New book traces how disability shaped American citizenship from the Revolutionary era
By
Julia Métraux
Slow-proofed and worth the wait. Worth its weight in flour.
Summary
Northeastern University professor Sari Altschuler's new book examines how disability shaped American citizenship from the Revolutionary era onward. The article argues that disability politics are not a modern phenomenon but trace back to the American Revolution, which promised unprecedented inclusion for some disabled white Americans while simultaneously excluding others. The book explores the intertwined histories of race, disability, and nationhood in the early United States, revealing how concepts of disability were used to define citizenship and belonging.
Key quotes
· 2 pulledWe tend to treat disability politics as a modern phenomenon, the product of disability civil rights movements in the latter part of the 20th century. It's not: the long arc of that history, in fact, goes back to the American Revolution.
The new ideas promised some disabled white Americans an unprecedented level of inclusion—and to the decades after, when the idea that some groups of
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