Allen Jay - The Peacemaker

In my regular life, I am a speech-language pathologist. Though I work in Early Intervention, meaning I help toddlers learn to talk, this career involves many areas. This includes voice, fluency (stuttering), feeding and swallowing, speech sounds, social skills, cognitive skills, and even more. In my job, I have had one client so far who had a repaired cleft palate. Luckily, my school had a specific class focused on just cleft lip and palate management and rehabilitation. Like most of medicine, this area has come a long way in just the last few decades. Comparing my client's experience in 2017 to my uncle's experience in the 1950s is completely different, much less looking back at the 1800s. I came across Allen Jay's story as a child in a picture book (Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad, 1993) and it has stuck with me ever since.

Allen, 1910

 

Thomas Wiggins - An Enslaved Prodigy

This is a post I have been putting off writing for two reasons. First, it hurts my heart. I am a helper, a nurturer, an empath. Knowing this man's story and how he was exploited for his entire life is difficult to sit with. Second, it opens the floodgates. Many of the stories of disability in the nineteenth century take place in "freak shows" and on vaudeville circuits. There are many of these on my post ideas list. This was merely the first.

However, we can't sugarcoat the past. These people truly lived and their stories deserve to be told in their entirety. Yes, Thomas Wiggins was an incredibly talented musician and yes, he and his family was taken advantage of through the system of slavery, institutional racism, and abusing the legal system. All of the aspects of his story are important and I hope you enjoy learning more about "Blind Tom."

Tom as an adult

Anne Sullivan - The Fire of a Purpose

Thanks to the fame of Helen Keller (who will be her own post at some point, worry not), many people also know the name of her teacher, Annie Sullivan.  The teleplay The Miracle Worker about their relationship was performed in 1957 and converted to a Broadway production just two years later. It was made into a film in 1962, followed by made-for-television movies in 1979 and 2000. All this to say, Anne is decently well-known. Because of her fame, I wanted to do a deep-dive into her life. The most challenging part of writing this, though, was not getting too caught up in Helen's story. Anne lived her own story in her own right and I want to honor that.

Anne, 1894

Frida Kahlo - Art & Identity from Pain

While I am very passionate about history generally, art history has never been specifically interesting to me. I know the names of the famous artists but generally know little more than surface-level information. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Frida Kahlo lived with disability and chronic pain! All I had known about her was that she was a Mexican self-portrait painter and had a unibrow. Learning so much more about her life was fascinating, especially since it allowed me to also explore a time period I didn't know as much about.

Frida, 1932

Roger Demosthenes O'Kelly - A Most Remarkable Lawyer

Here's a sneak peek into my research process: I usually get a handle on the basics of the person's life story through Wikipedia, then go to Google for the detailed information and primary sources (meaning accounts written about them during their lifetime). This post did not go that way. The Wikipedia article is very short and poorly researched, and unfortunately I could not find many articles online that provided more information. Luckily, they did cite a couple primary sources, so I got to spend time going through old newspapers and census records, which I actually find quite fun!

Roger, 1927

Ragnhild Kåta - Living Well

A running theme I have inadvertently created in this blog is how important equal access to education is, even and especially if accommodations need to be made.  Convincing the general public that people with disabilities have a right to an education has taken centuries of work, thanks to many activists like Helen Keller, a deafblind American woman. Thinking about her got me wondering about others like her in countries outside of the United States. In my research for topic ideas, I found today's subject. She is not "Norway's Helen Keller;" she was an inspiration to Helen Keller herself.

Ragnhild and Hofgaard

Ed Roberts - Be an Artichoke

One of the biggest observations I have made while writing for this blog is, "Boy, it's so different having disabilities today than it was then!" This is not due to chance; this is a consequence of intensive work of disability rights activists and families who fought for decades. My sister was born the year after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed: her life has been made immeasurably better because of hundreds of activists that my family has never met. Today, I am honoring the work of just one of these crusaders. Though he passed away the day after my sister's fourth birthday, I hope he knows how grateful we are for him.

Ed in the l970s