Every Sunday the San Francisco Chronicle has a feature, Wayback Machine, that runs stories from its past. In an article dated February 25, 1934 there is an announcement of a silent movie, “Eskimo,” showing in town. The Chronicle would be hosting 100 deaf persons. During the previous decades movies were silent and had superimposed titles—open […]
Category: history
Kids playing from Life Magazine archive
Discovered the sweetest picture of two braced and crutched kids have a good time on the playground. They’re at the FDR school in a Spanish-speaking country. There’s a few pictures from the Life Magazine archive that show disabled people. Two young boys in schoolyard […]
Sex, Drugs, & Rock ‘n’ roll
Here’s some good news from the UK disability arts newsletter, ETC. (To subscribe, silvie@disabilityarts.info) To my mind Ian Dury’s “Spasticus Autisticus” should be the disability community’s rockin’ anthem. If this movie is successful it should help bring the disabled Dury back into public consciousness. Here’s the news: Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll 104 […]
Berkeley Big People’s Wheelchair User
Last saturday, October 18, the People’s Republic of Berkeley, birthplace of the independent living movement, unveiled a massive, social realist statue honoring the town’s political activism. It’s depicts people engaged in some of the town’s different protests. For once a righteous, angry, political, powerful wheelchair user is depicted in public art. As soon as I […]
Not Overcoming Nor Transforming But Integrating
In last Sunday’s Book Review section in the San Francisco Chronicle Sanford D. Horwitt reviewed Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf She. “whatever greatness Lincoln achieved cannot be explained as a triumph over personal suffering. Rather, it must be accounted for as an outgrowth of the same […]
Invalid Corps
I found a new aspect of disability history, the Invalid Corps, while reading “The Gangs of New York.” Even though the members of the Corps were not considered able-bodied enough to serve in the regular army some units were armed. Those were among the first troops to attempt quelling the mobs in the 1863 New […]