A Disability History of the United States

Content Warning: This section discusses ableism, racism, enslavement, and mental illness. The source text’s use of outdated and offensive terms is replicated only in quotations.

One of the primary themes running throughout A Disability History of the United States is the changing definitions and perceptions of disability. While today, disability is thought of in very broad terms, the definition and perception of disability was once very narrow. Today, a disability is considered any condition that impairs one from doing certain activities and having equitable access in society. These conditions may be physical, sensory, cognitive, developmental, intellectual, or mental, and they may be readily visible or invisible to others. According to Nielsen, however, the primary definition of disability in the US historically was simply the inability to perform labor. Throughout her work, Nielsen alludes to this historical definition several times. In Chapter 2, for example, she explains that in the early colonial period, little attention was paid to bodily variations “as long as one could labor” (26). She also argues that, in regard to Europeans colonizing North America, “disability was defined as the inability to ‘maintain’ oneself economically, and those unable to do so were discouraged from ever boarding ship for North America” (27).

Another example of the changing definitions and perceptions of disability is that which came after the Civil War, as it related to disability pensions for veterans. Nielsen notes in Chapter 5 that the pension system “once again defined disability as incapacity to perform manual labor” (86), and qualifying for these pensions became increasingly reliant on medical determinations. This meant that people with disabilities who did labor for wages became increasingly disregarded as a contradiction in terms, “for they didn’t fit the preconception of someone with a disability” (86). Decades later, around the turn of the 20th century, as concerns grew about mass immigration and the changing nature of America’s citizenry, the standard definition of disability as the inability to perform labor was used as a way to restrict immigration. The “likely to become a public charge,” or LPC, clause was used often to reject potential immigrants who were deemed “defective” physically or mentally (108). In Chapter 6, Nielsen argues that the LPC clause “clearly assumed that bodies considered defective rendered them unable to perform wage-earning labor” (108).

The definition of disability that existed from the late colonial period into the 20th century, the inability to perform manual labor, was much different from the one that existed with Indigenous peoples in North America, as were the perceptions of disability. In Chapter 1, Nielsen examines disability in Indigenous cultures in North America and argues that although there was no concept of disability, most believed that “disability” only occurred “when someone lacked or had weak community relationships” (3). Because of the Indigenous belief in the “interwoven nature of body, mind, and spirit” (3), there was no stigma associated with what today would be considered a disability. The institution of slavery and the slave trade convey the social stigma associated with disability throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Nielsen explains in Chapter 3 that “the racist ideology of slavery held that Africans brought to North America were by definition disabled” (42). Apologists for slavery used this belief to legitimize it, even arguing that slavery was beneficial to enslaved people because their bodies and minds were disabled to the extent that they needed care.