Unearthing an Archaeology of Disability

Unearthing an Archaeology of Disability

In this post, Kyle Lewis Jordan explains the connections between archaeology and disability, and considers how the heritage sector can best represent the history of disability.

 

Archaeology is the study of ‘things’ that people leave behind. Whether these things were placed deliberately and with care, or we discover them where they fell and were left behind, an archaeologist strives to use these things to piece together the lived experiences of people going back hundreds of years.

Such study is rich with possibility, but we cannot achieve the full scope of that possibility without interrogating the tools and systems that have built archaeology as a discipline.  Empire-building – from antiquity right to the present day – is an exercise in classification and control: of people, of land, of knowledge and the ‘things’ that fall within the interests of the imperial core. Archaeology as a discipline today is in a moment of soul-searching, reckoning with a material and intellectual legacy which directly influenced – and indeed, benefited from – these classifications, both out in the field but also in the museum and in the archive. False binaries of enlightened; savage, civilised; barbarous, order; chaos, just to name a few. Among these we should also include able; disabled.

 

Disability, as a medicalised categorisation of a human being’s capacity and capability to fulfil a determined list of “normal” functions, is something that began to gather steam in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, when states began to take a statistical interest in the lives of their citizens for the purpose of standardizing methods of work and education.  Anyone who could not meet this state of “normalcy” then became a statistical anomaly that had to be rationalised and explained through pseudoscience’s like eugenics, which promoted systems of coercion and control to ensure genetic “purity”. This was legitimated in part by the abuse of ancient human remains and the aesthetic centring of classical sculpture in the museum as an institution, just as disabled people themselves were institutionalized, and colonial subjects incarcerated.

Today, as we re-evaluate the role of the museum collection and the archival record, uncovering the narratives of d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people through equitable co-production has a crucial role to play. Not just to point at an object or record and say, “here is disability”, but to demonstrate how disability is an intrinsic part of the human experience. An archaeology of disability sees humankind at its most raw and most beautiful; interrogating not just the substance of our being, but also the historical and contemporary processes that have shaped what we have and can become.

 

 

Kyle Lewis Jordan is a disabled early career archaeologist and museum curator who specializes in studying disability in antiquity. He has curated for the Ashmolean Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum and Verulamium Museum.

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A Memorable Visit to the Club

A Memorable Visit to the Club

Here, Nadia Tira introduces us to entertainment clubs in Second World War USA, and explains how they offered new opportunities for veterans with disabilities.

 

During the Second World War, several entertainment clubs were set up to serve and entertain troops still in or returning to the United States. My project analyses how disability was experienced in these places. The clubs I am looking at for my thesis were the ones run by the USO (United Service Organizations), which had a more religious and conservative background, and the famous Hollywood and State Door Canteens, where many of the people volunteering to entertain the troops were celebrities from the cinema and theatre world, something that added a layer of spectacularity to a memorable night.

When these entertainment places were created, they had regular servicemen and, many times, servicewomen in mind. The dances were its most famous and popular attraction, with troops and women volunteers (known as hostesses) jitterbugging to the latest hits or chatting about what the men missed the most from back home. However, as the war wore on and more disabled and wounded troops started returning home, they too visited these clubs and canteens, especially in communities near military hospitals or big cities like New York.

Often, these outings were the first time these newly disabled (or wounded) men and women were outside of either the hospital or the military. So, the trips to these clubs were their first interactions with civilians and provided them a glimpse of what their postwar life could be like.[1]

Newspaper reports of these visits related how some of the men overcame their fears and anxieties with the help of the hostesses, such as George Brisco, a serviceman who had lost a leg and was too self-conscious to go to the dancefloor until Deanna Durbin persuaded him.[2]

Ultimately, these experiences were these men’s first test of life in civilian clothes post-disablement and reflected a desire for them to regain their place in American society.

[1] Hortense Morton, ‘Stage Door Canteen  Here Presses N.Y. for Honors’, The San Francisco Examiner, 1 April 1945, p. 63.

[2] Edith Gwynn, ‘Inside Hollywood’, The News Tribune, 20 December 1942, p. 38.

 

Nadia Tira is a second-year PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her PhD project deals with the experiences of disability at several entertainment clubs for servicemen during the Second World War and in the late 1940s in the United States of America.

 

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Deafness and Great War Veterans

Deafness and Great War Veterans

In this blog post, MMU PhD student Jemma Lakmaker shares some of her research on the experiences of veterans who experienced hearing loss or deafness after serving in the Great War.

 

After the armistice of the First World War in 1918, 1.6 million soldiers returned to Britain, wounded and with life-changing disabilities. 2.4% of the British army returned with hearing loss or deafness.  Soldiers who experienced deafness or hearing loss had a unique experience after the war compared to soldiers with other war-caused disabilities.  One of the main differences in experience was due to the invisible nature of deafness. The deafened soldier did not receive the immediate sympathy or compassion that was evoked by the severe visceral injuries that civilians saw every day, bringing shock and acting as a visual reminder of the harsh realities of what these men had sacrificed for their country.

 

One of the main challenges for deaf veterans was that the government did not view deafness as a serious disability. This was because deafness was not as obvious or visually disturbing as other war-related injuries and was not considered as disabling as injuries such as limb loss or facial disfigurements. In 1919, Douglas McMurtrie wrote ‘deafness is really more an embarrassment than a physical handicap’, [1] promoting the opinion that the deaf body was functional rather than disabled. Consequently, the disabled soldier was commonly overlooked by the British public in addition to the British government. Public sympathy often led to the disabled soldier receiving official support from the government. After seeing the disturbing visual reminders of the horrors of war and the sacrifices made by British soldiers, the public put a strain on the government arguing that they owed them a ‘debt of honour’. [2] As the deafened soldier’s injuries were not visible, they were excluded from this public advocacy and determination to secure them government support.

A large number of deaf ex-servicemen did not receive pensions as medical professionals reported that their deafness was not caused or aggravated by the war. [3]  After medical examinations, medical professionals gave their medical opinion about if the disability was caused or worsened by the war. There was no uniform method of testing hearing loss during the early twentieth century,  therefore to successfully receive a pension, the ex-serviceman relied on the medical professional believing that his deafness was not a pre-existing medical condition. For many deafened soldiers, this resulted in them being rejected for a disability pension.  For example, one ex-serviceman was not given a pension as the doctor stated his deafness was a pre-existing condition, despite the man’s pre-war doctor confirming that he had never before experienced hearing loss.[4] This oversight by medical professionals resulted in many deaf ex-servicemen not receiving the financial support that would have significantly benefited them.

The deafened soldier struggled to find employment and were labelled a ‘problem social group’, associated with laziness and idleness.[5] It was believed that a soldier who did not gain employment after returning from the war was no longer ‘continuing to do his duty.’[6] As the deafened soldier was viewed as having a functional, not disabled, body, he was viewed as having many jobs available to him, and his ability to earn a living wage was not impacted. As such, if a deafened soldier was not in employment, it was perceived to be due to their own choice and indolence. However, it was not easy for the deafened soldier to find employment, and his earning capacity was severely impacted. In addition to receiving minimal support in readjusting to their new bodies and navigating post-war society, employers believed that the deafened soldier could not be employed. A document from the Ministry of Labour in 1918 stated, ‘men suffering from partial defects of speech and hearing…could not be employed among their fellows…the need of minor attention and the fear of ridicule alone are themselves sufficient to prevent their employment.’[7] The challenges associated with deafness in the workplace deterred employers from hiring the deafened soldier. Therefore, the deafened soldier was viewed negatively for not finding employment but were inhibited from being employed due to the nature of their disability.

The deafened soldier had different experiences after the war compared to those with more visible disability such as limb loss or facial disfigurements. The deafened soldier was not given as much support from the government and medical professionals who were responsible for their care upon their return from war. Finding employment was extremely difficult due to the negative perceptions of deafness, and as a result, the deafened soldier was viewed as idle and lazy. With many deaf veterans struggling to find employment or receive a government pension, and receiving less public sympathy than their visibly disabled comrades, the deafened soldier was at a clear disadvantage navigating the post-war experience.

References

[1] Douglas McMurtrie, The Disabled Soldier, (The Macmillan Company, 1919), p.134.
[2] Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939, (University of California Press, 2001), p.15.
[3] PIN 26/205; MH 106/2082/328; MH 106/2093/334.
[4] Ministry of Pensions, War pensions records: Frank Ernest Adams, 1915-1919 (PIN 26/247), The National Archives, London.
[5] Coreen McGuire, (2016) The ‘Deaf Subscriber’ and the Shaping of the British Post Office’s Amplified Telephones 1911-1939, Ph.D. The University of Leeds, [Online] [accessed 24/01/2024].
[6] McMurtrie, The Disabled Soldier, p.34.
[7] Ministry of Labour, ‘Correspondence concerning demobilisation and the position of the disabled soldier in industry’, (LAB 2/272/DR177/3/1918), TNA, London.
[8]Image from US National Library of Medicine, via https://archive.org/details/101560506.nlm.nih.gov/mode/2up.
[9]Imperial War Museum, IWM PST13211.

Jemma Lakmaker is a second-year PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research examines the experiences of soldiers returning from the First World War (FWW) with hearing loss or deafness.

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