteus-syndrome" target="_blank">Proteus Syndrome</a>. Without modern surgical treatment, the condition eventually became so severe that it made a normal life impossible. As the autobiographical pamphlet above states, Merrick found a means of supporting himself by joining travelling 'freak shows', displaying his deformity to the public under the stage name of The Elephant Man. While touring, Merrick composed – albeit possibly with the help of an external writer – the above statement as part of a pamphlet to be distributed to crowds at each exhibition. He later attained fame of a different sort through his relationship with Dr. Frederick Treves, whose reports to the Pathological Society of London made him a medical curiosity. Similarly, F.C. Carr Gomm, chairman of the London Hospital, sent letters to The Times requesting charitable donations to cover the cost of Merrick’s residence there in the final years of his life, and these appeals saw the former sideshow performer faced with an entirely new audience of upper-class benefactors comprised of some celebrities and even royalty. As a result of the spectacular career pressed upon him, scholarly discussions about Merrick’s life and experiences tend to take place within frameworks focused on freakery or nineteenth century medicine rather than a wider perspective of disability history. It’s perhaps significant that most critical approaches centre on the many second-hand accounts of his life. Treves’ reports and his own autobiographical The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences, Carr Gomm’s letters, even accounts in the diaries of those who visited Merrick while at the London Hospital: these typically combine with official documents to form the basis on which contemporary scholars analyse Merrick. Primarily, these second-hand accounts present confused attempts to define Merrick as ‘other’, whether other-as-object or other-as-martyr. In most accounts he becomes both, and yet he is neither. Merrick is other, and yet he is also human; more accurately, he is the realization of the other within humanity, and the reflection of the limitations of binaries and boundaries which define humanity in opposition to the other. But while the contemporary accounts that refer to Merrick struggle with this reflection, the one account which at first glance seems most to struggle, Merrick’s own autobiography, in fact offers a more complete acceptance of his redefined humanity. Despite debate over the authorship of the statement in this pamphlet, I refer to it as an autobiography because I find no evidence to convince me otherwise; Merrick was literate, and there is no concrete evidence that the pamphlet was composed by anyone else, although he may have had help with the physical act of writing. That said, confusion as to the author is understandable given the strange narrative voice that characterises the autobiography. In their critical exploration of Merrick’s narrative construction, Peter Graham and Fritz Oehlschlaeger note that the persistent detachment of the statement “might plausibly be ascribed either to an external writer... or to Merrick's own distinguishing between his essence and the misshapen 'thing' that was his body” (13). However, to explore Merrick’s written experience as a means of understanding his own perspective on his “essence” and his “body”, it helps to consider the way in which the autobiographical pamphlet can be considered a piece of disability writing, and to examine this voice in relation to those which speak about Merrick. Mark Mossman explores the function of disability writing in relation to the disabled persons’ construction or definition of selfhood; he describes how disability writing “attempts to reclaim ownership of the body and the way the body is understood” by spinning the body’s inherent instability into “the articulation of a volitional mode of selfhood” (7). For Mossman, “writing disability becomes an empowering act of control, a deconstructive critical strategy that attempts to break down oppressive and imprisoning cultural construction… the performance and general representation of disability is re-centered, re-focused on the disabled subject itself” (7-8). At first glance, it would appear that Merrick’s autobiography does not constitute “an empowering act of control” or a “deconstructive critical strategy,” given that Merrick seems to describe himself within the confines of stereotypes imposed on him by Treves and others. Merrick emphasises his own otherness by referring to his right hand as “almost the size and shape of an Elephant's [sic] foreleg,” and to himself as an impossible “thing”, informing readers that “no one would believe until they saw it, that such a thing could exist.” The way that Merrick both distances and owns his body throughout his autobiography also seems not to fit under the heading of disability writing, which Mossman asserts attempts to reclaim ownership of the body. Merrick’s narrative alternates between the use “the” and “my” when referring to his body: “my head is 36 inches”, “the face is such a sight that no one could describe it”, “the right hand”, “my feet and legs”, “my body”, “my deformity.” While these fluctuations and the images of otherness that Merrick employs could be seen as an inability to reclaim his body or as evidence of an external writer, they can also be interpreted another way. Merrick describes his body as both part of his subjectivity, claiming his embodied experience as a fundamental part of his humanity, and at the same time realizing his body as an object. His language throughout this passage reflects a subjectivity like that outlined by Ruth Robbins, in which “we are not only subjective selves... but also objective selves - selves with a material presence in the world, selves with bodies that may in fact be subject to actions and forces that we cannot control, which are in fact the objects of the actions and desires... of others” (8-9). From this perspective, then, Merrick is not hesitating or unable to reclaim his body; he is in fact claiming ownership of his body as intertwined with his subjectivity and as distanced object. In short, he is claiming ownership of his body in a way that those whose bodies conform to the strictures of “normal” humanity cannot do, at least, not comfortably. Understanding Merrick’s autobiography as a method of reclaiming his body and his embodied subjectivity brings it more in line with disability narratives. However, rather than simply “deflect[ing]and displac[ing] the powerful gaze of the ‘norm’” (Mossman 8), Merrick’s autobiography calls the very nature of the ‘norm’ into question. The accounts written about him by others attempt to divide him into the bodily other and the human spirit, but Merrick’s autobiography denies this separation, and brings his body and his spirit together into one lived experience. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Merrick, Joseph Carey. “The Autobiography of Joseph Carey Merrick.” In Michael Howell and Peter Ford, The True History of the Elephant Man, 3rd Edition. 173-174. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1980, 1992. (Available online at <a href="http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leila/documents/autobioMerrick.pdf">http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leila/documents/autobioMerrick.pdf</a>) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource c. 1884 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ally Crockford Relation A related resource <ul><li> Evans, Jonathan. Treves and the Elephant Man. Compiled by Jonathan Evans. Loughton, Essex: Metloc Printers, 2003. </li> <li> Montagu, Ashley. The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity. London: Allison & Busby Ltd, 1972. </li> <li> Mossman, Mark. “Acts of Becoming: Autobiography, Frankenstein, and the Postmodern Body.” Postmodern Culture 11, no. 3 (May 2001). </li> <li> Robbins, Ruth. Subjectivity. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. </li> <li> Treves, Sir Frederick. The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences. London: Cassell & Company Ltd, 1923. (Available at: <a href="http://archive.org/details/elephantmanother00trevuoft">http://archive.org/details/elephantmanother00trevuoft</a>) </li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Carte de visite photograph of Joseph Carey Merrick. Image Courtesy <a title="Merrick" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJoseph_Merrick_carte_de_visite_photo%2C_c._1889.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a> under a Creative Commons License. Title A name given to the resource Joseph Carey Merrick, ‘The Elephant Man’ Autobiographical pamphlet Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrick, Joseph Carey Language A language of the resource English Celebrity freakery life writing Medicine https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/9a397c6bda3fbed2e864241e379d93f1.jpg 6f501857a4dabbe7fe1ad3c38ae712cf 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 Image courtesy Wikipedia under a Creative Commons License. Description An account of the resource Portrait of Arthur Macmurrough Kavanagh, the disabled MP upon whom Richard Calmady was based. 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 1880 to 1901 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. “‘Mother, I – I want to marry.’ ‘I, too, have thought of that,’ she said. ‘You don’t consider that I am debarred from marriage?’ ‘Oh no, no!’ Katherine cried, with a little sob in her voice. He looked at her steadily, with those profoundly desolate eyes. ‘It would not be wrong? It would not be otherwise than honourable?’ he asked. If doubts arose within Katherine of the answer to that question, she crushed them down passionately. ‘No, my dearest, no,’ she declared. ‘It could not be wrong – it could not, could not be so – if she loved you, and you loved whomsoever you married.’ ‘But I’m not in love – at least not in love with any person who can become my wife. Yet that does not seem to me to matter very much. I should be faithful, no fear, to anyone who was good enough to marry me. Enough of love would come, if only out of gratitude, towards the woman who would accept me as – as I am – and forgive that – that which cannot be helped.’ Again trembling shook Katherine. So terribly much seemed to her at stake just then! Silently she implored wisdom and clear-seeing might be accorded her. She leaned a little forward, and taking his left hand held it closely in both hers. ‘Dearest, that is not all. Tell me all,’ she said, ‘or I cannot quite follow your thought.’ Richard flung his body sideways across the bed, and kissed her hands as they held his. The hot colour rushed over his face and neck, up to the roots of his close-cropped, curly hair. He spoke, lying thus upon his chest, his face half buried in the sheet. ‘I want to marry because—because I want a child—I want a son,’ he said. [...] ‘My fate is fixed, you know. There’s no earthly use in wriggling. I am condemned to live a cow’s life and die a cow’s death. The pride of life may call, but I can’t answer. The great prizes are not for me. I’m too heavily handicapped. I was looking at that young fellow, Decies, to-night and considering his chances as against my own—— Oh! I know there’s wealth in plenty. The pasture’s green enough to make many a man covet it, and the stall’s well bedded-down. I don't complain. Only mother, you know—I know. Where’s the use of denying that which we neither of us ever really forget?—And then sometimes my blood takes fire. It did to-night. And the splendour of living being denied me, I—I—am tempted to say a Black Mass. One must take it out somehow. And I know I could go to the devil as few men have ever gone, magnificently, detestably, with subtleties and refinements of iniquity. [...] There should be a picturesqueness in my descent to hell which would go far to place my name at the head of the list of those sinners who have achieved immortality——‘ ‘Richard! Richard!’ Lady Calmady cried, ‘do you want to break my heart quite?’ ‘No,’ he answered, simply. ‘I’d infinitely rather not break your heart. I have no ambition to see my name in that devil's list except as an uncommonly ironical sort of second best. But then we must make some change, some radical change. At times, lately, I’ve felt as if I was a caged wild beast—blinded, its claws cut, the bars of its cage soldered and riveted, no hope of escape, and yet the vigour, the immense longing for freedom and activity, there all the while. [...] You see these few weeks in London—I’ve enjoyed them—but still they’ve made me understand, more than ever, all I’ve missed. Life calls, mother, do you see? And though the beast is blind, and his claws are cut, and his cage bolted, yet, when life calls, he must answer—must—or run mad—or die—do you see?’ ‘And you shall answer, my beloved. Never fear, you will answer,’ Katherine replied proudly. Richard’s hand closed hard upon hers. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You were made to be a mother of heroes, not of a useless log like me.—And that’s just why I want to be good. And to be good I want a wife, that I may have that boy. I could keep straight for him, mother, though I’m afraid I can't keep straight for myself, and simply because it's right, much longer. I want him to have just all that I am denied. I want him to restore the balance, both for you and for me. I may have something of a career myself, perhaps, in politics or something. It’s possible, but that will come later, if it comes at all. And then it would be for his sake. What I want first is the boy, to give me an object and keep up my pluck, and keep me steady. I, giving him life, shall find my life in him, be paid for my wretched circumscribed existence by his goodly and complete one. He may be clever or not—I’d rather, of course, he was not quite a dunce—but I really don't very much mind, so long as he isn't an outrageous fool, if he’s only an entirely sound and healthy human animal.’ Richard stretched himself upon the bed, straightened the sheet across his chest, and clasped his hands under his head again. The desolation had gone out of his eyes. He seemed to look afar into the future, and therein see manly satisfaction and content. His voice was vibrant, rising to a kind of chant. ‘He shall run, and he shall swim, he shall fence, and he shall row,’ he said. ‘He shall learn all gallant sports, as becomes an English gentleman. And he shall ride,—not as I ride, God forbid! like a monkey strapped on a dog at a fair, but as a centaur, as a young demigod. We will set him, stark naked, on a bare-backed horse, and see that he’s clean-limbed, perfect, without spot or blemish, from head to heel.’” 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 History of Sir Richard Calmady was something of a succès de scandale when it was published in 1901. The author, Lucas Malet, had already made her name with her bestselling novel, The Wages of Sin (1890), which dealt with the sexual double standard for men and women, but The History of Sir Richard Calmady was seen as even more shocking because of its disabled protagonist and the frank depiction of his quest for romantic and sexual fulfilment. The fact that Lucas Malet was the pen-name of Mary St. Leger Kingsley Harrison added an extra spice of scandal to the novel’s publication. Her father, Charles Kingsley – a giant of Victorian letters, novelist, critic, Churchman and campaigner – was strongly associated with the Muscular Christian movement, while The History of Sir Richard Calmady clearly displays the writer’s interest in Roman Catholicism (hated by Kingsley), which led to her conversion in 1901. Moreover, Kingsley’s Muscular Christian values were antithetical not only to the aestheticist style of the novel, but also to its sympathetic treatment of its subject matter, which includes atheism, sexual inversion,<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> and of course disability. Malet appears particularly fascinated by the causes of disability, depicting Richard’s physical impairments as a form of paternal inheritance. At the beginning of the novel, Richard Calmady’s father is horribly injured in a horse-riding accident, and his legs have to be amputated at the knee. When his son is born posthumously without lower legs, with his feet where his knees would usually be, the implication is that the father’s injury is written onto the son’s body. In addition to this explanation, which draws on the theory of maternal impressions still influential at the time the novel is set in the 1840s,<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> Malet introduces the idea of a family curse, allowing the reader (but not the main characters) to learn of a legend by which the wicked action of Sir Denzil Calmady in the seventeenth century – in impregnating and abandoning a local peasant girl and then running over their child in his carriage, cutting off his legs and killing him – caused the family to be cursed, until a disabled heir should be born. Richard’s disability therefore records his family history of sexual and class oppression, while being offered in itself as an answer to these injustices. Over the course of the novel, Richard struggles to come to terms with his disability, and after an abortive attempt to marry a neighbouring aristocrat’s daughter, he undertakes a ‘Rake’s Progress’ around Europe, giving himself up to dissipation and eventually being seduced by his immoral (and married) cousin, Helen de Vallorbes. At this point, however, Richard becomes disillusioned with his life of pleasure and returns home, and after learning of the family curse, and deciding to devote himself to philanthropic works and Christian socialism, marries his other cousin, the feminist ‘New Woman’ (and proto-lesbian), Honoria St Quentin. Richard’s disability is finally shown to have brought him greater spiritual insight and a stronger sense of social responsibility than his peers; despite its innovative style and risqué subject matter, the novel ultimately advocates a form of Christian Socialism not totally unlike Charles Kingsley’s own, but underpinned by – rather than antithetical to – the experience of disability. In this extract, Richard explains to his mother why he has decided that he must marry. In fact, the novel does not give Richard the son he longs for here; he and Honoria are shown to adopt their nephew, another Richard, as their heir. <h3>Notes</h3> <div><a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> This was a term coined by the sexologist Richard Krafft-Ebing in his work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), and developed by Havelock Ellis in his 1897 study Sexual Inversion. He suggested that homosexuality occurred when a man had a woman’s soul (and vice-versa) and should thus be understood not as a crime, but as a medical condition.</div> <div><a title="" href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> Martha Stoddard Holmes, Fictions of Affliction (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), pp.64-5.</div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Malet, Lucas. The History of Sir Richard Calmady (1901), Ed. Talia Schaffer. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 2003. 202-4 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1901 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Clare Walker Gore Relation A related resource <ul><li> Bourrier, Karen. "Orthopaedic Disability and the Nineteenth-Century Novel." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 36.1 (2014): 1-17. </li> <li> Miller, Kathleen A. "'Your loving is unlike any other': Romance and the Disabled Body in the Gothic Fiction of Edith Nesbit and Lucas Malet." In Writing Women of the ‘Fin De Siècle’: Authors of Change, Ed. Adrienne E. Gavin and Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. </li> <li> O’Connell, Rachel. "Cripsploitation: desire, the gaze, and the extraordinary body in The History of Sir Richard Calmady." Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 4.2 (2008) </li> <li> Schaffer, Talia. The Forgotten Female Aesthetes: Literary Culture in Late-Victorian England. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2000. </li> </ul> Title A name given to the resource Richard Calmady Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lucas Malet Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Portrait of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_MacMurrough_Kavanagh">Arthur Macmurrough Kavanagh</a>, the disabled MP upon whom Richard Calmady was based. Image courtesy <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_MacMurrough_Kavanagh">Wikipedia </a>under a Creative Commons License. https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/8feb11aaa8db3e33f951103a2866dd4f.jpg eefbd851a6108f0e3ee99a1a5fa9956c https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/5f4b15379d7b2f4e0a15698d4c3f6d60.jpg 8a2f9681b2567e1939775052a4f19d7e https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/9c991a1aa4e81e3680aa33c96fb8fc9f.jpg fcf0c15054c402295fcba950a9f86f7d 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 1880 to 1901 Description An account of the resource Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. 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 In 1890, a 36” x 24” painting depicting Queen Victoria communicating with a deaf woman in front of a cozy hearth, was exhibited at the Edinburgh Exhibition. Titled “Royal Condescension,” this was the second of a series painted by the amateur painter William Agnew (1846-1941); each shows the Queen in various stages of conversation with a woman, but with minor differences: the 1883 version has a dog on the hearth and was shown at the Chicago World’s Fair; the 1889 version has a baby and won an award at the Edinburgh Exhibition; and the 1900 focuses only on the Queen and the woman. <a href="http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-rnid/2011/12/20/deaf-artist-william-agnew/">Agnew painted</a> only two other works, “True Nobility” (1897) and “Post Office, Whippingham, I.O.W.” There is little evidence that any of these paintings survive. Born deaf and mute, Agnew received his education at an institution for the deaf in Glasgow, where he learned sign-language and fingerspelling. After leaving school, he was employed in various occupations, including as a bookbinder, printer, and writer. As a writer, he penned several articles advocating sign language in deaf schools, and condemning the implementation of oralism (educating the deaf through articulation and speech) in British schools. It was during this period that fierce debates were ranging amongst educators over the best pedagogical means for instructing deaf-mutes and on the value of sign-language for “normalizing” the deaf. In 1880, educators gathered at the International Congress on Education of the Deaf voted to ban sign language in the classroom and replace it with oral education. Although little is known about Agnew, he certainly saw oralism as a threat to his own identity and culture. He was recruited to fundraise for the building of a new Institute for Deaf and Dumb Adults in Glasgow and West Scotland that would rely on instruction through sign language. Upon exhibiting his 1889 “Royal Condescension” painting to Queen Victoria, Agnew received a generous contribution from the Queen (£50). Funds from an 1891 grand bazaar raised enough to purchase a site for the new building and Agnew was made Director of the Institution. Agnew’s “Royal Condescension” paintings are a testament to his campaigns on the importance of sign language. Queen Victoria was familiar with fingerspelling, having learned as her daughter-in-law Princess Alexandra’s hearing worsened over the years until she became deaf. According to Jennifer Esmail, Agnew’s paintings “not only depicts a unique conversation between a monarch known for her fingerspelling fluency, and one of her poor and ill subjects but also allows us a rare glimpse into the visual language of deaf Victorians” (1). The Queen spook the language of the deaf, refusing, as some accounts noted, to bring a translator. This was tremendously supportive to the manualist campaigns against oral education, for if the monarch spoke the language, why should it be an issue in the classroom? Even the woman in the painting, Mrs. Elizabeth Tuffield (neé Bective Groves, 1840-1874), gives us some insight into the lives of the Victorian deaf. The daughter of a schoolmaster on the Isle of Wright, Tuffield attended the <a href="http://jaivirdi.com/2010/06/14/the-london-asylum-for-the-deaf-and-dumb/">London Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb on Old Kent Road</a> (est.1792), one of the first schools in England for the deaf. She eventually married a bootmaker, Samuel (b.1840) in 1870, but she left him; sources indicate Samuel was abusive. The historical significance of Agnew’s “Royal Condescension” paintings is also revealed in how they were reproduced and distributed. Tracts and pamphlets were popular tools in the nineteenth century to propagate powerful visual images, especially to draw attention to a cause. They raised awareness for political or social issues, asked for contributions to fundraising campaigns, and/or merely disseminated information. As many educational asylums for the deaf in the nineteenth-century relied on donations and subscriptions, small pamphlets were often printed for fundraising, even consisting illustrations of sign language—as both information and novelty. <a href="http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-rnid/2013/08/02/sign-alphabet-exhibition-royalty-and-the-deaf/">Harry Ash</a> (1863-1934) was a deaf draughtsman and designer of wallpaper who, like Tuffield, received his education from the London Asylum. In the late 1890s, he published some pamphlets on sign language, some of which were advertised in the publications of the British Deaf and Dumb Association and the British Deaf Times. In one pamphlet Ash copied Agnew’s “Royal Condescension” painting on the cover, and included the fingerspelling alphabet in the contents. Ash’s pamphlets were partly a response to his experiences at the London Asylum, where in the middle of his education, the <a href="http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-rnid/2013/08/02/sign-alphabet-exhibition-royalty-and-the-deaf/">system of instruction changed</a> from sign language to the oral method, hindering his progress in learning English. Sign language was necessary and something that every Briton should learn. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Wellcome Library, UCL Ear Institute & Action on Hearing Loss Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1800-1900 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jaipreet Virdi-Dhesi Relation A related resource <ul><li>Beaver, Patrick. A Tower of Strength: Two Hundred Years of the Royal School for Deaf Children Margate. Sussex, England: The Book Guild, Ltd., 1992.</li> <li>Edwards, R.A.R. Words Made Flesh: Nineteenth-Century Deaf Education and the Growth of Deaf Culture. New York & London: New York University Press, 2012.</li> <li>Esmail, Jennifer. Reading Victorian Deafness: Signs and Sounds in Victorian Literature and Culture. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2013.</li> <li>Jackson, Peter W. Britain’s Deaf Heritage. Edinburgh: The Pentand Press, Ltd., 1990.</li> </ul> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource (1) Postcard reprint of William Agnew’s 1889 “Royal Condescension” painting. Courtesy of UCL Ear Institute & Action on Hearing Loss Libraries. (2) Postcard reprint of William Agnew’s 1900 “Royal Condescension” painting. Courtesy of UCL Ear Institute & Action on Hearing Loss Libraries. (3) “Royal Condescension” process print by Harry Ash after William Agnew, c.1890-1900. Courtesy of Wellcome Images under a Creative Commons License. Title A name given to the resource Royal Condescension Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource William Agnew Deafness Painting Visual Culture https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/f89dc46805bcd46a80bcec07996d2aaa.jpg ca24584683e51942799ee31e6fdc4e27 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 476 Height 600 Bit Depth 8 Channels 1 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 black and white photograph shows Thomas Edison, seated, demonstrating his phonograph in April, 1878. Courtesy of <a title="Wikimedia Commons" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edison_and_phonograph_edit1.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a>. https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/5fe9857fec1908109c136cc7b28b4d66.gif f7e87bff7e536628eb75dcde0bb92fa5 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 760 Height 1171 Bit Depth 3 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 Page image of "The Phonograph and its Future". https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/1db00e6ca7acb28dcdee4712927f37d6.gif 04f9a530ccef21d8312608cfb8892575 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 760 Height 1171 Bit Depth 3 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 Second page image of "The Phonograph and its Future". 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 1880 to 1901 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. Books .—Books may be read by the charitably-inclined professional reader, or by such readers especially employed for that purpose, and the record of such book used in the asylums of the blind, hospitals, the sick-chamber, or even with great profit and amusement by the lady or gentleman whose eyes and hands may be otherwise employed; or, again, because of the greater enjoyment to be had from a book when read by an elocutionist than when read by the average reader. The ordinary record-sheet, repeating this book from fifty to a hundred times as it will, would command a price that would pay the original reader well for the slightly-increased difficulty in reading it aloud in the phonograph. (533) * * * * * Phonographic Books.—A book of 40,000 words upon a single metal plate ten inches square thus becomes a strong probability. The advantages of such books over those printed are too readily seen to need mention. Such books would be listened to where now none are read. They would preserve more than the mental emanations of the brain of the author; and, as a bequest to future generations, they would be unequaled. For the preservation of languages they would be invaluable. (534) * * * * * Every one of these uses the perfected phonograph is now ready to carry out. I may add that, through the facility with which it stores up and reproduces music of all sorts, or whistling and recitations, it can be employed to furnish constant amusement to invalids, or to social assemblies, at receptions, dinners, etc. Any one sitting in his room alone may order an assorted supply of wax cylinders inscribed with songs, poems, piano or violin music, short stories, anecdotes, or dialect pieces, and, by putting them on his phonograph, he can listen to them as originally sung or recited by authors, vocalists and actors, or elocutionists. The variety of entertainment he thus commands, at trifling expense and without moving from his chair, is practically unlimited. Music by a band, in fact whole operas, can be stored up on the cylinders, and the voice of Patti singing in England can thus be heard again on this side of the ocean, or preserved for future generations. On four cylinders eight inches long, with a diameter of five, I can put the whole of “Nicholas Nickleby” in phonogram form. (646) 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 Talking Books Description An account of the resource Thomas Edison’s phonograph was the first machine to reproduce the human voice. In December 1877, Edison’s associates assembled a device on which Edison recorded the words of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The prototype consisted of a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a grooved cylinder and rotated with a hand crank. Speech created indentations in the tinfoil (and, later, wax cylinders) that could be played back afterward. Phonograph demonstrations entertained audiences throughout the country by playing recitations, songs, music, and random noises such as whistling or whooping. Edison proposed using the phonograph to read aloud to people with disabilities in a promotional essay written for the North American Review. The essay identifies numerous uses for the phonograph including playing music, dictating letters, teaching elocution, animating dolls, recording courtroom testimony, preserving the last words of dying relatives, conserving the speeches of famous orators, and enabling clocks to announce the hours of the day. It also proposes using the phonograph as a reading machine: “Books may be read by the charitably-inclined professional reader, or by such readers especially employed for that purpose, and the record of such book used in the asylums of the blind, hospitals, the sick-chamber, or even with great profit and amusement by the lady or gentleman whose eyes and hands may be otherwise employed; or, again, because of the greater enjoyment to be had from a book when read by an elocutionist than when read by the average reader” (533). Edison envisioned books being read aloud to people with disabilities who were unable to read for themselves as well as people without disabilities who preferred listening to books recited by a professional narrator. He later described such recordings as “phonographic books, which would speak to blind people without effort on their part” (646). Edison’s prediction of a talking book was ahead of its time in the 1870s and 1880s. His idea was to record books of approximately 40,000 words on a single plate measuring ten inches square. Edison later proposed recording Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby on four wax cylinders. Yet tinfoil and wax cylinders could only play a few minutes of speech at a time. Recording an entire Dickens novel required hundreds of wax cylinders. It would be impossible to record an entire novel until advances in the field of sound recording made by the film and radio industries in the twentieth century. The American Foundation for the Blind and Library of Congress recorded the first books for people with vision impairments in 1934. These recordings, known as “talking books,” consisted of a book read aloud onto a set of long-playing phonograph records. The Library of Congress hailed the talking book program as the realization of Edison’s ambition to read aloud to people who were blind. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <ul><li>Edison, Thomas A. “The Phonograph and its Future.” North American Review 126 (May 1878): 527-36.</li> <li>Edison, Thomas A. “The Perfected Phonograph.” North American Review 379 (June 1888): 641-50.</li> </ul> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1878, 1888 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Matthew Rubery Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A black and white photograph shows Thomas Edison, seated, demonstrating his phonograph in April, 1878. Courtesy of <a title="Wikimedia Commons" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edison_and_phonograph_edit1.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a>. Relation A related resource <ul><li>Camlot, Jason. “Early Talking Books: Spoken Recordings and Recitation Anthologies, 1880-1920.” Book History 6 (2003): 147-73.</li> <li>Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. 25-44. </li> <li>Israel, Paul. Edison: A Life of Invention. New York: John Wiley, 1998. </li> <li>Koestler, Frances A. The Unseen Minority: A Social History of Blindness in the United States. New York: David McKay Company, 1976.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Edison, Thomas Audio Culture Blindness Technology Thomas Edison https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/330ec4540b1eaa1ced6a997f31704ba3.png 7bd31ae1f48e2961b4f55d86c291f079 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 This image is reproduced by courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. Description An account of the resource A white plastic glove with all the letters of the alphabet printed in lower case along the fingers and palm. 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 1880 to 1901 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 moment he evinced the independent desire to communicate with others by written words, I felt that the time had come to give him a means of forming written words for himself by teaching him his letters and a manual alphabet.” “For this purpose I adopted the plan, recommended by George Dalgarno, of writing the alphabet upon a glove. This glove I presented to him one morning as a new plaything He put it on his left hand, and then went to the card-rack, as usual, and presented me with the word for some object he desired; we shall suppose the word “doll.” I then covered up the word with the exception of the first letter, “d,” and directed his attention to the glove. After a little searching he discovered the corresponding letter upon the glove. I then showed him the letter “o” on the card, and he soon found it on the glove; and so with the other letters.” “After a little practice of this kind he became so familiar with the places of the letters that he no longer required to search, but pointed at once to the proper letter upon the glove. Every time he required a card from the card-rack I made him spell the word upon his fingers.” “In communicating with me it was unnecessary for him to wear the glove, as we both remembered the places of the letters. I kept up the practice of writing to him, as before, but required him to spell the words upon his hand while I wrote them on the board. He soon became so expert that he could spell faster than I could write, and often finished his sentence by guessing what I was going to add before I had written more than two- thirds. When this stage had been reached I often used the manual alphabet with him, instead of writing. I took his hand in mine and touched the places of the letters upon his hand. He did not require to look; he could feel where he was couched. He recognized the words in this way, however rapidly I spelled them upon his hand. As I had five fingers, I could touch five letters simultaneously, if I so desired, and a little practice enabled me to play upon his hand as one would play upon the keys of a piano, and quite as rapidly.” “I could also give emphasis by pressure upon the fingers, and group the words together as they would be grouped in utterance, leaving pauses, here and there, corresponding to the pauses made in actual speech.” “The more I used with him this means of communication the more I rejoiced in the fact that I had decided to employ an alphabet addressed to the sense of touch, instead of sight. It left his eye free to observe the expression of my face and the actions and objects which formed the subject of our conversation.” 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 A replica of the talking glove used by Alexander Graham Bell to teach George Sanders and, later, to communicate with Helen Keller. This image is reproduced by courtesy of Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. Description An account of the resource In 1873 Alexander Graham Bell was employed to teach George Sanders, a five year-old congenitally deaf boy. As part of his instruction of Sanders, Bell used the ‘talking glove’ found in the 1680 book, Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man’s Tutor, by George Dalgarno (1628-1687), with slight modification. The letters of the alphabet were written on a glove in specific places on the glove’s surface. A sighted person would then spell words by touching the appropriate letter on the glove. Because of his success with this method of communication with George Sanders, Bell employed it when he met with Helen Keller in Washington in May of 1888. Keller, who was anxious to utilize any method that would allow her to communicate with others, was quite interested in this technology. On 15 May 1888, Anne Sullivan wrote to her former teacher at Perkins Institute for the Blind, Sophia Hopkins, to tell her that when the then-former Governor of Maine, Dr. Alonzo Garcelon, asked Keller what she would like to have as a present, Keller responded with “‘Some beautiful gloves to talk with.” Sullivan continues, writing that the “Doctor was puzzled. He had never heard of ‘talking-gloves’; but I explained that she had seen a glove on which the alphabet was printed, and evidently thought they could be bought. I told him he could buy some gloves if he wished, and that I would have the alphabet stamped on them” (Keller 261-62). While she could understand the potential the glove presented as a method of communication, Sullivan was also concerned by the accessibility of communication she saw with the glove. Dorothy Herrmann quotes an undated letter from Sullivan to Michael Anagnos, the director of the Perkins School for the Blind, in Helen Keller: A Life. In this letter, Sullivan is reluctant to have Keller use the talking glove as she saw its potential to allow anyone the ability to communicate with Keller, giving Sullivan little control over what Keller was exposed to: I cannot bring myself to the mental state, where I can feel contented to allow irresponsible and unreasoning persons to have easy access to my darling’s pure and loving little heart. I am sure that while I stay with her, she will never have occasion to feel the solitude of her life, and when I go, the glove, I doubt not, will add greatly to her enjoyment. But until then I am determined to keep my beautiful treasure pure and unspotted from the world. (quoted in Herrmann 71) In the end, although Keller herself was, initially, enthusiastic about the glove, it became inconvenient, as she grew more skilled at fingerspelling. Keller expressed her thoughts and opinions so rapidly with fingerspelling that the glove became slow and awkward for her. Indeed, the talking glove, or alphabet glove as it is now commonly called, is still used today by deafblind individuals, but, according to the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore, Maryland, it “is a cumbersome communication method, but it works well when no other system is available.” As early as 1868, Bell had been involved in teaching deaf students how to speak through his father’s system called Visible Speech. However, rather than challenging Bell’s beliefs that the deaf could be integrated into American society through articulation, the alphabet glove was a part of his larger method of instruction intended to achieve this goal. Bell envisioned that the introduction to language through the alphabet glove and other tools would eventually lead to his students being able to lip-read and speak. While Keller did go on to realize Bell’s problematic oralist agenda and eventually learn to speak, Sanders was not able to master articulation<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. Sanders was, nevertheless, skilfully educated by Bell at least in part through the use of the alphabet glove. Bell’s success in instructing Sanders, who would go on to attend The National Deaf-Mute College in Washington, D.C. in 1882 and work as a printer, added to Bell’s growing reputation as an accomplished instructor to the deaf. Additionally, Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Greene Hubbard were so impressed with the alphabet glove and Bell’s success in educating George that they became major investors in Bell’s phone company. Building on the reputation that came from his use of tools such as the alphabet glove in his teaching and the proceeds from his invention of the telephone, Bell became one of the most influential figures in the oralist movement, a movement that sought to suppress sign language in favour of speaking and lip-reading and would have, and still has today, significant negative ramifications for deaf communities throughout the world. Note <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> In a forced emotional scene in the 1939 The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, George Sanders is depicted as being able to eventually say “father” while his father, Thomas, weeps with happiness. </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Bell, Alexander Graham. “Upon a Method of Teaching Language to a Very Young Congenitally Deaf Child.” American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. XXVII (1883): 124-139. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1883 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nadine LeGier Relation A related resource <ul><li> Clark, Harold T. Talking Gloves For The Deaf and Blind: Their Value to Men Injured in the Present War. Cleveland, Ohio, 1917. </li> </ul><ul><li> Dalgarno, George. Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man’s Tutor. Oxford: Printed at the Theater, 1680. </li> </ul><ul><li> Herrmann, Dorothy. Helen Keller: A Life. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1998. </li> </ul><ul><li> Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life. New York: Modern Library, 2003. </li> </ul><ul><li> National Federation for the Blind. <a href="https://nfb.org/deaf-blind-resources">https://nfb.org/deaf-blind-resources</a> </li> </ul> Title A name given to the resource Talking Gloves Language A language of the resource English https://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/cd07918c6f0f82a422b73c24f001ba6e.jpeg 99d2438f56b35820b9b03f6c8d86386e 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 280 Height 430 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 young woman holding Rhodes’ Audiphone to her mouth, c.1926. Courtesy of The Central Institute for the Deaf-Max A. Goldstein Historic Devices for Hearing Collection. Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine. 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 1880 to 1901 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 mute will feel the influence of the sound on his hand in the instructor's throat, imitate it in his own throat, will hear the speaker's voice on the Audiphone and will be aided in imitating the speaker by seeing his lips, and will also hear his own voice on the Audiphone, and readily learn to speak. It is remarkable how rapidly they learn to distinguish words by sound. In a very short time, they have learned to repeat whole sentences spoken to them while blindfolded. It is believed that every mute child may hear and learn to speak by using the Audiphone. It must be borne in mind, however, that a mute who has never heard has no conception of the meaning of the simplest words. Even though he be very intelligent and highly educated, read and write fluently, and interpret language readily by the motion of the speaker's lips, still he will not understand the most elementary sound until he is taught. He is familiar with visible, but knows nothing of articulate, language. At first, if you ask him to intimate whether or not he hears by means of the Audiphone, he may indicate that he feels a peculiar sensation that is new to him. It will not be long, however, until he realizes that what seemed to him feeling we call sound. Parents and teachers of mutes are, therefore, recommended to begin with the rudiments of language, as in teaching a child of two years. Mutes enjoy music from the first. A piano or organ should be used daily in their early training, at first resting the handle of the Audiphone on the instrument. Start and stop the music at intervals, until they realize the difference. Then they may withdraw from the piano and gradually accustom themselves to the new sensation. Faithful and patient practice, repeating over and over again the vowels and other simple sounds day after day, must be the ground-work of the mute's articulate education. To expect him to understand the first sounds that reach his brain is like asking the child in the A B C class to read Bacon or Shakspeare [sic]. 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 Audiphone Description An account of the resource On September 1879, Richard Silas Rhodes (1842-1902), president of a publishing company in Chicago, received a patent for his “Audiphone for the Deaf” his various improvements to the device. (<a>U.S. Patent No. 319,828</a>). Rhodes had conductive hearing loss<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> for twenty years following a bout of illness and was frustrated with his continuous failed encounters with ear trumpets. He observed he could hear the ticking of his watch when he held it in his mouth, and this inspired his construction of the Audiphone, which exploited the fact sound waves can be transmitted through the teeth or cranial bones. Hearing through bone conduction by using a material to transmit external sound through the jaw or teeth is an ancient notion, with references to its use dating back to the Ancient Greeks. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some scholars observed sounds could be heard at a distance upon placing a rod on the ground and holding the other end to the teeth. Physicians, educators, and even deaf individuals experimented with a variety of materials, such as wood, to figure out which objects best could transmit sound from a vibrating source (Mills 143; Goldstein 345). The Audiphone was made of a flexible sheet of polished black vulcanite (hardened rubber), with a handle, and was constructed in the shape of a fan. It was 24cm wide 27.7cm long, and 1mm thick. Another model was later constructed consisting of two leaves, designed so the user could also hear his or her voice. The standard model sold for $10 and the double-model sold for $15, an expensive sum at the time. For an extra charge, Rhodes would add ornamental features to disguise the instrument and make it inconspicuous as a hearing aid device. It was designed to be held loosely in the hand, with the upper edge placed under the upper teeth with slight pressure; the lower teeth should not be allowed to come into contact with the instrument (Goldstein 347). The device was effective only in conductive hearing loss. Users could improve their hearing up to 30 decibels, equivalent to a soft conversation heard a few feet away in a quiet room (for comparison, 20dB is the rustling of leaves, or whispering; 0dB is the hearing threshold). In January 1881, Rhodes received a patent for a modified version of his design, an Audiphone that folded as a fan of 10mm. The model was awarded a medal at the 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition in Chicago. In an <a href="http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Stout38-t13-body-d1.html">advertising pamphlet</a>, The Audiphone: A New Invention that enables the deaf to hear (1879), Rhodes remarks the Audiphone was “GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEAF,” for it enables them to hear ordinary conversation readily and was beneficial for church, lectures, concerts, plays, and so forth. Moreover, the design of the device as a fan meant the user could easily conceal their deafness if they wished, by pretending they were simply using a fan. Numerous testimonials from the United States and Europe commented on the Audiphone’s <a href="http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Stout38-t13-body-d3.html">acoustic capabilities</a>. The Englishman James Samuelson, for instance, purchased one in his visit to the United States in 1880, and tried it himself both in private and in public. He testifies: “It seems to me that aurists [medical specialists of the ear] and teachers of the deaf will be very much benefited by the invention: the former, through being able to use it as an instrument for diagnosis…the latter, where the child is deaf from some injury or imperfection of the mechanical portions of the auditory apparatus” (Samuelson 12). Indeed, the Audiphone was used in schools for the deaf, particularly in France, though opinions on its benefits varied. Some teachers were astounded at its ability to assist deaf children to speak, while others noted it was completely unnecessary as a pedagogical aid. Mary McCowen, for instance, who taught a class of semi-deaf children at the Nebraska School for the Deaf (est. 1869), and at the “Voice and Hearing School for the Deaf” in Chicago, remarked: “Though I began the year’s work as a most enthusiastic advocate of the audiphones, and used it conscientiously for several months, I cannot without a protest allow it to be said that the teacher of that class ascribes the success to the audiphones. I make a specialty in my work here of training the hearing, but I have thus far failed to find a single child that was really and truly helped by the audiphones” (American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 87). Some schools in England even reported that at least twenty percent of the pupils had sufficient hearing when assisted with the audiphone, enabling them to participate more diligently in their speech-training and learning. Rhodes’ Audiphone remained a popular bone-conduction hearing instrument until the early years of the twentieth century, long after Rhodes’ unfortunate death—he was killed while walking along the Wisconsin Central Railroad tracks in Illinois (Berger 318). Various other patents and designs of the Audiphone popped up over the ears, each boasting a more efficient conduction system, a cheaper price tag, or a more revolutionary design. Some of these were quickly dismissed as nothing more than another <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20716FE34551B7A93C6A81788D85F448884F9">“quack cure” for deafness</a>. <h3>Note</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Conductive hearing loss is when it is difficult for sound waves to conduct through the tympanum (the ear drum) or the middle ear, where the ossicles (three tiny bones in the ear) reside. </div> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhodes, Richard S. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Rhodes, Richard S. The Audiphone: A New Invention that Enables the Deaf to Hear. Chicago: Rhodes & McClure, 1879. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1881 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jaipreet Virdi-Dhesi Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This black and white photograph shows a young woman holding Rhodes’ Audiphone to her mouth, c.1926. Courtesy of The Central Institute for the Deaf-Max A. Goldstein Historic Devices for Hearing Collection. <a href="http://beckerimages.wustl.edu/">Becker Medical Library</a>, Washington University School of Medicine. Relation A related resource <ul><li> Berger, Kenneth W. The Hearing Aid, it’s Operation and Development. Michigan, USA: National Hearing Aid Society, 1970. </li> <li> Berger, Kenneth W. “Early Bone Conduction Hearing Aid Devices.” Archives of Otolaryngology 102 (May 1976): 315-318. </li> <li> Murdy, Albert and Tjellstorm, Anders. “Historical Background of Bone Conduction Hearing Devices and Bone Conduction Hearing Aids.” Archives of Otorhinolaryngology 71 (2011): 1-9. </li> <li> Mills, Mara. “When Mobile Communication Technologies Were New.” Endeavour 33.4 (2009): 140-146. </li> <li> Goldstein, Max A. Problems of the Deaf. St. Louis: The Laryngoscope Press, 1933. </li> <li> Samuelson, James. “Rhodes’s Audiphone.” British Medical Journal 3.1 (1880): 12. </li> </ul> Advertisement Deafness Medicine Mobility Prosthesis Technology