Undoing Ableism

Disability as a Category of Historical and Legal Analysis

Abstract

In this essay, I will apply disability as a category of legal and historical analysis to undo the different forms ableism can take in US history and law. My aim is to look at a specific time period in US history – the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century – in order to elucidate narratives of exclusion and marginalization of disabled people on the one hand and resistance and resilience on the other. I claim that in this period, disability gains political and legal relevance as an intersectional category of analysis, which leads to the cross-connection between ableism and other dominant ideologies. I will look at two distinct historical and legal contexts, the interrelation of ableism and classism in the context of the industrialization and the subsequent socioeconomic discrimination of disabled factory workers. As a legal subtext, the fellow servant rule will be discussed to understand how this law becomes relevant for disability politics. Additionally, ableism is explored in the context of racism to understand how atavism and biological determinism contributed to the othering of disabled people, especially disabled women, in the context of eugenic ideology of the early twentieth century.