Kate J Corbett Pollack

Often social reform is thought of in a linear model; that one event occurs and leads to another in a mechanism of continuous progression not unlike steps of assembly on a factory line. The march of progress is referenced in articles and books about American history and education as if there were a collective understanding that developed and unfolded in a perpetual march towards a utopian goal. However, history is much more complex than that paradigm allows. During the turbulent American nineteenth century, society began to dramatically change as oppressed and marginalized groups of people and their allies fought for their rights. Evidenced in the life of Mary Howes Goddard of Buckland, Massachusetts, born 1823, is the ineluctable nature that characterized reform and oppression during this era. Mary is not a famous historic figure, but her life followed a trajectory through women’s rights, slavery and abolition, and mental health and disability reform which can serve as a model in illustrating the overlapping nature of social change, and how different factions of marginalization serve to inform and influence one another, something that is integral to the process of understanding and ending oppression. Central to all of it is the theme of education.

People with disabilities typically require accommodations in order to fully participate in social, educational, economic, and other aspects of their lives. Accommodations vary from person to person, and this paper uses Deafness as a model to learn  what accommodations are and how they are provided in optimal circumstances. Alternately, I discuss what happens when accommodations are not provided, particularly in an institutionalized setting, and how that tends to occur in conjunction with abuse, all of which is a violation of article 15 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Article 15 is the right of people with disabilities to be free from torture, and humiliating and degrading treatment. But what is torture? In order to understand just what constitutes torture and how it can be specific to disabled people, the concept must be closely examined. I use the example of Woodford School in East London, a residential "school" for deaf children which has recently become the focus of a BBC news investigation and a lawsuit regarding allegations of sexual abuse of deaf children and also, I argue, denial of accommodations which are inseparable from the concept of torture.

his paper follows the lives of three generations of a Buckland, Massachusetts family, from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The mental illness of one family member, Josiah Spaulding, imprisoned for 57 years in a cage in his parent's and later his sister's home, profoundly affected the experience of his niece Mary Howes, who lived with her caged Uncle for her entire childhood. Mary was one of the first women to graduate from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and took a teaching position in the antebellum south, opening some of the first colleges for women in Alabama. She later became an abolitionist and mental health reformer, along with her son, Dr. Frederick Goddard. The story of Mary's caged uncle intertwined through her whole life. Based on three years of private archival research, this paper contains the previously unheard, but profound story of nineteenth century mental illness and the reform enacted by those lost to history.

Throughout history, epidemic disease has provoked a set of similar psychological reactions amongst people from the Great Plague of London in 1665 to the current rise in autism diagnosis in the United States, Australia and Europe. Referencing Philip Strong's article "Epidemic Psychology: A Model", this paper reveals how even with the advent of modern medical science and technology, these psychological responses and stereotypes remain, despite the fact that autism is not an epidemic at all. A primary source document from London, 1665 referencing the Black Plague is used to show how similar reactions are from that time to the modern era, and how these reactions as a whole cause harm to the autistic community by permeating mainstream discourse.

Feminist Disability Studies and the concepts of time, futurity and postcolonial historical materialism are the lenses through which this paper analyzes the Quiverfull/ Christian Patriarchy movement and its goals of an idealized future. Using examples of Quiverfull families and the blog of Erika Shupe, I will analyze the values inherent to the movement and consider what the place within this ideology is for disabled people and futures.

Homeschool in the US, depending on the state, is an area in which disability rights law does not extend to cover and protect children. The IDEA (1975) gives rights of accommodations to disabled children in public and private schools, but a homeschool may not be considered either. In the case of North Carolina, homeschool regulations are very relaxed, and there is no way to ensure that disabled, homeschooled children receive things like hearing aids, wheelchairs or supportive instruction. An area of concern is the high numbers of homeschool related homicide, which may connect to increased numbers of homeschooled disabled children in America in recent years. Children with disabilities and Deafness are particularly prone to abuse, and experience it at much higher numbers than able-bodied children. Frustrations can arise when parents do not have help, and for the child, isolation and danger become immediate when they are not accommodated. Using the recent story of the disappearance and possible murder of a disabled homeschooled child from North Carolina, Erica Parsons, I illustrate what can happen when violence, fraud, and lack of disability rights and regulations intersect.

Among certain US Christian Evangelical and Fundamentalist enclaves, the ideologies of Quiverfull and Christian Patriarchy govern family structure and religious life. Around 2008-10, a movement took off within this community to adopt children from the global South. Ethiopia was propelled to its position as a top "sender" of orphaned children to the west, due in part to the adoption fervor and also to misinformation about orphaned children in need. Child traffickers took advantage of the movement, and both Ethiopian orphanages and US Christian adoption agencies profited from trafficked children, taken from their families to fulfill the adoption demand. Once in the US, the imposition of colonialist supremacies upon adopted children resulted, in some cases, in abuse and homicide of the child. Children with disabilities were posited by adoption agencies and ministers as being particularly in need of being adopted, and used to incur feelings of pity among adoptive parents, who, once they had the child at home, did not understand the reality of disability and turned to corporal punishment out of frustration.