Rose, Sarah F.

OUR SYNOPSIS: Sarah F. Rose illuminates “the changing meanings and lived experiences of disability at the turn of the twentieth century” in the United States (1). She stresses three primary factors that fueled the construction and problematization of disability as a social category. Firstly, the wage labor of urban industrial capitalism restricted the ability of families to provide for relatives in need of assistance. Secondly, mechanization of industry led employers to prioritize worker interchangeability. Thirdly, public assistance policies focused on institutionalization and often led in practice to social exclusion. She argues that by the end of World War I, disability “became synonymous with reliance on public dependency, poor citizenship, and the inability to care for oneself or work productively. In other words, disability was believed to pose risks to both individuals’ own morals and to those of the nation as a whole.” (2) Delineating this categorization, she writes, “People who toiled on the wage labor market, those who labored in rehabilitative institutions for no pay, and those who could not work and relied on public relief all fell under the umbrella of ‘disability.’” (3) However, she also importantly emphasizes how people living with disabilities asserted themselves by actively resisting their social exclusion.