Hutchison, Iain, Martin Atherton, and Jaipreet Virdi, eds. Disability and the Victorians: Attitudes, Interventions, Legacies. Disability History. Series eds. Julia Anderson, Coreen McGuire, Aparna Nair, and Walton Schalick. Manchester Univ. Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-5261-4571-0.
Reviewed by Alberto Ruiz
Disability and the Victorians: Attitudes, Interventions, Legacies presents a compelling exploration of disability in Victorian England, asking how deep-seated prejudices and social structures continue to resonate in contemporary society. Divided into three parts, “Attitudes,” “Interventions,” and “Legacies,” this edited collection provides a comprehensive lens through which the evolution of disability and disease are examined. The compilation of detailed analyses from various experts in the social sciences portrays cultural shifts in the nineteenth century and beyond, with the last chapters of the book focusing on how the discrimination of any group deemed to be disabled was sustained through medical and cultural institutionalization.
The book begins with a foreword by Karen A. Sayer, which gives us a glimpse into disability studies in the modern age. Sayer notes the United Nations’s accusation in a report from 2016 that the United Kingdom was engaged in “disability rights violations, in part for stereotyping” (p. xiv).1 This example serves as a stark reminder that the legacies of Victorian approaches to disability persist in the present day.
Disability and the Victorians is not solely about disability; it is about power, social stigma, and the enduring impact of historical attitudes. Furthermore, the study intervenes in a field that has been largely overlooked. The book is published in a series, Disability History, and as stated by J. Anderson and W. O. Schalick in the series editors’ foreword, “the study of disability’s history is still quite young” (p. xi). The book offers a historical view, but the “attitudes” being problematized here are not merely Victorian. Disability and the Victorians encourages the reader to perceive these attitudes not as an event but as a chapter in a story that continues to this day. This collection challenges us to critically examine the systems and structures that perpetuate marginalization.
Chapter one focuses on how Victorian ideals of excessive labor and productivity created a social system in which physical degeneration became a value judgment—in which those who could not perform labor were no longer worthy. Unproductiveness marks a “transition from ‘worthy’ to ‘idle’” (p. 28). Furthermore, the resurgence of a “degenerationist rhetoric,” which historically argued that there was a link between crime and drunkenness, fueled the nascent British eugenics movement and led to official public health measures that more often than not reinforced existing social hierarchies (p. 100). Usability was, and continues to be, tightly tied to notions of worth.
Chapter four effectively illustrates how deafness was pathologized and treated as a condition requiring cure—rather than treated as a natural human condition. This chapter showcases the historical example of medicalization of deafness in Victorian London, and it serves as an introduction to part two of the book, “Interventions,” which outlines the outcomes of Victorian attitudes toward disability seen in previous chapters.
A powerful message to rethink how we perceive the unhoused appears in chapter five, in which it is made clear that there are still those today who adhere to a Socialist Darwinist rhetoric—that “there is nothing that the nation can do for these men except to let them die out by leaving them alone” (p. 100). This quotation reprinted in G. S. Jones’s 1984 study highlights how common it is to think about treating the effect before the cause, and it emphasizes the violence in authorities’ ability to restrict the rights of those they view as unfit through the rise of the “administrative apparatuses of prisons, asylums” (p. 101).2 We get a deeper understanding of such later on.
In subsequent chapters, the reader is introduced to historical examples of body positivity and a joyous celebration of human progress. Chapter seven explores the commodification of ability through the artificial limb market, revealing how prosthetics became “desirable consumer product[s], sold under the seductive and prestigious banner of science and technology” (p. 127). However, the chapter makes it clear that the idea of “wholeness” reflects societal pressures to conform to notions of physical wholeness, highlighting how nineteenth-century attitudes toward disability were shaped by commercial interests and class distinction (p. 135). Sharp social demarcations are, therefore, not a surprise. While advanced limbs are readily available to some, others make do with rudimentary options. Those in the lower classes were caught in a vicious cycle, whereby the only means of inclusion were through consumption of the market’s products. In other words, the amputee is empowered only through consumption of advanced technology, placing the “product above [the] problem” (p. 138). I find a striking similarity here to Guy Debord’s notion of innovation that works to reinforce the power of spectacle, where the spectacle obscures underlying issues and serves to maintain the status quo, and I would refer the reader to the works of Debord for further discussion on technology and alienation.3
Fred Reid’s chapter nine on the panopticon draws a clear line to Michel Foucault’s analysis of carceral institutions. It recounts the repressive rules and the alienation of students subjected to “coeducational schools” (p. 164). Echoing Foucault’s Madness and Civilization, Reid explores how Western societies have historically reduced madness to inwardness and shame.4 He illustrates that observing how society has categorized and treated those considered outside of the norm can also reveal the underlying values and attitudes toward the disabled held by those considered abled.
Even though it encompasses tough subjects, Disability and the Victorians offers an academic study that eschews jargon; it guides the reader through the research in the field as if it were narrated through experience rather than academic findings. This collection presents a useful introduction to the lesser-known side of English history—from the nineteenth to late-twentieth century—without overwhelming the reader with technicalities. This collection also serves as a valuable introduction to the history and theories that have shaped the field of disability studies, making it a useful resource for anyone interested either in the area or in its historical development.
Whether it be drunkenness, deafness, madness, or physical impairment, the authors of this collection make us wonder why these conditions are still observed through a utilitarian viewpoint in the twenty-first century. Why are those with these impairments not regarded as deserving of support? “There are two kinds of consumption—that of the rich and that of the poor,” the editors write. “The former is sometimes cured, the latter never” (p. 24). Examining how these utilitarian ideals of ability came to be formed, and the questionable longevity of such views, reveals that every single one of us was involved in the creation of this book; if we do not question the ways in which we perpetuate Victorian ideals in our understanding of ability, then we are doomed to repeat them. Although the book does not provide a solution, it effectively illustrates the development of such questions, and in some sense, offers a great perspective on the similarities between now and then.
NOTES
1“Inquiry concerning the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Carried out by the Committee under Article 6 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention,” United Nations Digital Library, 2016, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1311200?ln=en&v=pdf.
2A. White, “The Nomad Poor of London,” Contemporary Review 47 (1885): 714–27, qtd. in G. S. Jones, Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society (Pantheon, 1984), pp. 288–9.
3Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Zone Books, 1994).
4Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization; A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, trans. Richard Howard (Pantheon Books, 1965).
Alberto Ruiz is pursuing graduate studies in physics at Rice University. He previously studied Engineering Physics at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, focusing on numerical methods for wave scattering. His hobbies include painting, biking, and climbing.
Cover image: From the Archive of the British Library, Source 190.e.1, plate 5.
This review was solicited by SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900. A review copy of Disability and the Victorians: Attitudes, Interventions, Legacies (Manchester University Press, 2020) was provided by the publisher.