9 minute read
Program Descriptions
Founded in 1791, the MHS is an invaluable resource for American history, life, and culture. Our extraordinary collections tell the story of America through millions of rare and unique documents, artifacts, and irreplaceable national treasures. Please check the website for updates and, once registered, your e-mail before attending the program.
OCTOBER 7 THURSDAY | 5:30 | VIRTUAL PROGRAM An Introduction to Disability History Beth Linker, University of Pennsylvania; Kim E. Nielsen, University of Toledo; and Rabia Belt, Stanford Law School
Moderated by Naomi Rogers, Yale School of Medicine
This conversation will aim to orient us in the field of disability history and serve to lay the groundwork for subsequent conversations in this series. How is disability used as an analytical tool in historical inquiry? Why is it important to center disability as a defining social category, like race, class, gender, and sexuality? How have definitions of disability varied through history, and what have been the social and cultural impacts of this shifting understanding? This conversation will present a brief history of the field and examine the foundational and emerging scholarship through a moderated, roundtable discussion with our panelists.
Throughout October, we will host a series of programs, seminars, and workshops exploring the field of disability history. Learn more at www.masshist.org/disability.
Note on accessibility: All virtual programs in this series will be in English and will have closed captioning enabled through Zoom. Most of the programs will be recorded and will be available on YouTube and our website at a later time. If you have questions, please contact programs@masshist.org.
To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 9 SATURDAY | 11:00 & 2:00 | WALKING TOUR
Opening Our Doors
The MHS will join its neighboring cultural institutions for a day of free history, art, music, and cultural happenings in the Fenway neighborhood. With over 20 different museums, venues, colleges, and organizations participating, there will be something for everyone. At 11:00 AM and again at 2:00 PM MHS staff members will lead a walking tour of the Fenway neighborhood. Tours will last approximately 90 minutes. Registration is required. Participants should meet at the front door of the MHS (1154 Boylston Street, Boston 02215). The 2:00 PM tour is sold out.
Our Favorite Things
Objects that Fascinate, Interest & Inspire
Explore the virtual exhibition at www.masshist.org/ourfavoritethings
OCTOBER 12 TUESDAY | 5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR History of Women, Gender & Sexuality Seminar
Typologies of Developmental Normalcy in Early Childhood
Medicine, 1830–1870 Kelsey Henry, Yale University
Comment by Evelyn Hammonds, Harvard University
This paper investigates “developmental asynchrony,” the mismatch between a sexually overdeveloped body and an underdeveloped mind, as a sign of racial degeneration fueled by sexual disorder in early child medicine. While developmental asynchrony was considered a hallmark characteristic of the Black race, similar developmental timing and patterning in white children inspired professional panic about developmental disorder and the dissolution of racial types. This paper proposes that medical theories of developmental normalcy and aberrancy are integral to telling stories about the co-constitution of race, gender, and sexuality and their conceptual and material entanglements in the antebellum U.S.
To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 13 WEDNESDAY | 5:30 | VIRTUAL CONVERSATION
Disability and the History of Medicine
Deirdre Cooper Owens, University of Nebraska-Lincoln;
Jaipreet Virdi, University of Delaware; and Michael Rembis, University at Buffalo
Medicine and technology impact the lived experiences of disabled people in many ways. Advances improve people’s lives, however many of these have come at the cost of invasive diagnostic technologies, the medicalization of human conditions, and endless quests for cures. Doctors have performed experiments on the poor and disempowered, especially enslaved Black and institutionalized people who had a limited public voice. Writing medical history must include disabled people and use their experiences as analytical lenses for understanding historical events. Taking inspiration from the disability rights movement and the interdisciplinary field of disability studies, our discussion will delve into what has been written as traditional medical history and how we can tell a more complete story.
To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 16 SATURDAY | 1:00 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR
Biography Seminar
Her Socialist Smile: A Film Screening
John Gianvito, Emerson College; Carolyn Forché, Georgetown University
Moderated by Megan Marshall, Emerson College
In his new film, John Gianvito, known for passion projects of expansive shape and political ambition, meditates on a particular moment in early 20th-century history: when Helen Keller began speaking out on behalf of progressive causes. Beginning in 1913 when, at age 32, Keller gave her first public talk before a general audience, Her Socialist Smile is constructed of onscreen text taken from Keller’s speeches, impressionistic images of nature, and a newly recorded voiceover by poet Carolyn Forché. The film is a rousing reminder that Keller’s undaunted activism for labor rights, pacifism, and women’s suffrage was inseparable from her battles for the rights of the disabled. The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion and a reception.
To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 18 MONDAY | 5:30 | VIRTUAL CONVERSATION Disability in Early America Sari Altschuler, Northeastern University; Nicole Belolan, Rutgers University; and Laurel Daen, University of Notre Dame
Moderated by Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, MHS Our panel will explore how disability functioned in early America from personal, political, and cultural perspectives. What did disability mean in the early United States and how does it differ from our ideas about disability today? How did disability operate as a political and legal category in the colonial period, and how did it change in the early republic? What can material culture tell us about the lived experience of persons with disabilities in the era? This conversation will situate disability as a framework through which we can better understand the early lives of Americans and their often contested national and cultural identity.
To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 19 TUESDAY | 5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR Her Yet Unwritten History: Black Women and the Education of Students of Color with Disabilities in the New South Jenifer Barclay, University at Buffalo
Comment by David Connor, CUNY Historians have recognized the role of Black women educators in schools throughout the
Conrad E. Wright Research Conference
Save the date!
July 14 and 15, 2022
Visit www.masshist.org/conferences for more info.
South, work associated today with well-known figures like Mary McLeod Bethune, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Mary Church Terrell. Little has been written, however, about lesserknown Black women educators like Susan Lowe, Amanda Johnson, and Effie Whitaker, who made essential contributions to the early education of children of color with disabilities in the South. This essay will consider the critical work of these women who represent just a handful of the many Black women who recognized the overlapping effects of racism and ableism in the lives of disabled students of color.
To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 23 SATURDAY | 9:00–3:00 | VIRTUAL TEACHER WORKSHOP Re-examining Dorothea Dix and 19th-Century Disability Reform
Nineteenth-century Massachusetts reformer Dorothea Dix is renowned for her efforts to improve the horrendous treatment of people with mental disabilities in local jails, almshouses, and asylums. Her investigations and activism led to major changes in the mental health field, including shifting care from local to state control. However, Dix’s views and actions were not representative of individuals with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities, and the voices of these individuals are often marginalized when the history of these reforms is told. In partnership with Emerging America and the Disability History Museum, the MHS offers an educator workshop that will provide a deeper context for teaching Dix’s legacy and the history of asylum reforms in the 19th century. Educators will engage with rich primary sources that center the voices of people with mental disabilities and will be equipped with strategies for bringing these important stories into the classroom. This program has a $25 non-refundble fee per person and is open to all who work with K-12 students. Teachers can earn either 22.5 PDPs or 1 graduate credit with Worcester State University (for an additional fee). ASL translation available upon request. To reserve: Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 23 SATURDAY | 3:00 | HYBRID CONVERSATION The American Revolution from Two Perspectives: A Debate Gordon Wood, Brown University; Woody Holton, University of South Carolina
Moderated by Catherine Allgor, MHS
Gordon Wood and Woody Holton are both distinguished scholars of the American Revolution. However, they approach the founding in different ways, as you can see from their newly published books. In Power and Liberty, Wood illuminates critical events in the nation’s founding and discusses slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, the demarcation between public and private, and the formation of states’ rights. In Liberty Is Sweet, Holton explores connections between the patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom brought
them into conflict with the founders. Looking at the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution, he focuses on marginalized peoples and overlooked factors such as weather, geography, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and disease.
Please note, this is a hybrid event which may be attended either in person at the MHS or virtually on the video conference platform Zoom. Registrants will receive a confirmation message with attendance information.
To reserve: There is a $20.00 per person fee (no charge for Members and Fellows as well as EBT or ConnectorCare cardholders). Register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 27 TUESDAY | 5:30 | VIRTUAL CONVERSATION
Disability Activism: A Historical Perspective from Some of the
Leading Activists in Massachusetts
Heather Watkins; Charlie Carr; Keith Jones; John Chappell; and Fred Pelka
Moderated by Malia Lazu The disabilities rights movement, like many rights movements, has been complex, coming from a variety of different perspectives, but at its heart, it has been a movement for justice, equal opportunities, and reasonable accommodations. Massachusetts has played a unique role in this struggle and this conversation will aim to introduce the story of disability activism in Massachusetts. Our panel includes current activists and historians of this movement. Through a moderated, roundtable discussion, our panelists will explore their experiences, their inspirations, the history of the movement and what they hope to see in the future of disability activism.
To reserve: This is an online program. Please register at www.masshist.org/events.
OCTOBER 28 THURSDAY | 5:15 | VIRTUAL SEMINAR “The Virus of Slavery and Injustice”: Analogy and Disabled Life in African American Writings, 1865-1892
Dina G. Malgeri Modern American Society & Culture Seminar Vivian Delchamps, University of California, Los Angeles
Comment by Sari Altschuler, Northeastern University Engaging Todd Carmody’s invitation to consider how “race might have been ‘like’ disability in the late nineteenth century,” this essay explores texts by African American authors Charlotte L. Forten, Martin Robison Delany, and Frances E.W. Harper. Harper’s novel Iola Leroy renders slavery a “virus,” “deadly cancer,” and “wound,” necessitating a cure; simultaneously, the novel depicts lived realities of disability, disrupts diagnostic reading practices, and takes a care-based, rather than curative, approach to disability itself. The essay thus reads literature as a generative site for asserting ableism’s centrality to the legacy of racial violence, and explores the value of using diagnostic-like narrative methods to target systemic sources of mass debilitation.
