Disability and the Victorians: Attitudes, Interventions, Legacies - Paperback

by Iain Hutchison (Editor), Martin Atherton (Editor), Jaipreet Virdi (Editor)

Disability and the Victorians investigates the attitudes of Victorians towards people with impairments, illustrates how these influenced the interventions they introduced to support such people and considers the legacies they left behind by their actions and perspectives. A range of impairments are addressed in a variety of contexts.

Back Jacket

The prejudices and challenges that people with impairments face in modern society are a direct consequence of the medicalisation of disability that occurred during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). This collection investigates how and why the legacies of Victorian attitudes and interventions continue into the present century. Taking a wide range of physical, sensory and mental impairments into consideration, the contributors show how Victorian philanthropic interventions in the fields of education, social policy, care provision, employment and employability sought to improve the lives of those who found themselves marginalised and excluded from mainstream society. Whether this exclusion resulted from illness, injury, disease or impairment, clear distinctions were made between those deemed able to be restored to societal norms of ability and behaviour and those who could not.

Offering an illustration of how Victorian attitudes and interventions were exported throughout the British Empire and beyond, this collection offers a timely and valuable insight into the shadow cast by our Victorian forebears.

Author Biography

Iain Hutchison is Research Affiliate in Economic & Social History at the University of Glasgow

Martin Atherton is Retired Course Leader for British Sign Language and Deaf Studies at the University of Central Lancashire

Jaipreet Virdi is Assistant Professor in History at the University of Delaware