A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen

A Disability History of the United States Reviews

• 
  Chris

  About what you'd expect for a survey of 300+ years that weighs in at under 200 pages. Uneven coverage of different disabilities or types of disabilities and reliant upon secondary sources. I wish it had been organized thematically instead of just chronologically, because the examples within each historical period didn't necessarily hang together just because they occurred at roughly the same time. Also, seemed like Neilsen was trying hard to write for a general audience, but her tone swung between scholarly ("discourses") and casual (even using contractions sometimes). I've read some other disability and medical history and was intrigued by the connection between disability and the lack of ability to work, and I learned more about how phenomena like industrialization and slavery caused disabilities. I actually don't mind that Neilsen doesn't have a disability, because I saw this as her trying to understand why she is socially defined as able-bodied while others aren't.
• 
  Colin

  This was a good beginner's primer to the history of disability in the US. I think it was a great choice to add to the library at my work. I appreciated the intersectional analyses of race, class, gender and sexuality that is so often missing from books like this--not that there are many in the first place. I do think that there could have easily been more depth in each chapter, and was a bit disappointed that it ended with the passage of the ADA which was about 25 years ago now; it would have been nice to have examples of organizing that has gone on since then. Definitely recommended for folks looking for a readable introductory overview of the subject.
  
  
• 
  Grace

  Interesting and fairly high-level overview of history in the USA through a disability-focused lens, including how the definition of disability has evolved over the years. Definitely quite general/broad, but it doesn't claim to be otherwise, and I think it made for an interesting read and a good starting place to learn more about disability and ableism.
• 
  Kara Jorgensen

  Interesting, and I like the intersectional approach. At times, I wish there were more specifics on groups, like the blind, deaf, or those with epilepsy, etc.
• 
  Book Shark

  A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen
  
  "A Disability History of the United States" is the informative book about the history of the United States through experiences of people with disabilities. It's a story of stigma and pride denied, it's a journey of overcoming special challenges to make oneself at home. Professor of history and author of three books, Kim E. Nielsen takes the reader on an enlightening and often-disregarded history in the United States through the lives of people with disabilities. The book begins prior to European conquest and colonization and ends to the present time. I found the book to be more informational than inspirational but overall educational, I appreciate the author's candor for the need to explore even further and this book will help whet the appetite of such pursuits. This instructive 272-page book is composed is the following eight chapters: 1. The spirit chooses the body it will occupy: Indigenous North America, Pre-1492, 2. The poor, vicious, and infirm: Colonial Communities, 1492-1700, 3. The miserable wretches were then thrown into the sea: The Late Colonial Era, 1700-1776, 4. The deviant and the independent: Creating Citizens, 1776-1865, 5. I am disabled, and must go at something else besides hard labor: The Institutionalization of Disability, 1865-1890, 6. Three generations of imbeciles are enough: The Progressive Era, 1890-1927, 7. We don't want tin cups: Laying the Groundwork, 1927-1968, and 8. I guess I'm an activist. I think it's just caring: Rights and Rights Denied, 1968-.
  
  Positives:
  1. Straightforward accessible prose, a well researched and enlightening book.
  2. An interesting and often overlooked topic.
  3. The author does a wonderful job of being fair and even-handed. There is no political agenda whatsoever in this book; it's all about telling a story as accurately as possible. Bravo.
  4. The description of disability. What is has been equated to and the struggle to redefine it.
  5. The author does a good job through countless examples, to describe the struggles that people with disabilities have lived with and continue to do so. It's also interesting to see the evolution of the struggle.
  6. The book takes the reader on a journey through time, progressing chronologically through history and the experiences of people with disabilities.
  7. Indigenous understanding of disability. How the western concepts of wellness tragically conflicted with the indigenous embrace of body, mind and spirit as one.
  8. The effects of European incursions. How early European colonists viewed disability.
  9. The impact of racist ideologies. Tragic stories. The vicious tenets of scientific racism. Slavery.
  10. Categorizing disability. Understanding the new nation's quest to define good and "bad" citizens. Incompetent citizenship. "Dumb" residents. Legislation. The many different categories of disability and the factions and groups that form to combat societal indifferences .
  11. The consequences of war.
  12. There are some stories that will raise some eyebrows, "No woman, he warned, could simultaneously use 'a good brain' and a good reproductive system that serve the race." Thankfully, times have changed generally for the better.
  13. An exploration of the eugenics, oralist movements. Immigration restrictions and state compulsory-sterilization laws. "The belief that an immigrant was unfit to work justified exclusion, but so did the belief that an immigrant was likely to encounter discrimination because of disability." Some stories will make your jaws drop.
  14. The impact of industrialization.
  15. The period that led to activism among people with disabilities. The legislation that resulted from such activism. Education, opportunities.
  16. The impact of diseases, polio as an example.
  17. Overcoming architectural barriers through legislation.
  18. The struggle to overcome employment discrimination.
  19. Disability activism, disability pride and empowerment. The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
  20. Links worked great.
  
  Negatives:
  1. My biggest complaint has to do with style versus substance. The book lacked passion or panache, it is clearly more informational than inspirational.
  2. A section of acronyms was warranted.
  3. A summary of laws enacted would have added value.
  4. An excellent notes section but no formal bibliography.
  5. This book is more an appetizer than the main entree but it's a very good appetizer indeed.
  
  In summary, this is quite an educational book. As an engineer I have firsthand knowledge of dealing with productivity and instrumentation as it relates to human methods but my history on disability was sadly lacking. This book did a wonderful job of filling that void. This book caught my eye and I'm very pleased to have read it. My only major criticism and it's merely one of style than substance, is the lack of passion or panache. The book is definitely more informative than inspirational, so if you the reader are looking for a book that inspires a call for action this is not that type of book. Sticking to her professorial roots, Nielsen took the educational route and in doing so did accomplish the goal of enlightening the public on this seldom-covered topic. "The Disability History of the United States" fills a void of knowledge, I recommend it!
  
  Further suggestions: "A Journey Into the Deaf-World" by Harlan Lane, Robert Hoffmeister and Ben Bahan, "Miracle Boy Grows Up: How the Disability Rights Revolution Saved My Sanity" by Ben Mattlin, "No Pity : People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement" by Joseph P. Shapiro, "Reflections from a Different Journey : What Adults with Disabilities Wish All Parents Knew" by Stanley Klein and John Kemp, "From Disability to Possibility: The Power of Inclusive Classrooms" by Patrick Schwarz, "The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (The History of Disability)" by Susan M. Schweik, "One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All" by Mark Robert Rank, and "Encyclopedia of American Disability History (3 Volume set)" by Susan Burch.
• 
  Frances

  Great book. Normally, I write pretty extensive reviews of books because I have a terrible memory and enjoy going back and remembering my thoughts on a book. I don't particularly feel the need to write a long review here because this book is going to be a kind of reference for me.
  
  Nielsen does a great job of stuffing a complex and long history into an easily readable 189 pages. The book doesn't offer an exhaustive history, but serves its purpose well: to give a foundational history of disability rights and to inspire people to learn more about disability, its past and its present. I was also struck by how inclusive it was and how it always had intersectionality in mind, clearly stating that people of different races, genders, orientations, and social classes experienced disability in very different ways. Particularly interesting to me was the analysis of citizenship and disability's relationship--the creation of citizenship required the demarcation of who was allowed to fully participate and who wasn't. Tying democracy to "ability", people with disabilities were exempt from becoming full citizens.
  
  I think the only major flaw of this book is that it doesn't touch upon healthcare enough, in my opinion. As the ACA is deliberately destroyed, connecting our past to our present is important.
• 
  Chase

  This book is a pretty good primer for readers that missed out on some crucial disability history in school but it isn't executed as well as it could've been. Because the author has crammed 400 years into a short book, the often untold individual stories get the short end of the stick and I think that it suffers from not having a stronger thematic throughline as a result. In that sense, it sometimes reads like a textbook. In addition, the book doesn't cover any of the last 25 years...which is kind of bizarre to me. What I did appreciate, however, was the understanding that class, race, gender and disability rights are and have been interconnected from America's inception. I would still highly encourage people to read it if they don't know much about disability history in the US, because there aren't many other history books that focus on it only from that angle.
• 
  Grace

  Highly recommend this if you want a brief overview of the history of how the US has treated those with disabilities. This book also did an amazing job discussing how ableism, racism, and sexism are all intertwined. All three groups of prejudice stem from each other and must all be addressed.
• 
  Ame

  A good, VERY general overview of a history of disability in the United States. Nielsen covers 300+ years of history in less than 200 pages. I would love for this to be expanded into a series, since I would gladly read "A Disability History of the United States: 1492-1692" or "A Disability History of the United States: 1950-1990". There's entirely too much content to cover, and much of the material seemed to lean towards physical disabilities.
  
  What I found fascinating within the content is once the United States gets into the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism, things spiral downwards for anyone with a disability. Your worth is solely based around your ability to earn money, yet nobody is willing to provide accommodations so you can prove your economic worth. Our system is ridiculous and has been ever since America came into being.
  
  I wanted to read more about the history of people with cognitive/developmental disabilities. Nielsen touches on colonial times and how these folks were free to live with families and live integrated into society without an issue, but there's not much elaboration. I could chalk this up to a lack of primary sources, but if Nielsen is able to talk about it at all, surely there are more first person accounts? Another shame is that "disability" or "feeblemindedness" or "weakness" in general was literally just about anything just a couple of centuries ago, so I imagine researching for this book was a great big pain in the ass.
  
  This is a recommended first read into the world of disability, and serves as an excellent starting point for anyone who plans to delve deeper into the politics of disability (like moi). With the latter aspect in mind, I especially recommend Nielsen's section on the 1960s and 1970s in Berkeley, CA when disability advocates were out in full force to get equal access to housing, employment, and just the ability to enter buildings without issue. Their common sense requests, which were radical just a few decades ago, will make you furious that this kind of assistance couldn't be brought into the foreground sooner as Nielsen notes it's cheaper to provide accommodations than to shove someone into an institution.
• 
  Yaaresse

  Nielsen covers a lot of time and ground in about 250 pages, so buckle up for a fast ride.
  
  This book is basically a history book, and, as such, the author is not trying to solve the country's injustice issues or do any activism here. The point of this rather slim volume is to provide an overview of the topic. There's no deep dive into any one aspect of disability history. An entire series could be written on this subject and not fully address every group, law, injustice, etc.
  
  What Nielsen does is examine how the concept/definition of "disability" has changed over time and what forces have driven those changes. Not surprisingly -- spoiler alert -- it has a lot more to do with what Those in Power deem "appropriate for the greater good" than with reality. And, yes, you may as well read "those in power" as meaning "affluent, white, straight males of a certain age and political slant" and translate "appropriate for the greater good" to mean the same. Nielsen starts with the pre-colonial period, during which native cultures seemed not to have a firm concept of a person as disabled and who instead seemed to think in terms of individualized skills and fluid roles within the community for the differently-abled so that everyone could contribute something of value. As she moves to the present, it becomes obvious that a person's "worth" became determined to their ability to do "manly" work and generate an income, their desirability as citizens, and whether they might become "a public burden."
  
  It might surprise some people to learn how fluid the concept of disability has been over history and how closely tied that fluidity is to political and economic agendas. Nielsen shows how, at various times in history, "the disabled" have included slaves, specific immigrant groups, Native Americans, LGBT people, and middle to upper class white women. (Don't worry: It has also included poor white women, but they were differently disabled than their delicate, higher class, always lily white sisters.)
  
  Overall, a solid introduction to a part of American history seldom covered. The footnotes and bibliography are also quite thorough.
• 
  Lee (Rocky)

  This book wasn’t quite as comprehensive as I had expected but that’s on me — it’s a pretty short book, after all, and on a topic that most general audience readers wouldn’t want to read 500+ pages on. But the book does cover a broad scope and what I appreciated about it most of all was that it challenged accepted thinking about not only how disabled people can and should be allowed to live regular lives but also about what disability even is, how we conceptualize it, and how that conceptualization was shaped less by the inherent abilities and needs of disabled people than by historical forces, economic needs and ideas, and in some instances ideas that were rather arbitrary but took hold anyway.
• 
  Katie

  This book would have been so much more readable if it had been arranged topically rather than by decade. I felt like I was reading the same stuff over and over. I also recognize that physical disabilities are the most visible but I would have liked to have read more about intellectual and developmental disabilities or care for the multiply disabled.
• 
  Katie Goldey

  Great read - lots of really interesting info and history on disability rights movement, as well as the intersection with the labor movement and other civil rights movements. Wish it included a bit more about intellectual / cognitive disability (there is some). It mostly focuses on physical disability and deafness. However, overall, this is a really great, informative and quick read.
• 
  lori light

  Wow - so many new things learned.
• 
  Rebecca

  A must-read. Very happy this was available as an audiobook!
• 
  Michael

  2 1/2
  
  This was an informative survey of disability history in the US with an intersectional bent but it was often uneven and dry.
• 
  Jessica Russell

  I would have loved for this to be more comprehensive and I’d love to hear it from the perspective of a disabled person.
• 
  Laura

  Very interesting. This book provides a pretty broad overview of what conditions have been considered disabilities at various points in history, as well as how those people were treated. Although it's pretty short and not a deep dive by any means, it does cover a long period of time (although the cover says 1492-present, it even discusses indigenous cultures before that point). I definitely still learned a lot. So much of this was new to me, because it's really not taught at all.
• 
  Thomas

  Expertly researched and written.
• 
  M

  A good starting point for digging deeper into disability history; while definitely too short to be comprehensive it succeeded in its goal of linking how disability has formed ideas of citizenship in the US.
• 
  Amy

  There's some great information here, but this easily could have been an entire series--so many issues and eras are touched on only for a page or two.
  
  Also--this book covers as far as the ADA in 1990 but doesn't mention the Capitol Crawl protest!
• 
  Bruce Cline

  Having never read an overview of the history of disability in the U.S., I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. However, knowing that this book was only 241 pages, I could have surmised it would be a somewhat cursory account. And indeed, it was. But I don’t think that’s a damning description. Rather, the author provides enough detail, including naming some key resources, to engender interest and encourage a deeper dive into one or more of the areas she touches on in this volume. Her main areas of focus are Indigenous populations, the colonial periods (1492-1700 & 1700-1776), early United States 1776-1865, 1865-1890, the Progressive Era 1890-1927, 1927-1968, and 1986 to date of publication (2012). Her coverage of Indigenous attitudes was informed by Native experts, but was sketchy nonetheless, probably due to a dearth of original source material. Throughout, much of what she reported was via anecdotes about persons with disabilities, real or perceived. As she noted, which people were considered disabled varied by time period, and included a wide variety of populations we might not consider as such nowadays: women generally and at times those desiring higher education (!), drunkards, prostitutes, all slaves (or later, Blacks generally), masturbators, criminals, the chronically poor, non-heterosexuals, and many more. At various times, many individuals with physical or other disabilities who were employed were not treated as disabled, and many persons with physical and mental impairments escaped public notice due to class distinctions, i.e., individual or family wealth insulated them from external judgement or ill treatment. Given the incorporation of so many people into the category of those considered disabled, the author touches on an extraordinary span of society: union members, servicemen and veterans, victims of manufacturing mishaps, the deaf & blind, societal misfits, single mothers (moral turpitude), people from disfavored races, the mentally ill, those born with birth defects, short people, etc. Discrimination was rampant, and was socially accepted if often governmentally condoned or mandated. Nielsen spends some time on the sordid but once widespread business of eugenics that resulted in the forced sterilization of thousands. She notes how American practices of attempting to eliminate undesirable people from the nation’s gene pool were admired by others overseas, included Germany prior to and during WWII. (Yes, Nazis looked to the U.S. for inspiration when they started euthanizing children with disabilities.) In my opinion, the book lacks a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the nation’s sometimes despicable treatment of persons with disabilities, or even time period analyses, especially given how attitudes changed over the decades. With the surfeit of available information about postwar disability advocacy, her coverage of the modern era was especially lacking. All of that said, I repeat that this overview is a good place to start for anyone interested in learning about the history of disability in the U.S. It should whet the appetite of readers and identify many areas for greater investigation.
• 
  Laura

  A social history of how we have treated disability in the USA footprint. Starts with the First Nations, which, I learned from this book, had sign language long before Europe did. At least some tribes treated congenital disabilities as a mark the parents violated the social contract.
  
  Cotton Mather, of course, believed disabilities were a punishment for sin. The colonies were fairly open to disabilities, she says, as long as people could still labor. (26). By 1701, though, the colonies were enacting laws to exclude the disabled. They were not wanted in our shining city.
  
  By the mid-1700s, those who could not work were the responsibility of their local communities. Then, as now, communities did not want them. They would be made to work, if possible. A Samuel Coolidge (Not that Samuel Coolidge) who would stomp half naked in the streets screaming obscenities. The town kept him on as their school teacher, occasionally locking him in the school house at night so he'd be available to teach in the morning. (32). When he became too disordered to teach, he was locked in a single room for the rest of his life.
  
  One town apparently got really good at smuggling those it did not want into other jurisdictions by cover of night. Two days ago, a presidential candidate may have tricked and trafficked refugees across many state lines to dump them, inadequately clothed, in front of the Vice President's home. The more things change . . .
  
  By the end of the 1700s, American states were passing laws to exclude people who were assessed as likely to become a public charge. (75). Ship captains were having to pay bonds insuring they weren't bringing in such people. And some slavers were dumping people who were disabled by the voyage off the sides of the slave ships because the insurance was worth more than the likely sale proceeds. Sharks followed slaver ships, I'm told. May we be forgiven . . .
  
  For centuries, Blacks and women were treated as disabled. And yes, the franchise is formally expanding, but that is not the lived reality of so many of us.
  
  From this book, I learned that Washington is the second state to pass a forced sterilization law during the eugenics enthusiasm of the early 20th century. Ours allowed the state to sterilize habitual criminals. Many allowed the state to sterilize anyone with a disability. I knew we had the law, but I did not know we passed it so fast. Or that 685 people were sterilized under this law. (114). The New Jersey Supreme Court promptly found their version unconstitutional under the equal protection clause. (116-17).
  
  The book also documents heroism; people stepping up to demand our society treat everyone as if they matter. Most were themselves in the affected communities, but they are most effective when other people step up - which apparently, the Black Panthers did.
  
  Law has made a difference, but the idea that some people are the deserving disabled and some people are not is still deeply embedded in our culture. And even those deemed deserving often aren't treated well.
  
  A good book about our moral development as a society. I hope.
• 
  Alanna McFall

  Bonus Reading: A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen
  
  List Progress: 31/30
  
  The disabled are the one minority group that anyone can become a member of, at any time. While many are born disabled, no one is more than an illness, a car crash or old age away from being among their numbers. But despite this all-encompassing scope, disabled people are often written out of the history books, under the assumption that they cannot contribute anything meaningful to the course of history. Kim E. Nielsen seeks to reject that notion with A Disability History of the United States, a general survey of disabled people’s role in society, from pre-colonial times to the present day. It is a fascinating and occasionally horrifying telling of a very under-explored facet of national history, but “general” is a key word when describing this book.
  
  A Disability History is covering six hundred years of history in under two hundred pages, so there was always going to be some skimming happening. The chapters follow different eras of disability life and care, from family and home care to institutionalization to the disability pride movement, with individual case histories included to illustrate Nielsen’s points. This is a good book for giving the general flow of this topic, and guiding readers on how to narrow their scope for their own research. There is also a valiant effort to illustrate the intersections of privileges for the disabled, how native populations, black people and immigrants had very different experiences of disability than middle- to upper-class white people.
  
  The one omission that stood out to me was populations who are completely unable to work. From about the 1960’s onwards, the focus of the public discourse, and therefore the text, was on disabled people fighting for their right to work and be financially-contributing members of society. Perhaps it is my bias, as I live with a social security lawyer, but I was curious about the role of the people who genuinely could not work for wages, those who are restricted to their homes, beds or hospital rooms. But again, this is a less-than two hundred page book, and it’s not like society as a whole does a good job of remembering the severely disabled.
  
  I am glad A Disability History of the United States exists, and it is good at what it does: offering a broad overview , hopefully to spark the reader’s interest to learn more. I am glad I read it, but I certainly didn’t come away feeling like an expert on anything.
  
  Would I Recommend It: Yes.
• 
  Nickole

  Generally speaking I think this is a good intro book for understanding the basics of disability in America from it's early history. The book does end in somewhat present time the vast majority of the book is spent in the beginnings with indigenous history as it relates to disability and tribal acceptance and colonial America around the 1400s. It's a relatively short book so I wasn't quite prepared to start that far back and by starting that far back there was a lot of history that got glossed over quickly instead of having a deeper dive. I do think it's a good weed and I was particularly intrigued by the history between 1890 and 1927 pertaining to immigrants. I have never in all of my learning around racism, sexism, homophobia and antisemitism been exposed to how immigration law at this time used disability as a mechanism to exclude so many immigrants. And this wasn't just about people with obvious disabilities like being in mobile or blind… The book relates a story of a gentleman whose penis was on the small side and immigration officials declared him perverted and deported him on the basis he would likely engage in immoral relationships. So essentially immigration officers of the day what size you up in the clear whatever they could if they found you and worthy. Another story she related is of a Jewish pan with a hump back who who is being sponsored and had a job yet immigration declared that sSo essentially immigration officers of the day what size you up in the clear whatever they could if they found you and worthy. Another story she related is of a Jewish man with a hump back who who is being sponsored and had a job yet immigration declared that he was unable to work and would be a burden on society he was unable to work and would be a burden on society.
  
  The book does a great job telling you how horrible the general population and most especially government treated and excluded sometimes brutalized people with disabilities. Comes up short though when it gets to the disability rights movement and while it mentions some of the great leaders of the movement it never really goes into detail about them.
  
  It's a quick read and there are many valuable sources cited, I'm just sorry that she didn't write a longer book with more details and deeper dives into everything that went on from the 60s to today which has move the needle for so many people who don't actually know the history of the rights they now have and who fight for them to have them.
• 
  jo

  a broad overview of the history of disability in the united states which reveals the malleability of this category & how it has been employed as a tool for exclusion & oppression, similar to & intersecting with other socially constructed categories such as race, gender, & class. disability has been a means of justifying the exclusion of those deemed to be "unfit" and who falls in and out of that category over time points out the need for questioning & critiquing the category itself. while reading, i wondered how a book could be written about such a broad category of 'disability' which encompasses both physical, mental, & cognitive disabilities, but i realize that this was done with intention to reject the internal hierarchy of acceptable/unacceptable disabilities and to reflect the politics of cross-disability rights organizations that drew upon shared experiences of discrimination & exclusion to fight for their rights.
  
  the writing itself is clear and only sometimes veers into being too granular (but less so than other history books, in my opinion). the author utilizes the specific narratives of individuals' lives in each chapter which humanizes this huge archive of disabled history. i especially appreciated the author's intentionality in pointing out race, class, and gender and how each intersects with disability. i was worried going in that a 'disability history' would unintentionally mean a (white, rich, male) disability history, but i was gladly proven wrong. this is a resource that i will continuously return to throughout my teaching.
  
  after reading some other reviews & reflecting, i also want to challenge the ending/conclusion of the book as thinking about the inclusion of disabled people into the united states & making it "home". this itself is a settler colonial claim, and i would be interested in reading more about anti-settler colonial understandings of disability & dismantling the structures that create/sustain disability in the first place.