Category: Experiences of Disability in Early America

Just like the familiar triad of gender, class, and race, disability is historically constructed, and its meanings are situated in time and place. In seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth-century America, disability was not a term commonly deployed outside of British American legal discourse. However, diverse peoples used a plethora of words, far more than we use… Continue Reading The Language of “Disability” in the Premodern Archive

“Everyone will become disabled if they’re lucky enough. Aging is a privilege. Far too few of us get the opportunity to live to be a ripe old age. And if you do get the opportunity, you will likely become disabled.” Maria Town, President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities (Masters 2020)… Continue Reading Is Old Age Inextricable from Disability? A View From the Eighteenth Century and Today