Welcome to Tuesday Trivia!
If you are:
this thread is for you ALL!
Come share the cool stuff you love about the past!
We do not allow posts based on personal or relatives' anecdotes. Brief and short answers are allowed but MUST be properly sourced to respectable literature. All other rules also apply—no bigotry, current events, and so forth.
For this round, let’s look at: Disability! Not only is there no one definition of what it means to have a disability, what's a disability in one community, may not be in a different one. This week is about the complexities of what it means to have a disability (or people who are perceived as having, or self-identify as having, a disability) at all points in time and all places around the world. (Note: we do ask that if you're going to describe a historical figure using modern language of disability or diagnose someone with a specific illness, we ask that you're considerate with your language and that you consider the impact on readers.)
Although Helen Keller is the best-known DeafBlind person from pretty much any era, she was not the first to be educated in the US. That title goes to Julia Brace, who was born in 1807 in Hartford, CT - just 10 years before the American School for the Deaf was founded there.
Like Keller, Brace was born hearing and sighted, but became DeafBlind due to illness as a small child. She was originally educated at a local boarding school, but at 18 years old she was finally enrolled at the Connecticut Asylum for Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons (as it was known at the time). She had little to no education at this point, and letters from the matron of the school indicate that she was also hot-tempered from frustration, as one might expect from someone who had lived 18 years with very little communication beyond basic necessities. During her time at the Asylum, though, she developed better manners and was devoted to her chores and helping run the domestic life at the school.
Julia Brace never achieved a particularly robust academic education. She learned English words from wooden letters, but attempts to teach her more complex concepts (mainly religion, as much of early deaf education was in service of saving souls) appear to have failed. The first DeafBlind person to be formally educated in the US was Laura Bridgman, a little younger than Brace. She attended the Perkins School for the Blind, and teachers both there and at Hartford thought Brace might pick up more education there, as Bridgman had. But while Bridgman went to Perkins at eight years old, Brace was 35, and she did not learn much. Instead she returned to Hartford, where she could communicate in tactile sign language, and where she was comfortable with the community.
She lived many more years at the Asylum, where the public donated for her room and board. When she was in her 50s, she moved to live with her sister about ten miles away, and the rest of her life was unremarkable. She died in 1884 - when Helen Keller was four years old - and has mostly been forgotten. What we know of Julia Brace comes from the annual reports of the Asylum and Perkins, and from letters about her between employees at these schools. There are no books about her, as there are for Bridgman and Keller, there are no memorials anywhere, and even her grave is unmarked. But she was the first DeafBlind person in the US to go to school, a legacy that cannot be stripped from her.
Your comments about what makes a disability remind me if the story of the Deaf Community in Martha's Vineyard. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/marthas-vineyard-sign-language-asl/407191/
From 1600 to the turn of the century there was a Deaf Community that was the result of a single family's dominant genetic marker for deafness. Living in Chilmark, after several generations of intermarrying, deafness was found in 1 in 25 child that was born.
Instead of seeing it a disability, they incorporated deafness as a normal part of the community. They created their own system of sign language which was known only to them. Such an interesting story and a great study on genetics, and the birth of new language.
I'm only a dilettante about disabilities during history, but the little I have read or seen gives the impression that disabled babies, children and grownups were actually given sometimes even better care during "the dark ages" than during certain periods of 19th and 20th centuries.
This is a very nice talk about disabilities during the Middle Ages (from Medievalists.net) :
"How did medieval people deal with physical and mental challenges? Danièle speaks with Kisha Tracy of Fitchburg State University on why its important to talk about disabilities in the Middle Ages and what evidence we have for how people cared for each other when there was physical or mental disabilities." "Kisha G. Tracy is Associate Professor of English, and Co-Coordinator of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Fitchburg State University."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEA23_Jo5pU
And even older stuff: Bronze Age, Stone Age and even Neanderthalian people already took care of their disabled ones.
"Geneticists have discovered that a baby buried almost 5,500 years ago had the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome by analyzing DNA preserved in his skeleton. Researchers say the finding, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the oldest confirmed case of Down syndrome."
"To Lorna Tilley, an Australian archaeologist who specializes in the way past societies cared for people who were sick or disabled, the the fact that the baby was buried in a monumental tomb with other children and adults should come as no surprise. "I'm not sure, unless it was a really dramatic case, it would have been thought of as strange," she says. "Most babies, in most circumstances, are looked after."
In fact, the evidence suggests that people in the past devoted significant time and scarce resources to caring for those in need. Scouring the archaeological literature, Tilley and others have turned up evidence that caring for the weak and sick is behavior that goes back as far as Neanderthals. "I take these cases for granted now," Tilley says. "From the very earliest times, we can see evidence that people who were unable to function were helped, looked after and given what care was available.""
I read a paper a short while back on one Luca Riva, a deaf (I believe this is the correct term, as it's the one used in the paper and google didn't correct me - if I'm wrong, just tell me!) painter of the late 16th to early 17th centuries. He lived in Lombardy, and though little is known of his work, we do have something really fascinating from him - a visual last will and testament. He literally drew who he wanted to give money to, and it seems even implied why some sums were lower than expected. His brother was a convicted murderer, and as such got less than he might have wanted. Luca seems to have suggested this in his drawing by putting a dagger in his brother's hand! The Milanese state was completely happy to accept this as a legal will, something a lot of other states didn't manage until much later.
Fascinating stuff, seeing how he navigated a world not built to accommodate him and made his own ways of accommodating himself. It's also good to know that even some of the most marginalized voices of our pasts can still be heard, even if in very different ways!
If anyone wants to have a look at the paper, the link is here (it's open-access!) and the citation is:
Lo Conte, Angelo. 2022. “A Visual Testament by Luca Riva, a Deaf and Mute Pupil of the Procaccini” in Renaissance Studies 36, 222-251.
I've more recently been trying to document the short life and achievements of Alfredo "Dino" Ferrari (19 January 1932 – 30 June 1956), the son of the famous Enzo Ferrari, the Italian former racecar driver - and, oddly enough, mule and horse farrier - who founded the Ferrari company and brand. Dino was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a disability that is often fatal, and passed away at age 24. Dino Ferrari also lived during a time period where little was understood about muscular dystrophy, and few - if any - treatments for the condition existed.
My interest in Dino as a historical figure arose when it was announced that actor Adam Driver would be playing Dino's father, Enzo Ferrari, in Michael Mann's upcoming film adaptation of the book Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine by Brock Yates (1991). Now a father to a son himself, Driver has expressed a particular interest in "father and son stories" previously; this, in turn, piqued my curiosity as to what Enzo Ferrari's relationship and life was like with his son, Dino.
As an autistic person, I don't know a lot about muscular dystrophy, and it's been difficult to research details of Dino's life due to how private and secretive Enzo Ferrari, his father, was. I've also tried to get a copy of Enzo Ferrari's memoirs in my native language, English, to have access to Enzo's direct thoughts and feelings in regards to his son. However, a single copy of Enzo's personal memoirs can cost up to several hundred dollars due to being considered a "rare collector's item".
Alternatively, I was able to get my hands on several books, largely centered on Enzo Ferrari, that do have bits and pieces to the overall puzzle that is Dino's life and premature death. These include:
Again, books on Enzo Ferrari that are affordable are few and far between. However, I made do with what I could find - and buy - on Amazon and eBay.
From what I can tell, Dino Ferrari was so important to his father, Enzo, that Rancati's Enzo Ferrari: The Man even opens by mentioning Dino's death:
"Dino Ferrari died in Modena, [Italy], on the 30th June 1956. He was born on 19th January 1932 and baptized Alfredo. On the 1st July, the day after [Enzo] Ferrari's young son had passed away, the French Grand Prix - a Formula 1 world championship round - was held at Reims. The Ferraris were there at the start: that was what the drivers of the scuderia wanted. The winner was in fact a single-seater from Modena, driven by Peter Collins. Eugenio Castellotti came second, and Juan Manuel Fangio came fourth, both of them driving Cavallino's cars. Poor Dino was thus honoured by his father's drivers."
It also ends with "Dino's Verse", author unknown, from a memorial card for Dino's funeral, translated from Italian to English in Rancati's book:
"You who suffered so much from life, which could have given you everything; You who knew how to accept with the strength of human dignity and Christian resignation even the great sacrifice of your youthful existence; You who knew how to offer up your long agony, so that your loved ones could be stronger when you took the great step of disappearing from this world; from the heights of the Kingdom of the Just, where the Almighty certainly has placed you put right all those who grieve over you; and be of comfort to your mother, and relight the flame over the path that your father must still walk, to the greater honor of the name that was yours, and that will remain yours."
Rancati claims that Enzo Ferrari was "an old and incomparable friend" to him; hence, his familiarity with Dino Ferrari, and Enzo's relationship with Dino. Rancati further claims that Enzo, who was originally a successful racecar driver, gave up his role in 1932 due to Dino's birth, "an event which obliged him to call a halt to the dangers of competition".
Rancati also notes that Enzo kept photos of young Dino in his office:
"Behind the table was a television, and on the wall, a photograph of Dino with three plastic flowers in the colours of the Italian flag."
However, most frustratingly, it seems that not even Rancati - who says he was one of the few who was allowed to see and speak with Enzo Ferrari whenever he wanted - was fully aware of the private details of the father-son relationship of Enzo and Dino. Even Rancati's published account, like the others, paint a third-party picture of Dino from the outside looking in, one in which Enzo's racing history and achievements vastly overshadow Enzo's relationship with his forgotten disabled son.
Enzo, who was a professional writer and sports journalist himself, and a frequent writer, also left little to no writings about his own son - at least, none that I could locate or find. Some online forum posters discussed hearsay that Enzo Ferrari remained so tight-lipped about his son; his son's disability; and Dino's premature death partly due to the trauma that comes from the loss of a beloved child. The other part, rumor has it, is because Enzo blamed his wife and Dino's mother, Laura Dominica Garello, for Dino's disability and early demise; Enzo supposedly claimed on one occasion that Laura had STDs - syphilis, particularly - that Enzo believed had caused Dino's disability.
Of course, nowadays, we know that Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is not caused by STDs or syphilis, but by by a defective gene for dystrophin, a protein in the muscles. However, it often occurs in people without a known family history of the condition, the Ferraris being one example.
Per the Muscular Dystrophy Association's website:
Until the 1980s, little was known about the cause of any of the forms of muscular dystrophy. In 1986, MDA-supported researchers identified a gene on the X chromosome that, when flawed (mutated), causes Duchenne, Becker, and an intermediate form of muscular dystrophies.
[...] The absence of dystrophin sets in motion a cascade of harmful effects. Fibrous tissue begins to form in the muscle, and the body’s immune system increases inflammation. In addition to its force-transfer role, dystrophin provides the scaffold for holding numerous molecules in place near the cell membrane. Loss of dystrophin displaces these molecules, with consequent disruptions in their functions. Lack of dystrophin causes muscle damage and progressive weakness, beginning in early childhood.
True to how symptoms of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) usually present, archival photos of young Dino Ferrari riding a bicycle alongside his father, Enzo, were also printed in at least one of the books. However, all sources note that, as Dino aged, he experienced progressive muscle damage and weakness, eventually culminating in the diagnosis of muscular dystrophy.
Rancati also mentions:
"When [racecar driver] Tazio [Nuvolari]'s second son, Alberto, died, an ever stronger respect bound to [Enzo] Ferrari to the great driver. Nuvolari had lost two sons, both at 18 years of age...Ferrari had just one son, Dino, whose health had been bad for years, and he knew that [Dino] would die. This shared pain brought him very close to Tazio and, by giving [Tazio] a racing car, he tried to alleviate Tazio's sorrow, and make his life less bitter."
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Can we ask questions about historical disabilities in this thread, or is it only for people posting about disabilities and then getting responses?
Even though Sign language is not a universal language and variations of it exist for different languages , when do we first have a definitive alphabet for sign language and where did it come from?
Also how did Gallaudet university come to be , was it’s intention to always be for the Deaf community ?
I've answered a few questions about disability in the past on the sub which you can find linked below.
Pre-colonial approaches to the disabled in the Americas. In this answer I discuss a few examples of how Native Americans approached disability from the archaeological record. These include Mississippian, Woodland and Mayan approaches to dwarfism; care for the disabled in Pachacamac, Peru; portrayals of disabled people in Moche pottery; and congenital deafness in Ontario.
The relationships between changeling stories and care for disabled children in medieval Europe. There are a lot of oversimplifications and myths on this topic floating around the Internet these days. My attempt to nuance these ended up being one of my longest answers ever in the sub. If you want a deep dive into medieval ideas about changelings and medieval attitudes towards disabled children, check it out!
Mental disabilities in early medieval Ireland. A perhaps surprising amount of legal material concerning the care for the disabled survives from early medieval law texts in Ireland. In this answer I explore the different categories of mental disability used in early medieval Ireland, and how their care was handled by their families and communities.
I've also written about disability on my Women of 1000 website. My illustration The Migraineur of Nishapur depicts a Persian woman being treated for migraine in medieval Iran. Muslim physicians were on the cutting edge of medieval science. In the story accompanying the illustration, I describe their approach to treating migraine and the similarities it has with modern treatments.