The Forgotten Room of the association Valentin Haüy in Paris, or How to Build an Inclusive Digitisation Project on the History of Blindness

By Céline Roussel & Marion Chottin

Rediscovering Maurice de la Sizeranne’s Cultural Project

As Marion and I were exploring for our academic research – for CNRS-projects on the one hand, for a doctoral thesis at Paris-Sorbonne on the other – the field of disability studies, with a focus on blindness related to philosophy, literature, and other arts, we made the acquaintance of Noëlle Roy, curator of the museum and library in the Association Valentin Haüy from 2000 to 2017. She led us into a very special room, the “salle Heimann” (“Heimann room”), which houses the great oeuvre of Maurice de la Sizeranne (1857-1924): a huge, rich, unique collection of books, writings and all kinds of documents reflecting on blindness throughout the centuries.

Maurice de la Sizeranne was a blind intellectual who, in the year 1889, founded the Association in the memory of Valentin Haüy. Haüy (1745-1822) was a French polymath who had founded the first school for blind young people, the Institute for Blind Youth ((INJA) in Paris in 1785. Maurice de la Sizeranne belongs to an influential generation of French blind people who became conscious of the importance of culture as a powerful way of achieving greater integration in the dominant sighted society. The museum and the library, both created just before the Association was born, were the fundamental pillar of this vision. They aimed at the intellectual emancipation of blind people by their own means, in accordance with Haüy’s teachings. Marion and I soon felt how much the library was inhabited by the spirits of both men and was the crossroads of countless others who were only waiting to be discovered, read, and heard again. Amongst them were Milton, Maria-Theresia von Paradis, Helen Keller, Borges, Taha Hussein; or Louis Vierne, Axel Munthe, Marie Lenéru, Cécile Douard, Olga Skorokhodova… 

Our visits in this library, which began in 2016 and are ongoing, has gradually revealed to us what marvellous the treasures the library contains, and how many different fields are represented - humanities, medicine, cultural and institutional history, pedagogy, literature, theatre, poetry… Every document deals with blindness, and they have been written by both blind and sighted people, by academics and laypersons. The number of languages represented is similarly impressive - documents not only in French, but in many foreign languages form part of the collections. But our visits had shown how even those familiar with the Association were unaware of the treasures contained within this library, and sometimes even unaware that it existed at all! When Noëlle Roy retired in 2017 (and was awarded the “grade de Chevalier de l’ordre national du Mérite” in June 2018 for her commitment in the Association), the future of these precious collections suddenly became uncertain, and Marion and I proposed our services as volunteers to keep them accessible to international researchers.

The Paradox of the Forgotten Room

A visit to the United States in the autumn of 2017 in connection with my doctoral research led me to several of the most important institutions for the education and history of blind people in America: the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, near Boston, the American Foundation for the Blind in New York, the Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Kentucky. All these institutions were engaged in digitising and publishing their archives at different scales (subsidised projects; in-house digitisation according to the needs of readers; or publications on archives.org: see the links and references below). Their collections convinced me that Marion and I should take charge of the digitisation and scientific edition of the library of the Association Valentin Haüy in Paris.

Another issue also troubled us. This library houses cultural treasures, unique and essential to the understanding of blindness, written by both blind and sighted people: correspondence, press clippings, magazines, manuscripts, valuable books… But all this material is typed or handwritten in ordinary script and not in Braille. How can it be accessible to blind or partially sighted people who wish make use of it without the support of a reader or guide? This library builds up a history page after page – that of access to culture for blind people, that of their full participation in society and their autonomy – but this is contradicted and undermined by the fact that the material contained in the library is in a format inaccessible to blind people, even though it is such an important resource for learning about the history of blind and visually impaired people. This is a paradox that we now have the material and technical possibility to resolve. It is vital that we do so:

“When I started to lose my sight due to congenital glaucoma, I felt the need to know how people who had become blind before me had been able to adapt to continue to read, work and participate in cultural or leisure activities, without forgetting the main thing, the adaptations to daily life. When I wanted to consult sources of information on blindness and testimonies of blind people, I only found a few published books, whereas precious testimonies exist in the heritage collection of the Association Valentin Haüy. Only digitisation can make them accessible, via the screen-reading software used by visually impaired people who cannot read so-called black writing, whether handwritten or printed. Thanks to this colossal work, we will finally be able to access writings never read by blind people or even by the general public. Moreover, the publication of this unique heritage collection online will help to raise awareness of visual impairment among the general public.”

Catherine Grimaud, retired, former employee for accessibility in the disability mission of a large company and volunteer in the actidv employment club of the apiDV association.

By the end of her career, Noëlle Roy had already succeeded in having the two most important reviews for the social and cultural history of blindness in France (the Louis Braille and the Valentin Haüy) digitised and published online on the Gallica website (Bibliothèque nationale de France). The result was nevertheless impaired by the unfortunately poor quality of the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and by the lack of correction for the voice synthesis, which represents a significant barrier to accessing these documents if one cannot read text on a screen. This is a point that a digitisation project, as we understand it, has to improve in order to be fully accessible – even if it may still exist some language barriers (one has to understand German to read a source written in German!). Such a project would not only contribute to safeguarding some of these old and fragile collections (the big, brittle volumes which contain the press clippings for instance are an urgent priority); it would both benefit partially and non-sighted persons and contribute to preserving the heritage and cultural legacy of blind people.

Another precedent led us to think our aim was realistic: in France, the ArchAT project (2018-2021) led by Aude Déruelle, Professor of French literature at the University of Orléans, and with which the CNRS, among other institutions, is associated, digitised, digitally edited and put online the archives of the blind historian Augustin Thierry (1785-1856). The aim of the project was to provide a better understanding of, for instance, the working techniques of this major nineteenth-century blind intellectual figure (see the link below). I had the chance to participate to it, and Aude Déruelle herself recognized the value of the archival collection of the Bibliothèque patrimoniale Valentin Haüy as she paid a visit to the library, in order to find material about Augustin Thierry. The digitisation project of the collections of the Bibliothèque patrimoniale Valentin Haüy finally began in 2018 and now comprises around twenty people, including members of the Association Valentin Haüy, French and foreign scholars, and staff from the adaptation company L'Atelier de la Villette.

Overview of the Digitisation Project and of Three Collections in The Library

This project has been a challenge. Based on a partnership between the association Valentin Haüy, the ENS of Lyon and Sorbonne Université (Observatoire des textes, des idées et des corpus and Centre de Recherche en Littérature Comparée), it involves a long and demanding processing chain: indexing the collections according to a universal model as the one usually used in libraries and archives, proceeding with digitisation, OCR processing and structuring, upgrading to official digital accessibility standards (in France, the RGAA 4), writing academic explanatory notes… It will offer an academic presentation perfectly understandable by laypersons, and easily accessible to blind and non-blind readers, since each document will be screen-reader and Braille display compatible.

A numeral estimate of the contents of the library resulted in a figure of about 29500 items. Many of them had not been indexed – and none of them to international standards – before the project began. In addition, readers who want to search in the library are still compelled to come in Paris und use the on-site computer, as the library has no online catalogue. The digitisation project will eventually provide online search possibilities. Because of the large number of documents contained in the library, we first decided to focus on three collections : press clippings, periodicals and the collections dedicated to soldiers blinded in the First World War (because the anniversary of the conflict was then being commemorated).

Innumerable press clippings relating to blind people and blindness were collected between 1856 and 1928 and are preserved in large volumes. The articles come from various newspapers (French and foreign) and are grouped under various headings (serials, information on blind people's associations, events, meetings, charity work, history…). This is one of the library's most precious collections, fully representative of the comprehensive approach that has governed the constitution of the collections of this library since its emergence: to constitute an international database on blind people and on blindness. Turning this paper database into a digital one was both important and in accordance with the library’s original aims.

Photograph (© Céline Roussel) showing one of the volumes of press cuttings devoted to blindness (1856 and 1928), on which can be seen an article illustrated with portraits of Valentin Haüy and Louis Braille, as well as a reproduction of the tactile alphabet developed by the latter.

Long before the periodicals Le Valentin Haüy and Le Louis Braille (which were created in 1883 by Maurice de la Sizeranne), several journals set out to bring together the available scientific knowledge on blind people and their education in specialised establishments - while also relaying the personal stories and literary productions of some of them. France was a pioneer in this, but other European countries soon followed suit, and examples include the Messager suisse des aveugles and L'Asile des aveugles de Lausanne. The Bibliothèque patrimoniale came to possess a large collection of periodicals, some of which are in foreign languages (such as Der Blindenfreund and Die Blindenwelt, both published in Germany). The symbolic and historical importance of these works are makes them a priority for the digitisation project.

The library also houses entire collections of periodicals designed to inform soldiers blinded in the First World War about the social networks and rehabilitation centres that were set up at that time to facilitate their reintegration into civilian and working life, and these provide us with an invaluable testimony to this pivotal period in the history of blindness. This is why our first pilot-sample centred on one of the journals in the "Blinded in War" collection of the Bibliothèque patrimoniale: Le Journal des soldats blessés aux yeux. This journal also had the advantage of already being available in digital form on the Paris-Nanterre library website L’Argonnaute: This not only saved us time, but it also showed us how much more ambitious our project was than simply putting a document online – because it involves an XML-TEI structuring and an academic presentation of everything will be published online.

Achievement of a First Pilot-sample: A Future for The Forgotten Library?

Photograph (© Céline Roussel) of the cover of the final issue, dated June 1919, of Le Journal des Soldats Blessés aux Yeux. It states that it was founded by Eugène Brieux, of the Académie Française, that it is monthly, free, and is the 'Organe de l'Œuvre pour les Soldats Blessés au Yeux'.

With the support of the Association Valentin Haüy, and especially of their project manager Hugues de Roquefeuille,, and the expertise of the ObTIC (Observatoire des textes, des idées et des corpus) of Sorbonne Université, in close collaboration with Motasem Alrahabi and Glenn Roe, the academic year 2019-2020 was devoted to the realization of this pilot project. Le Journal des soldats blessés aux yeux, a free monthly magazine founded by Eugène Brieux (1858-1932), a writer, journalist, and member of the Académie française, appeared from November 1916 to June 1919 and was aimed at the soldiers blinded in the First World War. It also gave them a voice in allowing the publication of many of their letters. With this journal, we had the opportunity to test and, when necessary, improve the processing chain on which the whole digitisation project depended. This journal was first indexed according to the Dublin Core and Library of Congress standards, while the researchers of the ObTIC drew up a set of specifications, as well as a first style sheet, necessary for the XML-TEI structuring of the document.

But we encountered some difficulties in establishing a satisfying overview of the logical structure of this document, since the headlines and the chapter-divisions varied from one year (or even from one month!) to another. Many elements (such as quotations, advertising, pictures, and mathematical equations) were widespread in this shape-shifting item and complicated our approach. After many attempts to integrate all these specificities into a stylesheet, we realised that a compromise had to be found, in order to produce a stylesheet general enough to be applicable to other documents. Two employees of L'Atelier de la Villette (which is linked to the association Valentin Haüy and employs people with disabilities), directed by Renaud Lemaire, Isabelle Risco and Rosine Loïal, were then responsible for proofreading and formatting the document according to the style sheet, which lead to satisfying results. We were very keen to work with L’Atelier de la Villette, as this would give disabled people the opportunity to take part into a project dealing with visual disability, The digitisation project would thus become not only accessible, but also inclusive. Finally, three researchers, Gildas Brégain (CNRS-Arènes/Université de Rennes 1), Corinne Doria (The Chinese University of Hong Kong – Shenzhen) and Rebecca Scales (Rochester Institute of Technology), one of whom was personally concerned with disability, wrote scholarly notes on the journal, on Eugène Brieux and on assistive technologies. The purpose of these texts is to provide all necessary information on background and context of this review, making any research on it easier.

This achievement, completed by the success of the ObTIC in generating and designing a website, was all the more encouraging as the association decided to recruit three people, Véronique Harouel, Angelica Herrera and Marie-France Hourcadie, and one person working full time in the library (as part of a sponsorship of competence offered by BNP Paribas), Marie-Bernadette Aubry, whose task is now to index the whole content of the library. We had not expected to reach this stage so early, but it is necessary to conceive the project not only at a small, but at a large scale. The global indexing also draws our attention to documents which, for copyright issues, should be excluded from the final project – even if their reference will be integrated in the online catalogue. With the jurist of the Association, we will debate whether to digitise or not sensitive documents such as personal files, which are undoubtedly interesting for the project, inasmuch as they could allow genealogical research. The website, it is still in construction; how to shape an accessible version of it is constantly debated with the Association and with blind and visually impaired people. Most recently, our project has been associated with another ongoing project, that of Maria Romeiras Amado and her team (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa). This project consists of the transcription, translation (into Portuguese if necessary) and critical edition of 165 letters (in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese) written in the 18th and 19th centuries between several institutions dedicated to blindness in different countries of the world. The objective of this project is to highlight, from these letters between pedagogues, doctors and administrators, the phenomenon of globalisation of the discourse on pedagogy and material adapted to blind pupils as well as their practical effects on the latter, not only through the digital and critical edition of these letters, but also through the constitution of a digital cartography of these circulations As these letters are located in the Valentin Hauy heritage library and are owned by the AVH, Maria Romeiras and her team have very generously agreed to integrate their work into our project, in exchange for permission to publish these letters on the NOVA University website.

Our academic experience in the field of both Disability Studies and Digital Humanities has shown that there is a huge interest for these archive materials. The link between both research fields has already been mentioned in several articles, for instance by Mulka Kurkarni, George H. Williams and Vandana Chaudhry. We are aware that our project has limits – it could be argued that a digital access to archives is no substitute for an exciting discovery of the object itself. The general stylesheets may miss some important and valuable information on the design of a document – selection, per se, is never a fully satisfying solution. We are nevertheless confident that our project will contribute to the fight against what Goggin and Newell (Digital Disability, The Social Construction of Disability in New Media, 2003) called “digital disability”. We truly believe that “by working to meet the needs of disabled people — and by working with disabled people through usability testing but also, and more importantly in our view, through their active participation in editorial choices — the digital humanities community will also benefit significantly as it rethinks its assumptions about how digital devices could and should work with and for people” (George H. Williams, Debates in the Digital Humanities, 2012).

Targeting an audience will be our next challenge: There could be various ways of doing - advertising in our academic networks as well as in the associative structures for blind people the association Valentin Haüy is in contact with. Or, as it is often the case for digitisation projects, by elaborating a newsletter giving words to the team responsible for the project, but also to readers, blind or sighted, to reflect upon the documents they would have access to. A tight collaboration between our academic institutions and the association Valentin Haüy has already opened up hopeful paths in preserving and giving a new life to the cultural and intellectual project of its founder, Maurice de la Sizeranne. Marion and I truly hope it will at length make accessible to anyone the unexpected cultural richness of blindness.

Websites dedicated to digitised blind archives:

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32809419q/date

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32886746c/date

https://www.perkins.org/archives/

https://louis.aph.org/aph-library/#/

https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive

https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/resultRecherche/resultRecherche.php?COMPOSITION_ID=21842

We would like to thank the librarians and curators Jennifer Arnott, Susanna Coit and Jennifer Hale from Perkins, Justin A. Gardner from the American Printing House for the Blind and Helen Selsdon from the American Foundation for the Blind, for having inspired us and even supported us in our project.

Overview of the collections from the library Bibliothèque patrimoniale Valentin Haüy:

• Periodicals (Le Journal des Soldats blessés aux yeux ; Le Mutilé des yeux…)
• Catalogues (Katalog des Museums des Blindenwesens in Wien…)
• Registers (Les Établissements généraux de bienfaisance placés sous le patronage de l’Impératrice…)
• Institutional correspondence (AVH, INJA, institutes abroad in Europe and accross the Atlantic…)
• Historical books (Léon Legrand, Les Quinze-Vingts depuis leur fondation, 1887…)
• Essays (Jacques Lusseyran, Ce que l’on voit sans les yeux, 1958 ; Valentin Haüy, Essai sur l'éducation des aveugles, 1786…)
• Biographies (Pierre Villey, Maurice de la Sizeranne, aveugle, bienfaiteur des aveugles, 1932…)
• Press clippings (Georgette Leblanc, « Hellen Keller, le miracle vivant », Candide, n° 688, 20 mai 1937…)
• Novels (Jacques Lusseyran, Le Silence des hommes, 1954...) Poetry (Jean-François Revoil, Souvenirs, Poésies, 1909…)
• Autobiographies (Jacques Arago, Souvenirs d’un aveugle. Voyage autour du monde, 1844 ; Martin Franquel, Comment je devins aveugle. Épisode de ma vie, 1910…)
• Published diaries (Marie Lenéru, Journal de Marie Lenéru, Précédé du Journal d’enfance, 1945…)
• Collected works (François Coppée, Œuvres complètes, 1886-1888, en 6 tomes…) Plays (Marie Lenéru, La Maison sur le roc, 1927…)
• Manuscripts (Edgar Guilbeau, Ma vie d’élève. Souvenirs sincères d’un octogénaire, 1890…)

References:

Goggin, Gerard, Newell, Christopher, Digital Disability: The Social Construction of Disability in New Media, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003. 

Williams, George H., "Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities", in Gold, Matthiew K., (ed.), Debates in the Digital Humanities, Minneapolis/London, University of Minnesota Press, 2012. (https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-88c11800-9446-469b-a3be-3fdb36bfbd1e/section/2a59a6fe-3e93-43ae-a42f-1b26d1b4becc)

Photograph (© Jacques Fournier) showing one of the corners of the Bibliothèque patrimoniale, whose two walls on either side house tall wooden cupboards, solid at the bottom and glazed at the top. Some of the library's books can be seen in these glass cabinets, as well as numerous blue files containing brochures, articles and manuscripts on blindness.

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Céline Roussel is scholar at Ludwig-Maximilians University München, Germany. Marion Chottin is scholar at CNRS/Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France.

Recommended citation

Céline Roussel/ Marion Chottin (2023): The Forgotten Room of the association Valentin Haüy in Paris, or How to Build an Inclusive Digitisation Project on the History of Blindness. In: Public Disabilitiy History 8 (2023) 5.

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Her manner appeared hard and ungracious, while her heart was dissolving with emotions - Harriet Martineau and Her Deafness

By Valerie Doulton

 

Martineau’s Childhood and the Beginnings of Deafness

Harriet Martineau was born in 1802, in Norwich, the principal city of the county of Norfolk, in England. Her family was of Huguenot descent and Unitarian, a type of non-conformist Christianity which Martineau rejected as an adult, eventually becoming an atheist. Early on in her life it was noticed that Martineau was musically gifted. But at twelve years old she began to notice a small but perceptible loss of hearing. By the time she was sixteen this had become considerably more pronounced, causing her considerable personal and social distress. In ‘Household Education’ (1828), she wrote about the onset of her deafness:

“Now and then, someone made light of it. Now and then, someone told her that she mismanaged it, and gave advice which, being inapplicable, grated upon her morbid feelings; but no one inquired what she felt, or appeared to suppose that she did feel. Many were anxious to show kindness and tried to supply some of her privations; but it was too late. She was shut up, and her manner appeared hard and ungracious while her heart was dissolving with emotions.” (Martineau 1861, 118)

Her writing describes that within her immediate family circle, Martineau had at aged 16, become alone and excluded. It also appears she received little sympathy, from either her parents or siblings. It was perhaps this realisation that she could not necessarily rely on other people which was instrumental in her decision to make her own life. In her later ‘Autobiography’ she writes:

“I must take my case into my own hands; and with me, dependent as I was upon the opinion of others, this was redemption from possible destruction. Instead of drifting helplessly as hitherto, I gathered myself up for a gallant breasting of my destiny; and in time I reached the rocks where I could take a firm stand. I felt that here was an enterprise; and the spirit of enterprise was roused in me!” (Martineau 1983, 76)

Figure 1 - Harriet Martineau and Her Ear-Trumpet

What we know of Martineau’s independence of mind, as shown in so much of her writing, was formed directly from her experience of coping in her own independent manner with the deafness that emerged in her childhood. Alongside, this she also developed a great self-discipline and at the age of twenty-eight, when she first began using an ear trumpet, she was able to greatly reduce the barrier which her hearing loss had created between herself and other people. This use of the ear trumpet was a visible sign of what some contemporaries would highlight as a disability. Erving Goffman defines it as a ‘stigma’. These critics portray Harriet as stigmatized by a disability and also marginalized by her gender. They exaggerate her appearance with the ear trumpet as grotesque and abnormal.

The 19th century politicians and commentators who did not want to accept Martineau as a significant writer and social theorist tried to socially disqualify her on account of both her deafness and her sex. The M.P. Lord Brougham dismissed her as ‘the little deaf woman from Norwich’.

In her 1834 Letter to the Deaf Harriet encourages the community she is addressing to nevertheless take up the ear trumpet:

“Yet how few of us will use the helps we might have! How seldom is a deaf person to be seen with a trumpet! How should I have been diverted, if I had not been too much vexed at the variety of excuses that I have heard on this head since I have been much in society. The trumpet makes the sound disagreeable; or it is of no use; or it is not wanted in a noise, because we hear better in a noise; nor in quiet, because we hear very fairly in quiet; or we think our friends do not like it; or we ourselves do not care for it, if it does not enable us to hear general conversation; or- a hundred other reasons just as good.

Now dear friends believe me, these are but excuses. I have tried them all in turn, and I know them to be so. The sound soon becomes anything but disagreeable; and the relief to the nerves, arising from the use of a trumpet is indescribable. None but the totally deaf can fail to find some kind of trumpet that will be of use to them, if they choose to look for it properly and given it a fair trial.” (Martineau 1838, 27-28)

Harriet Martineau’s Travels in the United States

Martineau valued her own ear trumpet to the extent that it accompanied her on her travels round America in the 1830s.She did not only travel as a tourist. She engaged actively in very contentious debates about racial segregation and the slave trade, writing passionately against both practices and as an outspoken abolitionist. That many of these extremely fractious engagements were entered into using an ear trumpet summons up a picture of immense courage and strength of character.

Life in the Sickroom

How fiercely and proudly Martineau made for herself a place in society. In doing so she also demonstrated that whole categories of supposedly gendered behaviours are insignificant if not obsolete. In her 1998 book Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain, Alison Winter argues that Martineau also overcame all the limitations of the sick room. For in addition to learning how to live best with her deafness, she also in later life suffered a long period as an invalid. In Invalidism and Identity in Nineteenth Century Britain, the literary historian Maria H.  Frawley argues that Martineau:

"… moves with evident assurance from an account of sights seen ‘through one back window’ to the ‘truths of life’ that such sights reveal to her."

She was confined for about 5 years in a room in Tynemouth, near Newcastle. During this time, looking through her window from her sickbed to the sea view beyond led her to dwell on macrocosmic truths. This she describes in ‘Life in the Sick Room’ published in 1844.

A Wider and Deeper Understanding of Life

Deafness can throw the individual into a profound interior world, which for some is a profound isolation. Martineau’s feelings about deafness were from a first-person perspective, a matter of ‘lived experience’, to which she always referred herself, and drew very individual conclusions. She did not adhere to the rationalist theory of body prevalent in medical authorities in western societies, in which the body is viewed as an ‘object’. In The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability (1997), Susan Wendell argues that this approach drives a wedge between doctors and patients – encouraging doctors to view the latter as no more than the physical manifestation of collections of symptoms. Perhaps even more significantly, it serves to alienate patients from their own experiences. (Wendell 1996, 136)

 
Martineau had extraordinary interior contact made more profound through deafness, and she came to analyse her body and its function as ‘lived personal experience’. This may have been a reaction to the complaint quoted above, which appeared in her 1828 book Household Education - that no one inquired what she felt, or appeared to suppose that she did feel. Feelings, as opposed to the rational, are often discussed by medical practitioners as ‘purely imaginative’. But Martineau believed that invalidism had equipped her and all fellow sufferers with powers of perspective unknown to the healthy. Harriet Martineau clearly wanted her readers to understand the subjective experience of illness- i.e., what the long-suffering felt and how they experienced life in the sickroom. She authored her book anonymously as ‘an invalid’ at times directing her remarks to a readership of ‘fellow-sufferers’ and ‘unknown comrades in suffering,’ a readership she had addressed earlier in her 1834 ‘Letter to the Deaf’. 

A Woman Ahead of Her Time

In this and her views on gender and other issues, Martineau was way ahead of her time. She argued that availability of education, which privileged her own mind, must become the standard for all women. She wrote,

"What we have to think of is the necessity – in all justice, in all honour, in all humanity, in all prudence – that every girl’s faculties should be made the most of, as carefully as boys."

She believed that the cultivation of the female intellect is a necessity. Neither her deafness nor her gender impeded her life’s work. Her critics saw both as her greatest liabilities. But they were the foundation of her courage, intellect, and the fulfilment of her life’s work. In other words, her empowerment. In our own time of long Covid, Harriet Martineau’s experience of long-term illness speaks to us very meaningfully today. 

    Hail to the steadfast soul,
Which, unflinching and keen,
    Wrought to erase from its depth,
    Mist and illusion and fear!
    Hail to the spirit which dared
    Trust its own thoughts, before yet
Echoed her back by the crowd!
    Hail to the courage which gave
    Voice to its creed, ere the creed
    Won consecration from time!

- Matthew Arnold, describing Martineau in his poem ‘Haworth Churchyard’ (1855)

This is an edited version of the Live Literature Company’s podcast on the nineteenth century polymath Harriet Martineau (1802-1876). Much of the information in this podcast was first given in a talk entitled Harriet Martineau and her Deafness- Disability or Empowerment? delivered to the 18th Martineau Society Conference in July 2012. The talk referenced Anka Ryall’s study, Medical Body and Lived Experience: The Case of Harriet Martineau (2000), as well as to Susan Bohrer’s paper, Harriet Martineau, Gender Disability, and Liability (2010), and to Vera Wheatley’s biography, The Life and Work of Harriet Martineau (1957). This is considered worldwide to be the first important biography of Martineau, and it is held in great esteem by members of the Martineau Society. In addition, Valerie Doulton, the author of this post, is Wheatley’s granddaughter, and Wheatley’s biography inspired her to join the Martineau Society. Doulton is also the founder and Artistic Director of The Live Literature Company (https://www.theliveliteraturecompany.co.uk)  The Company was founded in 2002 with the aim of creating high-quality drama that is accessible to the widest possible audience.

_____________________

References:

Harriet Martineau, Household Education (London: Smith and Elder, 1861 [first published 1828]), p.118.
Harriet Martineau, Autobiography (vol.1) with a new Introduction by Gaby Weiner, (London: Virago, 1983). p.76.
Harriet Martineau, A Letter to the Deaf (London: C. Knight and Co., 22 Ludgate-Street, 1838), pp.27-28.
Susan Wendell, The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability (New York/London: Routledge, 1996), p.136.

 

Recommended citation

Doulton, Valerie (2023): Her manner appeard hard and ungracious, while her heart was dissolving with emotions´: Harriet Martineau and Her Deafness. In: Public Disabilitiy History 8 (2023) 4.

 
   

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Martial Arts for Disabled People - A Historical Perspective

By Richard Sison

Over their long history, martial arts have evolved various forms and techniques. A lesser known but significant aspect of this history is martial arts practice for disabled people. 

Historically, such adaptations have emerged in various cultures and regions, reflecting that disability and interest in martial arts are worldwide phenomena. 

Martial arts enable disabled and non-disabled individuals to physically train, cultivate mental well-being, and foster social connections.

Historical Origins – Ancient China and Japan 

Martial arts practices tailored for disabled individuals have a long history, with accounts dating back to ancient China and Japan. Various sources documented these practices, providing insights into the time's techniques, beliefs, and influences.

Ancient China

In ancient China, records of martial arts techniques were adapted. These techniques focused on using internal energy (qi) rather than physical strength, making them accessible to individuals with different abilities. 

Figure 1 - A part of the Great Wall of China surrounded by trees. Credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-concrete-wall-surrounded-by-trees-1653823/ .

These records can be found in ancient Chinese texts such as the "Nei Jia Quan Shu" (O’Brien 2004), which documented martial arts practices that emphasized cultivating internal energy for self-defense and health benefits. These practices were believed to be effective for individuals with physical impairments, as they relied less on physical strength and more on harnessing internal energy.

Ancient Japan

In Japan, during the Edo period (1603-1867), there were accounts of a martial art called "Taki-Ryu" that focused on using tactile and auditory senses to perceive and respond to opponents. 

Taki-Ryu was developed by blind and visually impaired individuals and was explicitly designed to be accessible to those with visual impairments. The techniques of Taki-Ryu used to touch and sound compensate for the lack of sight, making it a unique martial art that catered to individuals with disabilities. 

Accounts of Taki-Ryu can be found in historical documents such as the "Japanese Swordsmanship" (Warner & Draeger 1982), which documented various martial arts practices of the time.

Figure 2 - A child without arms training in martial arts. Picture taken by the author.

Adaptations and Modifications in Martial Arts 

More recent adapted martial arts have followed this pattern, using techniques which are heavily reliant on a disabled individual’s strengths. For example, methods that rely on physical strength or agility may be adapted to emphasize balance, leverage, or precise movements, making them more accessible to individuals with limited mobility or strength.

In addition, assistive devices such as canes, braces, or prosthetics may be integrated into martial arts to support individuals with mobility impairments.

Historical Context

Different regions' cultural, social, and historical contexts often influenced the emergence of adapted martial arts practices. In Eastern cultures, martial arts were considered a form of self-defense and a way to cultivate inner strength, discipline, and resilience, which could be particularly relevant for individuals with disabilities who faced societal discrimination or stigma. Martial arts may have empowered and enabled social integration – enabling disabled individuals to overcome societal barriers and gain recognition for their skills and abilities. However, the availability of adapted martial arts may have been influenced by societal attitudes toward disability and the availability of resources and support systems for disabled individuals. 

Figure 3 - A child without arms training in martial arts. Picture taken by the author.

Evolution of Adapted Martial Arts

Adapted martial arts practices have evolved and developed over the centuries.

In China, for example, "Tai Chi" has been adapted to accommodate individuals with physical impairments, with modified movements and techniques emphasizing balance, flexibility, and relaxation.

The development of disability sports has made significant strides in recent years, with increased recognition of the athletic abilities and potential of individuals with disabilities. One area of interest and innovation in disability sports is the adaptation of martial arts to accommodate the strengths and abilities of disabled individuals. 

Modern training techniques, specialized equipment, and adaptive technologies have meant that disabled individuals have a greater opportunity to engage in martial arts training and competitions.

The development of lightweight and durable prosthetics, braces, and other assistive devices has allowed individuals with limb impairments to participate in martial arts practices with greater ease and mobility. 

Training methods and instructional approaches such as verbal cues, tactile feedback, and modified movements have made martial arts techniques more accessible and adaptable.

Figure 4 - A man in athletic clothes touching his prosthetic leg. Picture taken by the author.

Key Milestones 

Throughout history, the development of adapted martial arts has been shaped by notable events and influential figures. These milestones have contributed to the growth, recognition, and acceptance of martial arts as a viable form of physical activity and self-development for individuals with disabilities.

The establishment of organizations, competitions, and championships specifically for individuals with disabilities, such as the International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS) and the Paralympic Games, have provided platforms for disabled athletes to showcase their martial arts skills and abilities on a global stage.

It is crucial to emphasize avoiding harmful representations and promoting inclusive perspectives when discussing adapted martial arts. It is essential to move beyond the narrative of individuals simply overcoming their impairments through martial arts and instead focus on the empowerment, inclusion, and social integration that martial arts can provide.

Richard Sison, the founder of Fight Coop, has over 20 years of martial arts experience in Boxing, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. With a passion for sharing his knowledge, Richard created Fight Coop to connect and promote mental health awareness and inclusion. His expertise in sports nutrition and understanding of the mental and emotional benefits of martial arts make Fight Coop a valuable resource.

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References:

O’Brien, J. (Ed.). (2004) Nei Jia Quan: Internal Martial Arts Teachers of Tai Ji Quan, Xing Yi Quan and Ba Gua Zhang. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.

Warner, G., & Draeger, D. (1982) Japanese Swordsmanship: Technique and Practice. Boston: Weatherhill.

Recommended citation:

Sison, Richard (2023): Martial Arts for Disabled People - A Historical Perspective.  In: Public Disability History 8 (2023) 3.

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Penelope Friday on George Austen

By Emmeline Burdett and Penelope Friday

A few months ago I was reading an article in Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine, that told the story of the novelist Jane Austen’s disabled brother George. I’d heard about George before: he featured in the 2007 film Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen, and the film suggested both that the siblings had a relatively close relationship, and that George was the reason that his sister knew sign language. More darkly, other sources have shown that George was not included in his family tree, as though he had not existed at all. The article in Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine was written by Penelope Friday, a disabled writer whose website is https://penelopefriday.com. I interviewed Penelope Friday for Public Disability History.

Figure 1 - George and Jane Austen from the 2007 movie "Becoming Jane". Credit: https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/jane-austen-life/george-austen?currency=eur . 

1. What year was George Austen born?

He was born on 26 August 1766.

2. What was the nature of his impairment?

This sounds like it should be an easy question to answer, but it really isn’t. The quick answer is that no one really knows. He appeared fine at his birth, but as he grew older it became clear that he was not developing the same way as other children. He had fits as a young child, and may have been epileptic, though this isn’t certain. He was unable to speak, and many biographers have speculated that he was deaf - but if he was profoundly deaf from birth, his disabilities would surely have been picked up very early in life. 

He was certainly unable to care for himself - his Godfather, Tysoe Saul Hancock, wrote that George “must be provided for without the least hopes of his being able to assist himself.” But although it is clear that the family believed him to be intellectually disabled, whether George’s problems were due to physical disability, intellectual disability, or even neurodifference, it is impossible to say for sure. Clare Tomalin, who has written a biography of Jane Austen, suggests that George might have had cerebral palsy, a physical disability which also sometimes comes with intellectual disabilities also, though not always. It’s also possible, though, that he had autism, and his lack of speaking was due to that; that he was, in fact, perfectly intelligent, despite the family’s beliefs, and just incapable of communicating with them. Which is, to be honest, a terrifying thought.

3. Why was George Austen sent away from home?

George Austen was born in a time when having a disabled child was a bit of a shame upon the family - and also, for a large family like the Austens, it would have been extremely difficult to look after someone with such severe disabilities whilst also giving all of the other children the care they needed. When his parents realised he was disabled and had no hope of recovery, he was sent to live with the Cullum family, who already cared for his mother Cassandra’s disabled brother Thomas. Sadly, they then rarely spoke of him or visited him, something some biographers have criticised them extremely strongly for; however, they did make sure that George was settled in a comfortable home and that it was paid for throughout his life - and he lived until the age of 71, considerably longer than Jane Austen herself.

4. What beliefs existed in England about disability during George Austen’s life – particularly during his early life? 

Beliefs about disability were quite backward at this time. There was an idea that disability was due to either personal or ancestral sin (“the sins of the father…”) which might explain why the Austens were quite keen to have George kept away and never spoken of: as a clergyman, George Austen Sr would not have wanted any suggestion that he was sinful and that his disabled son was proof of this to get around. It was also seen as a sort of moral failing.

There was a belief that people with disabilities were a burden on society and they were often institutionalised so that they were kept out of sight of ‘normal’ people, and to make them as little of a drain on resources as possible. It was of course believed that they couldn’t possibly be of any use in society - and there was very little understanding of the breadth of disabilities, and their different natures.

Some disabilities were believed to be contagious, so others would shy away from those who were disabled in case it ‘passed’ to them too.

5. Tell us about Eliza de Feuillide and her disabled son Hastings. Who were they, and how did Feuillide’s treatment of her son differ from the Austens’ treatment of George? 

Eliza de Feuillide was the daughter of George’s Godfather, Tysoe Saul Hancock, and George Austen Senior’s sister Philadelphia. She treated her son, Hastings in a very different fashion to the Austens’ treatment of George. Hastings was also known to have learning difficulties and seizures, having been born prematurely. However, rather than sending him away, Eliza chose to keep him with her for the entirety of his short life – sadly, he died at the age of fifteen – and cared for him at home, looking after his needs herself (albeit with, presumably, the help of the servants in her house).

6. Do you think it is important that disabled people should be the ones to tell George’s story? Why/why not? 

I do think that it is important because I think we can bring an understanding to his life and make him more of a real person rather than just a shadowy part of Jane Austen’s life. The more I looked into George Austen’s life, the more intrigued I became about this man, whose disabilities were in fact so vague that it was almost troubling. The fact that someone who was only really born 250 years ago, and to a family about whom there is plenty of information, could be such a shadowy figure that it is impossible to say whether he was physically or intellectually disabled, or even neuroatypical and disabled by the different way in which his brain worked - it’s sad and it’s scary. 

And I do feel that abled historians have just assumed things about George based on how he was treated that actually have no basis in fact when you look more closely into the details - such as his supposed deafness, for example, or that he was intellectually disabled. Certainly he did not speak, and this is often linked to deafness, but as far as I can research, there is nothing which says for certain that he was deaf. And although his family believed him to be intellectually disabled, in the time they were living, if a person did not speak or write, that would be enough to make them considered intellectually disabled, whether they were or not. Whether abled historians don’t have the knowledge, or don’t care enough to push through this to explore more deeply, I don’t know, but I think it makes the role of disabled researchers more important.

7. What do you think is the purpose of disability history (e.g., giving a more rounded picture of the past/ challenging current ideas about disabled people, etc.).

I think we can bring the stories of disabled folk of the past to life in a way that they haven’t been in the past, and give a good understanding of the ways views have changed on disability - and the distance they still have to go. By looking back, we can learn about new people who have been overlooked by other researchers because they were not considered interesting enough, as disabled people, to be written about. But also, by looking back, we can use that information to look forward, and to try and understand the lessons that history is trying to teach us.

Dr Emmeline Burdett is an independent researcher. 

Penelope Friday is a multi-published, award winning writer, with a special interest in Jane Austen and the Regency Period. Zie is the author of two novels set in the early nineteenth century, as well as writing regularly for Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine. Hir website can be found at Penelopefriday.com.

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Recommended citation:

Burdett, Emmeline & Friday, Penelope (2023): Penelope Friday on George Austen.  In: Public Disability History 8 (2023) 2.

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Theodorus Steib (born 1627)

– A disabled artist and his self-determined life –

The Object

We [the authors] discovered this miniature self-portrait of Theodorus Steib. It is not just a testament to his painting skills, but also to how he saw himself. His painting skills were truly amazing, and he also managed to capture his experiences as a disabled person in seventeenth-century Austria and Germany. 

Self-portrait of Thodorus Steib. Oil on oak wood, dated 1651.

Photo: K.-K., Rhineland-Palatinate, image courtesy of the owners.

The picture shows him deep in concentration, sitting on a red cushion on the floor. His gaze is fixed on his feet. As he was born without hands or arms, his feet allowed him to live a self-determined life. 

He is shown surrounded by the tools of his trade. Beside him there is an inkwell, an ink blotter, and two quills. By his other side there is a stack of paper with scissors, a drinking vessel, a can and a cut-out object. All these things are expressions of his independence, which show in his professional actions. 

The text in the lower section of the picture was written by himself. He described how, when and where he painted the painting. 

The content of this contribution is based on extensive research,  including contact with different museums, historians and experts. These people enthusiastically helped us and spared no effort in providing us with information from archives and old documents. 

This unique and unusual survivor from a bygone era quickly attracted interest. Its existence was unknown for centuries and now that it has been rediscovered, it should be as widely known as possible. It can be viewed on the city website of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. You can also find an article about it here.

Our reasons

The reason for this contribution is a miniature painting, which we bought after discovering it by chance due to our connections in the art world. At first there was no obvious clue which let us know the hidden story this painting tells. After a lot of research many small pieces of information formed a picture of a remarkable and unique life of a person with a disability.

Who was Theodorus Steib? 

Theodorus Steib was born in Vienna, during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Even as a small child, he was determined to be as independent as possible. Despite social barriers, he painstakingly learned how to use his feet for painting, whittling, cutting paper and cocking and shooting a gun. He also wrote poems and rhymes, mostly about himself.

Historical background

The Thirty Years War was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history and caused widespread hardship. For Theodorus Steib, who was 22 when it ended, his disabilities made things even harder. At the time, disabled babies rarely survived.

At that time, disabled people were often ignored and cast out of society - exhibited at fairs for the amusement of onlookers, or kept as jesters for entertainment at court. Theodorus Steib, however, gained respect and recognition for his abilities. With a cart and three servants, he travelled around the country, bringing his artistic skills to the people. 

All this gave him astonishing confidence and the financial means to make a living for his family, his three servants and himself. With persistence, hard work, much courage, and endurance he refined his art. He demonstrated his talents publicly, writing poems or little letters in the presence of viewers. Selling these enabled him to become financially independent and later to support his family.

His journey

The fact that he is preserved in records is testament to the importance that people attached to him.

When he was 24 he travelled from Regensburg to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, where he stayed for a couple of weeks and took part in the Christmas Market as an artist. 

He was a visitors’ magnet. There he also penned rhymes and little letters, cut figures with scissors and painted others and himself. 

A year later he moved to Nuremberg. Whilst there he painted paintings and penned little letters, to the delight of paying audiences. His financial livelihood was secured. 

In July 1657 he married his wife Martha in the Scots Church in Vienna. One year later, his daughter Maria Catharina was born. Two years later his son Georg was born. In the year 1663 he travelled with his family back to the renowned spa town of Baden in Switzerland. Shortly after that Theodorus sadly died. His son Georg followed him a few weeks later.

Addition of 16 August 2023:

The miniature panel painting by Theodorus Steib has been officially and permanently included in the list of "nationally valuable cultural assets" by the Commission for the Protection of Cultural Property in Germany.

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About the authors:

Retired married couple.
Centre of life: Rhineland-Palatinate
Interested in ancient artwork. 
Hobby: Exploration of histories.

Recommended citation:

Karla-Kreitz (2023): Theodorus Steib (born 1627). In: Public Disability History 8 (2023) 1.

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"An Additional Claim": Amputee officers in Nelson's Navy

By Teresa Michals

A victorious career fighting the French at sea as a Royal Navy officer during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars required a lot: highly specialized seamanship skills, charismatic leadership, absolute indifference to death or injury, well-placed and active patrons, and luck. What it did not require was two arms or two legs.

From 1795 to 1837 at least twenty-six officers survived amputation of limbs damaged in battle and continued in active service, including command at sea. They continued to capture, sink, or burn enemy ships. Six returned to fight without a leg; twenty without an arm (Michals, Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals: Amputee Officers in Nelson’s Navy. All statistics and quotations from this source.). All these officers were gentlemen and thus well-positioned within patronage networks.  The support offered by their elite social and professional status shaped their experience of limb loss in their day, as did the fact that this loss was not congenital but rather incurred in defense of their country. Today, their distinctive experience shows how socially- constructed disability may be separated from the effects of physical impairment itself.

Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson is the most famous by far of these active-duty amputee officers. He lost his right arm in a relatively unimportant fight years before he won the historic engagements that earned him his place on top of an enormously tall column in central London: the Nile (1798), Copenhagen (1801), and Trafalgar (1805). There is only one Horatio Nelson.  But as a successful active-duty amputee officer, he was in good company.

Figure 1 - Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London, erected 1843. Credit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

The careers of these amputee officers draw attention not only to their particular talents, but also to an institutional culture that allowed their country to take advantage of them. The Royal Navy of the time has an entirely deserved reputation as a ruthless fighting machine. The fact that this ruthless fighting machine needed and valued amputee officers should make us question ableist assumptions about who is fit to serve, and in what capacity.

Promotion: "An Additional Claim"

We might assume today that only a wartime scarcity of officers made such careers possible. However, the opposite is true. Amputee officers won the privilege of continued command despite fierce competition, not because of a lack of candidates. Although the Navy of their day was chronically short of seamen, it was oversupplied with officers. There were far too many talented and ambitious officers begging for the privilege of command, and far too few ships to accommodate all those whose patrons bombarded the Admiralty with letters pressing their cases.

Such letters portray an amputee officer’s limb loss as “an additional claim” to the privilege of command. For example, on April 13, 1809, Captain Duncan of the Mercury stressed this point when writing to the father of his First Lieutenant, Watkin Owen Pell, after a successful action: “His having before lost a Leg in the service will give him an additional claim & I have no doubt the Lords of the Admiralty will take into consideration his sufferings & reward his Gallant services.” Pell was promoted to the rank of Commander on March 29, 1810, won further battles at sea, advanced to post-rank on November 1, 1813, and eventually reached the rank of admiral.

Limb loss, then, was a distinction that moved an amputee towards the front of the host of officers hoping to go back to sea, rather than sending him to the back of the queue. Losing an arm or leg under the specific circumstance of a successful battle could be an advantage in the competition for promotion, It formed part of a career path that was unusual, but not unique to the larger-than-life figure of Nelson.

In fact, in Nelson’s Navy, the meaning of “able-bodied” was itself different than what we might assume today. It referred to a certain set of skills, not a certain kind of body. Every man who signed on to a ship’s books was given a rating based on his experience. Those new to the sea were called Landsmen, those with limited experience were Ordinary Seamen, and those with at least two years at sea, and specialized skills gained through this experience, were rated Able Seamen or Able-Bodied Seamen, often abbreviated to A.B. Based on skills not bodies, a person with limb loss could be deemed “able bodied.”

Self-Presentation: "See, Here Is My Fin!”

There was also a performative element to how these amputee officers managed other people’s perception of their bodies. People who live with a visible physical difference today often describe the additional everyday task of assuring potentially skeptical onlookers that they are competent rather than conforming to stereotypes of disability.

By their continued careers as national heroes who commanded men, ships, and a great number of large guns after limb loss, these amputee officers disrupted stereotypes of their day that linked physical difference to pity and charity, or to the monstrous and evil. The fact that they were officers also meant these men were very good at being looked at. Part of the job of any successful fighting officer was to stand bolt upright and project confidence in the heat of battle.

There are many well-documented examples of Nelson incorporating his impairment into his public image. On one memorable occasion, when challenged by a ship in the Baltic in 1801, he threw back his boat-cloak and declared “I am Lord Nelson. See, here’s my fin!”

Admiral Sir Michael Seymour was one of Nelson’s fellow amputee officers, although he is not widely known today. He had lost an arm in battle, but also carried his displays of competence into civilian life. He had a wife who was “devoted to her garden” and, at home, he often “could be seen on top of a ladder, pruning a vine or restraining a vigorous creeper, to the wonder of his younger children, who marveled that one who had but a single arm could attempt such work and indeed, he surprised many by what that on hand and arm could accomplish.” In addition to surprising onlookers by accomplishing tasks such as pruning, dealing cards, and carving roasts one-handed, Seymour and his good friend Admiral Sir James Alexander Gordon gave a kind of public performance of mock-pity. Gordon had lost a leg in battle early in his distinguished career. Seymour’s biography includes an anecdote in which Seymour and Gordon carry on a “humorous dispute” before an audience of their friends “as to which was the better off, he who had lost an arm or he who had lost a leg, each maintaining his own loss to be the lightest.”

Portraiture: Looking Like a Hero

We also can see deliberate self-presentation in these officers’ portraits. Eighteenth-century painter Sir Joshua Reynolds’s enormously influential Discourses on Art (1769-1790) requires the artist to make a hero look like a hero: “a painter of history shows the man by showing his action…He cannot make his hero talk like a great man; he must make him look like one.” For Reynolds, only a certain kind of body can make human greatness visible. A hero must not be “lame or low”: “Alexander is said to have been of a low stature: a painter ought not so to represent him. Agesilaus [a king of the ancient Greek state of Sparta] was low, lame, and of a mean appearance. None of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero.”

In keeping with these principles, an officer’s loss of an arm was not usually represented as part of his heroic image. Rather, the portraitist more often resorted to the “discreet three-quarters view,” as in Sir Peter Lely’s dual portrait of Sir Frescheville Holles and Sir Robert Holmes. Holles brandishes a sword at the viewer, standing at an angle that conceals the fact that his other arm was lost in battle.

Figure 2 - Peter Lely and Sir Frescheville Holles. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

This all changed with the growing fame of Horatio Nelson. Nelson was the subject of more formal portraits than any military hero except the Duke of Wellington, and he presented the viewer with a full-frontal view of an amputee.  Lemuel Francis Abbott’s much-reproduced 1797 portrait of Nelson foregrounds the empty right sleeve of Nelson’s Royal Navy rear admiral’s uniform, neatly secured across his chest, the cuff angled up to point towards the gold star of the Order of the Bath:

Figure 3 - Lemuel Francis Abbott, Horatio Nelson (1797). Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

Nelson’s celebrity status seems to have popularized this pose for officers who had lost an arm. Michael Seymour is among those who chose to be represented in this way. Here is an engraving of James Northcote’s portrait of Seymour:

Figure 4 -James Northcote (engraved by James Cook), Michael Seymour.  Credit: National Portrait Gallery.

Nelson’s popular image as an amputee admiral remained constant even as memories of wartime service faded and Victorian ideas about disability grew more popular. However, the image of other amputee officers shifted, leaving Nelson to stand alone.  For example, a later engraving alters Northcote’s portrait of Michael Seymour: it draws in the left wrist and hand that Seymour lost in battle.

Figure 5 - Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, wrist restored. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. 

By recovering the careers of these amputee officers as a group, I do not mean to suggest that the Navy of their day was a utopian space for physical difference in general. I do mean to suggest, however, that for men in a certain social and institutional position, certain kinds of physical difference were an everyday part of professional life at a time when we might assume otherwise.

Teresa Michals is an Associate Professor at George Mason University. Her publications include Books for Children, Books for Adults: Age and the Novel from Defoe to James (Cambridge, 2014) and Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals: Amputee Officers in Nelson's Navy (University of Virginia Press, 2021). She studies the history of disability, children's literature, and 18th and 19th-century British novels.

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Recommended citation:

Michals. Teresa (2022): "An Additional Claim": Amputee officers in Nelson's Navy. In: Public Disability History 7 (2022) 5.

 

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