3 10 61 https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/4a462b9ba9ae2ced26fb6154b9e6b1be.jpg bda9a06c8ca846113d576fd91b2e397a Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 396 Height 549 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits headline:L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits caption:L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk "Punch\'s Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson". Punch Published: 1881 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:46:"L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits";s:8:"headline";s:46:"L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits";s:7:"caption";s:351:"L0028076 Caricature - Punch\'s fancy portraits Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk "Punch\'s Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson". Punch Published: 1881 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The cariacature shows Henry Thompson weilding an instrument that is knife on one side, pen on the other, standing in front of a table surrounded by papers, a dinner menu, and a skeleton.  The caption reads:  "Great Artist-Surgeon, who is so well able / To point a Pencil and adorn a Table? / First in the Ranks of Men of Light and Leading / Our best Authority on Food and Feeding." "Punch's Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson." Punch (1881). Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1312142" target="_blank">Record no. 1714437</a>). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. … No doubt all admire the sang-froid and skill, possession of which is necessary to make a good surgical operator — qualities, by the way, which are perhaps more frequently developed by training, than found already existing as a natural inheritance. But it is germane to our purpose to remember that everybody has a direct practical concern in the existence of an available supply of the necessary talent to meet a certain demand on the part of the body politic, for no one knows how soon his own personal necessities may not be such as to give him the strongest possible interest in its exercise: a demand that is absolutely inevitable; — for be assured that, without any wish to alarm you, gentle reader, Mr. Neison will, if requested to make the calculation, inform us at once what the numerical chances are that your own well-proportioned nether limb will, or will not, fall before the surgeon's knife, or that that undoubtedly hard and well-developed cranium may not yet be scientifically explored by “trepan” or “trephine.”<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> He will estimate with unerring certainty the probability (to nine places of decimals, if you demand it) that your own fair person may become the subject of some unpleasing excrescence<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>; and also what the chances are that you must seek the surgeon's aid to remove it. While Mr. Buckle will stoutly maintain, and you will find it hard to gainsay him, that, given the present conditions of existence, a certain ascertainable number of tumours, broken legs, and natural-born deformities will regularly make their appearance every year among the human family. And he will probably add, that it is perfectly within the province of possibility to calculate, if we had all the required data, the exact number of individuals who have the requisite courage to submit to operation; as of those who will not have heart to do so, and who will inevitably die without benefit of surgery; together with the exact percentage to the population of those who will, and who will not, put faith in the blessed boon of chloroform. (500) … [He goes on to describe the roughness of early-amputation, the “patient’s torture” from surgeons using “a red-hot knife” to amputate in the eleventh century or “red-hot irons” or “boiling pitch”<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> to cauterize after surgery in the sixteenth century and then the surgical improvement of ligature to stop bleeding after amputation, introduced to England in the seventeenth century (501-02).] But enough of this: let us soothe our ruffled nerves by seeing how the thing is done to-day. We will take a quiet post of observation in the area of the operating theatre at one of our metropolitan hospitals, in this year of our Lord 1860. Notice is posted that amputation of the thigh will be performed at 2 o'clock p.m., and we occupy our seat ten minutes before the hour. (502) … [He goes on to describe the operating theatre, the presence of surgeons, tools, and students, the application of the tourniquet to limb to be amputated, and then the smooth operating process itself, which he relates using precise words such as “central axis,” “incision,” and “transfixion” (503) as opposed to the rougher words, such as “dreadful remedies” and “horribly loathsome” (502) used to depict historical amputation above.] Half an hour hence that patient will regain consciousness, and probably the first observation he makes will be, “I am quite ready for the operation, when is it going to begin?” And it takes no little repetition of the assurance that all is over to make him realize the happy truth. So it is that he who loses the limb knows less about the process than any one concerned; infinitely less, my gentle reader, than you who have shared with us the quiet corner, and have seen all without losing consciousness, or fainting. (504) … <h3>Notes</h3> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A trephine is a surgical hole saw devoted to the removal of tissue or bone; a trepan is a trephine devoted to surgery of the skull. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> A tumour or growth. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Boiling tar. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Under Chloroform Description An account of the resource “Under Chloroform,” an unsigned article on amputation written by surgeon Henry Thompson, was published in the first volume of the popular literary magazine, The Cornhill. At the time, Thompson, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, specialized in urology and was a consulting surgeon at a workhouse infirmary; two years later he would become full surgeon at University College Hospital (Paton). “Under Chloroform” demonstrates The Cornhill’s editorial mandate to educate its readers on a wide variety of issues, publishing articles by scientists and physicians as well as poems and serial fiction (Kennedy 80). More significantly, however, this article exhibits Victorian ambivalence regarding bodily integrity, that is, bodily wholeness. After stating that his purpose is to correct incorrect public knowledge about modern amputation, Thompson highlights the high probability of undergoing such an operation, saying, “no one knows how soon his own personal necessities may not be such as to give him the strongest possible interest in its exercise” (500). In doing so, Thompson reminds readers of the transient state of their bodily wholeness, implying that surgery is “absolutely inevitable” (500). As if to increase the reader anxiety this statement produces, Thompson then provides a gruesome account of past methods of amputations. Following this, however, Thompson “soothes [readers’] ruffled nerves” (502) by reassuring readers of modern medicine’s capability to safely restore bodily stability in spite of amputation. To do this, he makes his readers imaginary spectators of modern surgery, rather than imagined recipients of it as before. Doing so palliates reader anxiety about the body, placing medical ignorance and bodily difference upon an unnamed, imaginary patient: “So it is that he who loses the limb knows less about the process than any one concerned; infinitely less, my gentle reader, than you who have shared with us the quiet corner, and have seen all without losing consciousness, or fainting” (504). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource [Thompson, Henry] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived [Thompson, Henry]. “Under Chloroform.” Cornhill. 1.4 (1860): 499-504. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kylee-Anne Hingston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The cariacature shows Henry Thompson weilding an instrument that is knife on one side, pen on the other, standing in front of a table surrounded by papers, a dinner menu, and a skeleton. The caption reads: "Great Artist-Surgeon, who is so well able / To point a Pencil and adorn a Table? / First in the Ranks of Men of Light and Leading / Our best Authority on Food and Feeding." "Punch's Fancy Portraits - No. 42. Dr. Henry Thompson." Punch (1881). Courtesy of the <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Library Catalogue" href="http://catalogue.wellcomelibrary.org/record=b1312142" target="_blank">Record no. 1714437</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Paton, Alex. “Thompson, Sir Henry, first baronet (1820–1904).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2010. Online. 12 Feb. 2013 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36490]</li> <li>Kennedy, Meegan. Revising the Clinic: Vision and Representation in Victorian Medical Narrative and the Novel. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2010.</li> </ul> Cognition Medicine Mobility Prosthesis https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/f89dc46805bcd46a80bcec07996d2aaa.jpg ca24584683e51942799ee31e6fdc4e27 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 476 Height 600 Bit Depth 8 Channels 1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource A black and white photograph shows Thomas Edison, seated, demonstrating his phonograph in April, 1878. Courtesy of <a title="Wikimedia Commons" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edison_and_phonograph_edit1.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a>. https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/5fe9857fec1908109c136cc7b28b4d66.gif f7e87bff7e536628eb75dcde0bb92fa5 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 760 Height 1171 Bit Depth 3 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Page image of "The Phonograph and its Future". https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/1db00e6ca7acb28dcdee4712927f37d6.gif 04f9a530ccef21d8312608cfb8892575 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 760 Height 1171 Bit Depth 3 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Second page image of "The Phonograph and its Future". Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1880 to 1901 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Books .—Books may be read by the charitably-inclined professional reader, or by such readers especially employed for that purpose, and the record of such book used in the asylums of the blind, hospitals, the sick-chamber, or even with great profit and amusement by the lady or gentleman whose eyes and hands may be otherwise employed; or, again, because of the greater enjoyment to be had from a book when read by an elocutionist than when read by the average reader. The ordinary record-sheet, repeating this book from fifty to a hundred times as it will, would command a price that would pay the original reader well for the slightly-increased difficulty in reading it aloud in the phonograph. (533) * * * * * Phonographic Books.—A book of 40,000 words upon a single metal plate ten inches square thus becomes a strong probability. The advantages of such books over those printed are too readily seen to need mention. Such books would be listened to where now none are read. They would preserve more than the mental emanations of the brain of the author; and, as a bequest to future generations, they would be unequaled. For the preservation of languages they would be invaluable. (534) * * * * * Every one of these uses the perfected phonograph is now ready to carry out. I may add that, through the facility with which it stores up and reproduces music of all sorts, or whistling and recitations, it can be employed to furnish constant amusement to invalids, or to social assemblies, at receptions, dinners, etc. Any one sitting in his room alone may order an assorted supply of wax cylinders inscribed with songs, poems, piano or violin music, short stories, anecdotes, or dialect pieces, and, by putting them on his phonograph, he can listen to them as originally sung or recited by authors, vocalists and actors, or elocutionists. The variety of entertainment he thus commands, at trifling expense and without moving from his chair, is practically unlimited. Music by a band, in fact whole operas, can be stored up on the cylinders, and the voice of Patti singing in England can thus be heard again on this side of the ocean, or preserved for future generations. On four cylinders eight inches long, with a diameter of five, I can put the whole of “Nicholas Nickleby” in phonogram form. (646) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Talking Books Description An account of the resource Thomas Edison’s phonograph was the first machine to reproduce the human voice. In December 1877, Edison’s associates assembled a device on which Edison recorded the words of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The prototype consisted of a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a grooved cylinder and rotated with a hand crank. Speech created indentations in the tinfoil (and, later, wax cylinders) that could be played back afterward. Phonograph demonstrations entertained audiences throughout the country by playing recitations, songs, music, and random noises such as whistling or whooping. Edison proposed using the phonograph to read aloud to people with disabilities in a promotional essay written for the North American Review. The essay identifies numerous uses for the phonograph including playing music, dictating letters, teaching elocution, animating dolls, recording courtroom testimony, preserving the last words of dying relatives, conserving the speeches of famous orators, and enabling clocks to announce the hours of the day. It also proposes using the phonograph as a reading machine: “Books may be read by the charitably-inclined professional reader, or by such readers especially employed for that purpose, and the record of such book used in the asylums of the blind, hospitals, the sick-chamber, or even with great profit and amusement by the lady or gentleman whose eyes and hands may be otherwise employed; or, again, because of the greater enjoyment to be had from a book when read by an elocutionist than when read by the average reader” (533). Edison envisioned books being read aloud to people with disabilities who were unable to read for themselves as well as people without disabilities who preferred listening to books recited by a professional narrator. He later described such recordings as “phonographic books, which would speak to blind people without effort on their part” (646). Edison’s prediction of a talking book was ahead of its time in the 1870s and 1880s. His idea was to record books of approximately 40,000 words on a single plate measuring ten inches square. Edison later proposed recording Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby on four wax cylinders. Yet tinfoil and wax cylinders could only play a few minutes of speech at a time. Recording an entire Dickens novel required hundreds of wax cylinders. It would be impossible to record an entire novel until advances in the field of sound recording made by the film and radio industries in the twentieth century. The American Foundation for the Blind and Library of Congress recorded the first books for people with vision impairments in 1934. These recordings, known as “talking books,” consisted of a book read aloud onto a set of long-playing phonograph records. The Library of Congress hailed the talking book program as the realization of Edison’s ambition to read aloud to people who were blind. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <ul><li>Edison, Thomas A. “The Phonograph and its Future.” North American Review 126 (May 1878): 527-36.</li> <li>Edison, Thomas A. “The Perfected Phonograph.” North American Review 379 (June 1888): 641-50.</li> </ul> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1878, 1888 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Matthew Rubery Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource A black and white photograph shows Thomas Edison, seated, demonstrating his phonograph in April, 1878. Courtesy of <a title="Wikimedia Commons" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edison_and_phonograph_edit1.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a>. Relation A related resource <ul><li>Camlot, Jason. “Early Talking Books: Spoken Recordings and Recitation Anthologies, 1880-1920.” Book History 6 (2003): 147-73.</li> <li>Gitelman, Lisa. Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. 25-44. </li> <li>Israel, Paul. Edison: A Life of Invention. New York: John Wiley, 1998. </li> <li>Koestler, Frances A. The Unseen Minority: A Social History of Blindness in the United States. New York: David McKay Company, 1976.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Edison, Thomas Audio Culture Blindness Technology Thomas Edison https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/4843e0ea0a11561b558630326e621b1a.jpg 1b0a9d95db9719344154cb2e17c91295 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 800 Height 514 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 IPTC String copyright_notice:Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html byline:Wellcome Images object_name:L0037241 Artificial left leg headline:L0037241 Artificial left leg caption:L0037241 Artificial left leg Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Artificial left leg with thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph circa 1920 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:28:"L0037241 Artificial left leg";s:8:"headline";s:28:"L0037241 Artificial left leg";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0037241 Artificial left leg Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Artificial left leg with thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph circa 1920 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource An artificial left leg with a thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph (circa 1920). Courtesy of <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Museum No A500465</a>). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. I shall proceed to adduce in favour of a single member, in opposition to what I am forced to confess is the general current opinion, an opinion resulting as I hope to shew [sic.], from inconsiderate habit and the mere accident of birth. Let us glance, then, in the outset, at the numberless miseries and calamities in every shape that lie in wait for the thoughtless bipeds who on two active legs run to-and-fro upon the earth, and, mounted on “Shank’s naggie,”<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> rush headlong to their hurt. Let him number who can the fractures, the maimings, the fatal results that have ensued from these rampant and foolhardy exploits in which a man of single sole would never engage, and could not if he would. How many enterprising youths have broken their necks through having one leg too much? How many have jumped at all, had they, instead of elastic flesh and sinew, possessed good wooden substitutes? How many have sunk in the fateful flood who would never have dreamed of swimming with a timber-toe? and how many have followed their heedless noses into irretrievable mischief, who would have remained safe from all harm upon a single foot? Then look at the double risks of the double-footed, even in calamities that come unsought. The gout, that horrible visitant, has but half a victim in a one-legged man; of corns, also, he has but half a crop; his bunions never mar his quiet pilgrimage; and, come what may, he cannot by any possibility suffer from damp feet. [. . .] Then the man of one leg, it must not be forgotten, is the possessor of certain physical advantages to which the biped is for ever a stranger. He is exempt by law from all personal participation in the turmoils and brutalities of war. A man of peace by Act of Parliament,<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> he never incurs the disgrace of running away, or is laughed at for avoiding a combat by shewing what he has not got “a fair pair of heels”—though if by any aggression he is driven to his shifts, he can, upon an emergency, find a footing where the greatest hero upon two legs could not make a stand. Or he may cross a steam dry-shot where another would get up to his knee in water, simply by plunging his insensible substitute in the middle, and transferring the natural limb to the opposite bank. [. . .] Moreover, in cases of emergency, when it becomes necessary to put the best foot foremost, he is never hesitating and at a loss, like your bipeds, being at no pains on deciding between the leg which cost him nothing, and that which has cost him perhaps from ten shillings to ten pounds,<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> as taste or circumstances may have led him to the adoption of the convenient cork, the patent spring, or the unsophisticated but manly stump, in the choice of a pedestal. I might enumerate many other advantages which contribute to his exclusive enjoyment, were I so disposed, but I scorn to accumulate evidence in favour of a truth which the reader must by this time be ready to admit, and shall proceed, as in fairness bound, to notice the objections that may be urged by prejudiced bipeds against his fortunate condition. <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A Scottish phrase literally meaning “to ride on Shank’s mare”. To “shank” is “To set off smartly, to walk away with expedition” (Jamieson 342). In this context, then, Smith means merely to walk with great haste. See Jamieson, John. Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. Vol. 2. Edinburgh, 1825. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Like nowadays, men wishing to enlist in the British Army faced a medical screening. If an applicant did not match certain physical requirements, he was not offered an enlistment (which were typically for ten or twelve years). For more on British Army enlistment, see Skelley, Alan Ramsay. The Victorian Army at Home: The Recruitment and Terms and Conditions of the British Regular, 1859-1899. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> There was in fact a huge difference in price between top-of-the-range artificial legs (such as those made by British prosthetist Frederick Gray and the Americans Frank Palmer and A. A. Marks) and peg legs, which were produced by carpenters, cabinet makers and doctors as well as by prosthesis specialists. Mexican political leader Antonio López de Santa Anna, who lost his leg fighting the French in 1839, is said to have purchased two high-tech wooden legs from an American cabinet maker for a staggering $1,300 a piece. By contrast, in 1888 A. A. Marks charged just $10 a piece for his cheapest peg legs. For more on nineteenth-century British currency, see Marje Bloy’s “<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/currency.html">British Currency before 1971</a>” on The Victorian Web. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An Essay on Wooden Legs, with Some Account of Herr Von Holtzbein Description An account of the resource Charles Manby Smith (1804–80) was a writer fascinated by and deeply concerned with the position of “cripples” in Victorian society. In the second edition of his most famous work <a href="http://archive.org/stream/curiositiesoflon00smit#page/16/mode/2up">Curiosities of London Life: Or, Phases, Physiological and Social, of the Great Metropolis</a> (1857), a study of London street life that has been compared to Charles Dickens’s <a href="http://archive.org/details/sketchesbyboz00dick">Sketches by Boz</a>(1833–36) and Henry Mayhew’s <a href="http://archive.org/stream/londonlabourlond01mayhrich#page/n7/mode/2up">London Labour and the London Poor</a> (1851), he expresses particular anxiety for those maimed by “commerce” (referring to labourers injured by industrial machinery), who, according to him, were given little support and “left to fight the battle of life at fearful odds” (17). The “tale of adventure” “<a href="http://archive.org/stream/deadlockalsotal00smitgoog#page/n6/mode/2up">An Essay on Wooden Legs, with Some Account of Herr Von Holtzbein</a>” (first printed in the April 1854 edition of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine and later published in a volume with Smith’s novel The Dead Lockin 1863), on the other hand, presents the amputee as curios whilst playfully gesturing toward the enabling potential of human prosthesis. In a perspicuously ironic manner, the narrator of “An Essay on Wooden Legs” goes beyond identifying prostheses as devices that can enable amputees to live normal lives, suggesting instead that such technologies are capable of enhancing a user beyond the limits of normalcy. As the narrator explains, “it is my present purpose to reconsider a question which I fear has been too summarily settled, without duly weighing the arguments which have been, or might be, adduced on both sides—the question being, whether TWO legs are better than ONE” (emphasis original; 247). According to the narrator, the use of an artificial leg not only lessens the chances of the user contracting illnesses or defects, such as gout, corns, and bunions, but also prevents damp feet and the risk of sustaining injuries as a result of doing things too quickly. It also, according to the narrator, provides some physical advantages, such as providing a better footing on soft ground. To exemplify his argument, the narrator also tells the story of Herr Von Holtzbein—the name in German literally means “wooden leg”—, a Berlin-based war veteran, who after losing his leg to a bullet-wound in the Napoleonic war, “cured the ills that fighting flesh is heir to by applications of wood and steel, and leather and whalebone and cork, all so elaborately made and so perfectly simulating nature's handy-work, that his reputation, amateur though he was, surpassed that of the first professors of the day” (254). After Von Holtzbein’s daughter gets engaged to a fellow veteran’s son, the prosthesis maker breaks off the engagement because of an off-hand comment made by the young suitor regarding the inferiority of prosthetic limbs to their organic equivalents. Only after the suitor has an accident himself—resulting in amputation and the chartable offering of an artificial leg by Von Holtzbein—is the relationship between father and son-in-law-to-be restored. Herr Doppelschank, the suitor, is thus only enabled to marry the successful prosthetist’s daughter (thus raising his status and, presumably, his finances) once he is himself adorned with a prosthetic limb. While the tone of Smith’s “tale of adventure” is obviously ironic, what is significant is that at no point are inorganic-looking prostheses privileged over human legs. Indeed, Von Holtzbein’s legs are described as being so impressive exactly because they “so perfectly simulat[e] nature's handy-work” (254). In this sense, then, while the author light-heartedly champions the durability of wood as a replacement for “elastic flesh and sinew” (248), he resists advocating a prosthetic device that looks mechanical or inhuman. The tale is therefore comical, rather than radical. The artificial limb is suggested to be more durable and resilient than the organic, but quietly nature’s design goes unquestioned. While the author is happy to mock the material flaws of the organic leg and also the supposed ingeniousness of contemporary artificial legs, he nonetheless privileges the appearance of the natural limb. This restraint reflects a wider Victorian acceptance of prosthetic technology on the condition that it resembles human form and masks the disability of its user. Indeed, as Vanessa Warne and others have identified, artificial legs (like the one displayed in the image above and those produced by Von Holtzbein) were seen as distinct from and were privileged over peg legs (worn predominantly by lower class characters such as Silas Wegg from Dickens’s <a href="http://archive.org/stream/ourmutualfriend00883gut/old/mfrnd10.txt">Our Mutual Friend</a>) in the Victorian period since they possessed superior mimetic capabilities and better disguised middle-class and aristocratic users from appearing maimed. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Smith, Charles Manby Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1854 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryan Sweet Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource An artificial left leg with a thigh socket for amputation above the knee. Photograph (circa 1920). Courtesy of <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Museum No A500465</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Gray, Frederick. Automatic Mechanism, as Applied in the Construction of Artificial Limbs, in Cases of Amputation. London, 1855. Available <a href="http://archive.org/details/automaticmechani00gray">online</a> at archive.org.</li> <li>Mihm, Stephen. “A Limb Which Shall Be Presentable In Polite Society: Prosthetic Technologies in the Nineteenth Century”. eds. Katherine Ott, David Serlin and Stephen Mihm. Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics. New York: New York University Press, 2002. 282–299. Print.</li> <li>Warne, Vanessa. “‘To Invest a Cripple with Peculiar Interest’: Artificial Legs and Upper-Class Amputees at Mid-Century”. Victorian Review 35.2 (2009): 83–100.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Medicine Mobility Prosthesis Technology https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/6844a26923c493325651cc5c81092d36.jpg e32a14f3a8b9b5826c42f05c889eab5d Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 482 Height 642 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Silas Wegg stands on his peg leg, holding a candle to examine a skeletal leg that Mr. Venus, seated, holds up for inspection. “Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus in Consultation” by Sol Eytinge. Wood engraving, Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg's was the hardest little stall of all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache to look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the tooth-ache to look at his nuts.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Of the latter commodity he had always a grim little heap, on which lay a little wooden measure which had no discernible inside, and was considered to represent the penn'orth appointed by Magna Charta.<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> Whether from too much east wind or no—it was an easterly corner--the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all as dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a close-grained, with a face carved out of very hard material, that had just as much play of expression as a watchman's rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks occurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather suggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expected—if his development received no untimely check—to be completely set up with a pair of wooden legs in about six months. . . . [Mr. Boffin approaches Wegg’s stall and opens conversation with him.] “Noddy Boffin,” said that gentleman. “Noddy. That's my name. Noddy—or Nick—Boffin. What's your name?” “Silas Wegg.—I don't,” said Mr Wegg, bestirring himself to take the same precaution as before, “I don't know why Silas, and I don't know why Wegg.”<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> “Now, Wegg,” said Mr Boffin, hugging his stick closer, “I want to make a sort of offer to you. Do you remember when you first see me?” The wooden Wegg looked at him with a meditative eye, and also with a softened air as descrying possibility of profit.<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> 'Let me think. I ain't quite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight of notice, too. Was it on a Monday morning, when the butcher-boy had been to our house for orders, and bought a ballad of me, which, being unacquainted with the tune, I run it over to him?' “Right, Wegg, right! But he bought more than one.” . . . [Boffin admits to eavesdropping on Wegg’s ballad singing to the butcher.] “I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming to it! I was going to say that when I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration amounting to haw. I thought to myself, ‘Here's a man with a wooden leg—a literary man with—’” “N—not exactly so, sir,” said Mr Wegg. “Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you want to read or to sing any one on 'em off straight, you've only to whip on your spectacles and do it!” cried Mr Boffin. “I see you at it!” “Well, sir,” returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head; “we'll say literary, then.” “‘A literary man—WITH a wooden leg—and all Print is open to him!’ That's what I thought to myself, that morning,” pursued Mr Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large an arc as his right arm could make; “‘all Print is open to him!’ And it is, ain't it?” “Why, truly, sir,” Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; “I believe you couldn't show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn't be equal to collaring and throwing.”<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a> <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> While even Wegg’s fruit displays characteristics akin to a wooden leg, this passage could also be read in context with genuine contemporary concerns regarding the adulteration of food. See Anthony S. Wohl’s “<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health1.html">Adulteration and Contamination of Food in Victorian England</a>” on The Victorian Web. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Wegg’s measurements are also woodenly rigid, and are even administered by a wooden measuring device. A “penn’orth” is a penny’s worth. For more on Victorian currency, see Marje Bloy’s “<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/currency.html">British Currency before 1971</a>” on The Victorian Web. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> While Wegg is seemingly unaware of his name’s origin, to the reader it is really quite obvious: Wegg is an elision of “wooden” and “leg”. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[4]</a> The crippled beggar was a common trope in Victorian literary and non-fiction texts. Here, Wegg sneakily alters his tone as soon as the possibility of accruing profit arises thus associating him with the often-deployed motif. As Martha Stoddard Holmes identifies, whereas “The victimized afflicted child is a figure of pure intensity and authentic pathos; the villainous begging impostor, in contrast, evokes the emotional clarity of rage, but also ambivalence of suspicion, or the conviction that pathos or ‘emotional excess’ is fakery, a coin that disabled people use to trick the nondisabled into inappropriate giving” (Fictions of Affliction 8). While Wegg does not explicitly use his afflicted state to evoke sympathy, his money-grabbing mannerisms and deceptive strategies associate him firmly with nineteenth-century cripple stereotypes. </div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[5]</a> As we learn later in the novel (to comical effect), Wegg really is no literary man at all. While orating to Boffin, he stumbles over sentences, mispronounces a number of words and surreptitiously avoids answering any questions. His lumbering, clumsy reading style could perhaps be described as . . . wooden! </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Our Mutual Friend Description An account of the resource <a href="http://archive.org/stream/ourmutualfriend00883gut/old/mfrnd10.txt">Our Mutual Friend</a>, first published in serial form from 1864–1865, is a novel that literalises George Henry Lewes’s observation that Charles Dickens’s characters are wooden puppets that are brought to life by incident (“Realism and the Art of the Novel” 98): the author uses Silas Wegg, a man who is both a peg leg user and depicted as wooden in appearance, character and action, to explore the greed-provoking influence of material culture. While it is not entirely surprising that Dickens presents Wegg as villainous, since he is physically marked as different by his disability, as Adrienne E. Gavin has suggested, the inclusion of a peg leg corresponds with an apparent obsession that the author had with lower limb prosthesis. In addition to Our Mutual Friend, wooden legs also appear in <a href="http://archive.org/stream/thepickwickpaper00580gut/580.txt">The Pickwick Papers</a>(1838), <a href="http://archive.org/stream/theoldcuriositys00700gut/700.txt">The Old Curiosity Shop</a> (1840–41), <a href="http://archive.org/stream/barnabyrudgeatal00917gut/old/rudge10.txt">Barnaby Rudge</a>(1841), <a href="http://archive.org/stream/martinchuzzlewit00968gut/old/chuzz10.txt">Martin Chuzzlewit</a> (1843–44) and <a href="http://archive.org/stream/davidcopperfield00766gut/766.txt">David Copperfield</a> (1849–50). A number of prosthesis wielding characters also appear in Household Words, a weekly magazine established and edited by the author, which ran from 27 March 1850 to 28 May 1859. These include the wooden-legged Dust scavenger Peg Dotting from “Dust; Or Ugliness Redeemed” (13 July 1850), the wooden-legged man described in an article published on New Year’s Day in 1859 (“New Year’s Day”) and the respectable amputee milliner’s daughter Mary Wigley from Sarah Smith’s short story “The Lucky Leg” (19 March 1859) to mention but a few. What each of these examples demonstrates is not only that Dickens was familiar with cultural and fictional representations of lower-limb amputees but that he was in fact preoccupied with issues relating to prosthesis use. Wegg’s use of a rudimentary peg leg can be read as symptomatic of his class status early on in the novel. Peg legs were in fact the cheapest and most basic devices available to amputees. Having been in circulation for several centuries, these devices consisted, in the commonest instances, of a hollow wooden bucket or cup (into which the stump would fit) fixed to a wooden peg that would reach the ground (in the place of a foot). For slightly more money, other adaptations could also be made to better fit the amputee’s stump: a leather sheath could be attached for improved comfort or a knee joint could be incorporated so that the peg could be bent whilst sitting-down. Despite these possible modifications, however, the peg leg was considered to be a low-end product. Since these devices were most commonly used by the working class and street beggars, they therefore became synonymous with low status and small income. Wegg’s occupation at the novel’s outset, then, as the owner of a street stall that sells ballads, fruit and other miscellanies, is intimately tied to his prosthesis use: as we learn, he is unable to secure regular employment with a nearby house, probably because of the limited physical capacities that were associated with limb-loss and prosthesis use. Like many disabled characters and prosthesis users depicted in nineteenth-century literature, Wegg is associated with a number of negative traits. What is particularly interesting in this instance though, and which can be considered a trope of Dickens’s fiction more widely, is the peculiar linkage between personal object and character that is displayed by Wegg. Specifically, in this instance, the peg leg user is portrayed as wooden (just like his leg) in nearly every respect imaginable. Examples elsewhere in Dickens’s oeuvre of characters that display characteristics that reflect the material properties of a particular object with which they are intimately associated, include Miss Murdstone from David Copperfield, who carries around a “hard steel purse”; as David recalls, “I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was” (Chapter 3). In a similar way to how prosthesis-wearing characters depicted elsewhere were said to reflect, in character, the material properties of their devices—for instance in the case of Miss Ruff in Anthony Trollope’s <a href="http://www.nineteenthcenturydisability.org/items/show/16">The Bertrams</a>, who is as cold, hard and fixed in her mannerisms as her glass eye is in material—here Wegg’s prosthesis reflects him as much as he does it. Unlike “the Oaken Lady” of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “<a href="http://archive.org/stream/drheideggersexp00hawtgoog#page/n20/mode/2up">Drowne’s Wooden Image</a>” (1844)—a wooden figure head for a boat that is so mesmerisingly mimetic an effigy that “she” is thought to have come to life when “her” original comes to town—, the aesthetic effect of Wegg’s wooden artificial part is not only blatant, but all-consuming; as we will see in the following passage, in appearance he is more wooden than the oak figure skilfully carved by the craftsman Drowne in Hawthorne’s tale. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. 1864–65. London: Everyman, 2000. Pages 48–52. Also available <a href="http://archive.org/stream/ourmutualfriend00883gut/old/mfrnd10.txt">online</a> at archive.org. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ryan Sweet Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Silas Wegg stands on his peg leg, holding a candle to examine a skeletal leg that Mr. Venus, seated, holds up for inspection. “Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus in Consultation” by Sol Eytinge. Wood engraving, 7.5 cm wide by 10.1 cm high. Illustration for Chapter 7 of Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend in the Lee & Shepard (Boston), and Charles T. Dillingham (New York) 1870 Illustrated Household Edition. Image scanned by <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/pvabio.html">Philip V. Allingham</a>. Courtesy of <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org">The Victorian Web</a>. Relation A related resource <ul><li>Gavin, Adrienne E. “<a href="http://omf.ucsc.edu/london-1865/victorian-city/wooden-legs.html">Dickens, Wegg, and Wooden Legs</a>”. Our Mutual Friend: The Scholarly Pages. Dickens Project. Santa Cruz: n.p., 1998. n. pag. Our Mutual Friend: The Scholarly Pages. Web. 18 Dec. 2012.</li> <li>Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2004.</li> <li>Lewes, George Henry. “Realism and the Art of the Novel”. Literary Criticism of George Henry Lewes. ed. Alice R. Kaminsky. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964. 94–105.</li> <li>Morgentaler, Goldie. “Dickens and the Scattered Identity of Silas Wegg.” Dickens Quarterly 22.2 (2005): 92–101.</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Charles Dickens Class Literature Mobility Novel Prosthesis Technology https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/f940507ad6ffc60de21b570554471496.jpg 0db5bb1781b1c60678f52b1fe8a25724 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. 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Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:32:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:8:"headline";s:32:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0035591 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Photograph of a Victorian hearing trumpet swathed in black fabric and lace.  https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/5c639dbba52e3fb9a04970fe57b20840.jpg 25c09d6a80556aadcfcd52b79326b57d Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. 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Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html IPTC Array a:5:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:123:"Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";s:6:"byline";s:15:"Wellcome Images";s:11:"object_name";s:32:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:8:"headline";s:32:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet";s:7:"caption";s:360:"L0035592 A Victorian ear trumpet Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk A Victorian ear trumpet swathed in black silk and lace mouning Photograph 19th century Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html";} Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This photograph of an ear trumpet swathed in black and lace is taken from the front of the device, showing the trumpet, whose copious fabric makes it look like a black pom-pom. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ear Trumpet in Mourning Description An account of the resource The ear trumpet is among the earliest hearing aid devices designed to bring sound more effectively to the ear, dating to as early as 1800 when manufacturer Frederick Charles Rein opened shop in London (later becoming F.C. Rein & Son). They came in various designs from long trumpets 16” to 19” inches in length, to collapsible trumpets that could be placed in an individual’s pocket, banjo-styles, or bell/dome types that were popular for their ability to resonate sound effectively—the greater an individual’s hearing loss, the larger the instrument was recommended for use. These hearing trumpets, however, were very conspicuous devices and drew attention to an individual’s hearing loss. In the nineteenth century, a design trend towards hearing instruments favouring concealment became popular; large devices were redesigned to be worn on the person, as part of their attire, or masked as <a title="Ear Trumpet as Furniture" href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/19thcent/index.htm" target="_blank">furniture</a>. As hearing trumpets and devices became aesthetically appealing and socially acceptable, more individuals were making use of them to improve their hearing losses. This particular nineteenth-century hearing trumpet is a unique one, designed for use during a woman’s mourning period, to blend in with her clothes, as evident by the black fabric, lace, ribbon, and earpiece wrapping the device. It was likely constructed by one of the popular hearing aid instrument makers in London—F.C. Rein & Son, or T.Hawksley, Ltd., on Oxford Street, which was established in 1869 (later Hawksley & Sons). This hearing trumpet was part of the elaborate accoutrements of Victorian mourning inspired in part by Queen Victoria’s 40-year mourning period following the death of King Albert in 1861. Lavish funerals, formal garments, black-bordered stationery, were all part of the complicated and dignified mourning period, clearly an aspect for the wealthier parts of society, though in some cases these mourning rituals may served as sources of financial anxiety and commercial exploitations (Clewell 2004). The mourning period also invoked a strict and fashionable dress code which was applied rigorously to widows, who were required to wear full black mourning for at least <a title="Victorian mourning conventions" href="https://www.msu.edu/user/beltranm/mourning/mourning.htm" target="_blank">two years</a>. Extravagance and social emulation were part of the mourning rituals for the middle-classes and were reflected in fashion magazines such as Queen or Gentlewoman that outlined dictations for refinements and mourning and even updated mourning outfits according the latest season’s fashions (Jalland 1996:301). Advice manuals such as Manners and Rules of Good Society, or Solecisms to be Avoided (London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1887) also provided clear instructions for devotion to the mourning period. It was believed that mourning clothes, fashion, furniture, or even ear trumpets were the grieving family’s way of displaying their inner feelings over the loss of a loved one. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Uknown Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jaipreet Viridi Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Photograph of a Victorian hearing trumpet swathed in black fabric and lace. Image courtesy <a title="Wellcome Images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Wellcome Library, London</a> under a Creative Commons License (<a title="wellcome images" href="http://wellcomeimages.org/" target="_blank">Museum No. A129677</a> and <a title="Wellcome Images" href="Museum%20No%20A129677" target="_blank">Museum No A129677</a>). Relation A related resource <ul><li>Science Museum “Brought to Life” exhibit: Ear Trumpet c.1850-1910. <a href="http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=92089">http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=92089</a></li> <li>Bernard Becker Library Virtual Exhibit: Deafness in Disguise: Concealed Hearing Devices of the 19th and 20th Centuries <a href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm">http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm</a></li> <li>Tammy Clewell, “Consolation Refused: Virginia Woolf, The Great War, and Modernist Mourning,” Modern Fiction Studies 50.1 (2004): 197-223.</li> <li>Jalland, Pat. Death in the Victorian Family. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.</li> <li>Rothman, Heather, “Mourning in the Victorian Era.” Web. May 2013. <a href="http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/rothman.htm">http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/rothman.htm</a></li> <li>Berger, Kenneth W. The Hearing Aid, it’s Operation and Development. Michigan, USA: National Hearing Aid Society, 1970.</li> </ul> Deafness Material Culture Prosthesis Technology https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/adb7766fb62f3e216feda263b4b1128a.jpg e3af372ce930d02ae2777afeb0ae96e9 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 846 Height 1062 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The illustration shows Want and Ignorance, a boy and a girl, standing in front of the Ghost of Christmas Present with Scrooge facing the triad in his nightcap. illustration by John Leech. 1843 Chapman and Hall edition of A Christmas Carol. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. “What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?” “Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke. “Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s such a goose, Martha!” “Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. “We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning, mother!” “Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!” “No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!” So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! “Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. “Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!” Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. “And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content. “As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.” Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs—as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby—compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> to simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. (89-92) <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A metal shelf inside a hearth. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Christmas Carol Description An account of the resource One of the most recognizable characters in Victorian fiction, “Tiny Tim” Cratchit reappears each Christmas in radioplays, television, stage, and film. Through these cultural reproductions, Tim has come to represent yuletide charity and the reductive idea that “the plight of the disabled can always be alleviated by philanthropy” (Fiedler 68)<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. However, as the short selection of the story below shows, the text of A Christmas Carol itself gives a more complicated depiction of disability than this. On one hand, the melodramatic tone—“Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!”— implies that Tim’s physical state inspires pity alone. Moreover, by way of synecdoche Tim’s identity is reduced to his non-normative body: his diminutive size and his crutch stand in for his name (Norden 190-91). In fact, Tim sees himself as a reminder of Christ’s healings, that is, of erasures of disability; that his father, Bob, reports this rather than Tim further obscures Tim’s autonomy. On the other hand, the passage also shows Tim as an active member of his community and family, taking full part in their religious and festive traditions. The narrator here not only depicts Tim’s body as bearing physical limitations, but also as using adapted and energetic mobility, as seen in his “active little crutch” (Rodas 67). <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Fiedler suggests that respect and empowerment do much more than charity and pity for people with disabilities. </div> </div> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843. Available online at <a href="http://www.archive.org/stream/1843christmascar00dickuoft#page/n7/mode/2up">http://www.archive.org/stream/1843christmascar00dickuoft#page/n7/mode/2up</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1843 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kylee-Anne Hingston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The illustration shows Want and Ignorance, a boy and a girl, standing in front of the Ghost of Christmas Present with Scrooge facing the triad in his nightcap. illustration by John Leech. 1843 Chapman and Hall edition of A Christmas Carol. Relation A related resource <ul><li> Fiedler, Leslie A. “Pity and Fear: Images of the Disabled In Literature and the Popular Arts.” Salmagundi 57 (Summer 1982): 57-69. </li> <li> Norden, Martin F. “Tiny Tim on Screen: a Disability Studies Perspective.” Dickens On Screen. Ed. John Glavin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. </li> <li> Rodas, Julia Miele. “Tiny Tim, Blind Bertha, and the Resistance of Miss Mowcher: Charles Dickens and the Uses of Disability.” Dickens Studies Annual 34 (Summer 2004): 51-97. </li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Charles Dickens Class Invalidism Literature Mobility Novel https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/5888cf22f9ad5b6e97955f9601128002.gif 91858a8d390aea4ac64eed699f295ab4 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 2914 Height 2914 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource The engraving shows Quasimodo's head emerging from Cathedral architecture, resembling a gargoyle. “Quasimodo” by Gustave Brion, engraved by Perrichon and Yon in 1836. From Notre-Dame de Paris. Oeuvres complètes illustrées. Paris: Éditions A. Michel, 1930. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1798 to 1837 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. Clopin Trouillefou, who had been a candidate [for Pope of Fools] — and God knows what intensity of ugliness his features could attain — confessed himself conquered. We shall do the same: we shall not attempt to give the reader any idea of that tetrahedron nose, of that horse-shoe mouth, of that little left eye, stubbled up with an eye-brow of carotty bristles, while the right was completely overwhelmed and buried by an enormous wen<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>; of those irregular teeth, jagged here and there like the battlements of a fortress; of that horny lip, over which one of those teeth protruded, like the tusk of an elephant; of that forked chin; and above all, of the expression, that mixture of spite, wonder, and melancholy, spread over these exquisite features. Imagine such an object, if you can. The acclamation was unanimous: the crowd rushed to the chapel. The lucky Pope of Fools was brought out in triumph, and it was not till then that surprise and admiration were at their height: what had been mistaken for a grimace was his natural visage; indeed, it might be said that his whole person was but one grimace. His prodigious head was covered with red bristles; between his shoulders rose an enormous hump, which was counterbalanced by a protuberance in front; his thighs and legs were so strangely put together, that they touched at no one point but the knees, and, seen in front, resembled two sickles jointed at the handles; his feet were immense, his hands monstrous; but, with all this deformity, there was a formidable air of strength, agility, and courage, constituting a singular exception to the eternal rule, which ordains that force, as well as beauty, shall result from harmony. He looked like a giant who had been broken in pieces and ill soldered together. When this sort of Cyclop appeared on the threshold of the chapel, motionless, squat, almost as broad as high, “the square of his base,” as a great man expresses it, the populace instantly recognized him by his coat, half red and half purple, sprinkled with silver bells, and, more especially, by the perfection of his ugliness, and cried out with one voice: “It is Quasimodo, the bell-ringer! it is Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame! Quasimodo, the one-eyed! Quasimodo the bandy-legged! Hurrah! hurrah!” The poor devil, it seems, had plenty of surnames to choose among. (43-44) *** He held the damsel, palpitating all over, hanging from his horny hands like a white drapery; but he carried her with as much care as if he was fearful of bruising or disturbing her. He felt, you would have thought, that a thing so delicate, so exquisite, so precious, was not made for such hands as his. At times he looked as though he dared not touch her even with his breath. Then, all at once, he would clasp her closely in his arms, against his angular bosom, as his treasure, as his all, as the mother of that girl would herself have done. His cyclop eye bent down upon her, shed over her a flood of tenderness, of pity, of grief, and was suddenly raised flashing lightning. At this sight the women laughed and cried; the crowd stamped with enthusiasm, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. Yes, he was beautiful — he, that orphan, that foundling, that outcast; he felt himself august and strong; he looked in the face that society from which he was banished, and from which he had made so signal a conquest; that human justice from which he had snatched its victim; those judges, those executioners, all that force of the King’s, which he, the meanest of the mean, had foiled with the force of God! (311) <h3>Notes</h3> <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A growth or tumour. </div> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Description An account of the resource One of the most well known nineteenth-century fictional representations of disability is that of Quasimodo, the deaf and disabled bell-ringer in Victor Hugo’s 1831 historical novel, Notre-Dame de Paris. The novel quickly became immensely popular, particularly in England, with multiple editions of at least three England translations being published within ten years of its first publication. The story was as equally popular in stage and operatic adaptations in England; in fact, Edward Fitzball had adapted and produced in London two different stage versions of it —Esmeralda; or, The Deformed of Notre Dame (1834) and Quasimodo; or, The Gipsey Girl of Notre Dame (1836) — before Hugo’s own theatrical adaptation, La Esmeralda (1836), hit theatres in Paris (Szwydky 471). The novel’s immense popularity demonstrates the nineteenth-century fascination with non-normative bodies that we typically associate with Victorian freak shows. However, the novel offers a complex portrayal of disability that neither simply reduces Quasimodo’s disability to a metaphor for social problems nor wholly recognizes the social source of his impediments. Ambivalently, at times the narrator solidly blames Quasimodo’s misery on his non-normative body, making such statements as “It is certain that the spirit pines in a misshapen form” (141), but at other times attributes the fault to the social environment of medieval France instead. In the two selections from Notre-Dame below, the social environment shapes the meaning of Quasimodo’s disability in two very different ways. The first selection, in which Quasimodo is elected “Pope of Fools” for making the ugliest face at the Epiphany celebrations,<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> shows how the social environment of the Carnival reads the grotesque in Quasimodo’s body. The second, however, in which Quasimodo has just rescued the heroine Esmeralda from execution by the King’s men, shows how the altered social environment interprets his body as sublime. <div> <div> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Epiphany, a Christian feast day celebrated on January 6, marks the visit of the Wise Men to the infant Jesus. </div> </div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. 1831. Trans. Frederic Shoberl. Standard Novels No. 32. London: Richard Bentley, 1833. Available online at <a href="http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7104667M/The_hunchback_of_Notre-Dame">http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7104667M/The_hunchback_of_Notre-Dame</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1831 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kylee-Anne Hingston Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The engraving shows Quasimodo's head emerging from Cathedral architecture, resembling a gargoyle. “Quasimodo” by Gustave Brion, engraved by Perrichon and Yon in 1836. From Notre-Dame de Paris. Oeuvres complètes illustrées. Paris: Éditions A. Michel, 1930. Relation A related resource <ul><li>Duncan, Ian. “We Were Never Human: Monstrous Forms of Nineteenth-Century Fiction.” Victorian Transformations. Ed. Bianca Trednnick. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2011. 7-27. Print.</li> <li>Joshua, Essaka. “The Drifting Language Of Architectural Accessibility In Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame De Paris.” Disability Studies Quarterly 31.3 (2011): http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1677/1594. 14 May 2012. Web.</li> <li>Szwydky, Lissette Lopez. “Victor Hugo's Notre‐Dame de Paris on the Nineteenth‐Century London Stage.” European Romantic Review 21.4 (2010): 469-487. Online.</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hugo, Victor Cognition Literature Novel Orthopaedic Disability Victor Hugo https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/ea019bebb812fe65cf46b36fad62cbd0.jpg 654299b0def81008b9dbf1775e08ea46 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 3434 Height 5086 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource Webster’s Otaphone, a silver device curved to match the shape of the ear and painted beige to match the wearer's skin tone.  This first photograph shows a close up of a decorative dragon on the device. Courtesy of The Central Institute for the Deaf-Max A. Goldstein Historic Devices for Hearing Collection.  <a title="Becker Medical Images" href="http://beckerimages.wustl.edu/" target="_blank">Becker Medical Library</a>, Washington University School of Medicine. https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/808e54ac4d99502ef72d5ddba9802d31.jpeg 04613381a854ac3c238ee769ab6ec2a4 Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 512 Height 452 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This photograph shows Webster's Otaphone, a curved hearing aid manufactured in silver but painted to conceal the device. The beige paint has chipped with time. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1798 to 1837 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. [Webster's Otaphone] supports the depressed parts of the auricle, and thereby conveying more vibrations to the inner ear, derives its name from [ota] the ear, and [phone] sound. It is formed of pure silver, doubly gilt, which, taking the exact shape of the back of the ear, when supported in its most capacious form, spreads as it were a sail for the collection of sonorous impressions. A small hook, projecting over the top of the ear from behind, is the only part that can be seen on looking at the face, and the hair is generally so profuse on the temples as to hide it altogether. The Otaphones have this advantage over spectacles, that while the latter add an expression of age to the countenance, the former, by restoring a more youthful figure to the head, increases its intellectual character. The invention was first suggested by observing persons at church, and other large assemblies, supporting the ear with the hand; which induced the author to consider whether the same advantage might not be obtained by means less troublesome and unsightly. His own experience, and subsequent experiments in which he was assisted by his friends, soon convinced him of the correctness of his inductions; since which the Otaphones have been worn in both Houses of Parliament, on the Bench in the three divisions of the empire, at places of Public Worship, and Theatres, and every public arena. The principle on which they act is so nature, as to be almost instinctive. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Webster’s Otaphone, a Patented Hearing Aid Description An account of the resource UK patent <a title="Patent Link in Google Books" href="http://books.google.de/books?id=B9JTAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&dq=webster+otaphone&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vhONUf6kJ8fVtQa_oIFA&ved=0CC4Q6wEwAA#v=onepage&q=webster%20otaphone&f=false" target="_blank">#7033</a>, dated 17 March 1836, is the earliest British patent for a hearing aid device, granted to the aurist (19th century term for ear specialist) Alphonso William Webster, for his “curious” invention, the Otaphone (sometimes spelled “Otophone”). In his publication, <a title="Google Books Link" href="http://books.google.de/books?id=OEAEAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=webster+a+new+and+familiar+treatise+on+the+structure+of+the+ear&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9BCNUaiwKIjitQbkyoC4Bw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false%20" target="_blank">A New and Familiar Treatise on the Structure of the Ear, and On Deafness </a>(London: published by the author, sold by Simpkin & Marshall, 1836), Webster outlines he was first devised his invention by observing the common practice of cupping the hand to the back of the ear to enhance hearing. He wondered whether the practice could be obtained by “means less troublesome and unsightly” (132). Webster’s Otaphone is constructed of pure silver, painted the beige to match the skin of the wearer, and shaped into a curve to be placed in the back of the ear. A small hook secures the device on the ear. The design allows the auricle (the external part of the ear) to be projected forward to collect sound waves, much as if the wearer was cupping the ear. Webster further adds that the warmth created by the close contact of the metal with the skin could also stimulate the acuity of hearing (Goldstein 343). Though the Otaphone might appear as a “fanciful and fallacious” idea, Webster actually applied theories of the ear and sound conduction that was available to him during the 1830s. This particular version dates to 1860 and is part of The Central Institute for the Deaf-Max A. Goldstein Historic Devices for Hearing Collection (<a title="Becker Collection" href="http://beckerimages.wustl.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15793coll3/id/3787/rec/1" target="_blank">Item VC703086</a>). At the underside of the device, the words “WEBSTER’S R PATENT” and a dragonhead are inscribed. Curiously, there is little information about the dragonhead mark. It is highly likely that the inscription was the mark of the manufacturer, as an identification mark, rather than a decorative item applied by the wearer. The beige paint has been chipped from time and perhaps wear. The Otaphone would likely have been worn by individuals with mild hearing loss who did not want to make their deafness widely known—the design of the device allowed it to be easily concealed in the hair or camouflaged by a hat. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource A. W. Webster Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Webster, A.W. A New and Familiar Treatise on the Structure of the Ear, and On Deafness. London: published by the author, sold by Simpkin & Marshall, 1836, p.132. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jaipreet Virdi-Dhesi Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Two photographs of Webster’s Otaphone, a silver device curved to match the shape of the ear and painted beige to match the wearer's skin tone. The first photograph shows a close up of a dragon, the second shows the whole device, whose beige paint has chipped with time. Courtesy of The Central Institute for the Deaf-Max A. Goldstein Historic Devices for Hearing Collection. <a title="Becker Medical Images" href="http://beckerimages.wustl.edu/" target="_blank">Becker Medical Library</a>, Washington University School of Medicine. Relation A related resource <ul><li> Bernard Becker Library Virtual Exhibit: Deafness in Disguise: Concealed Hearing Devices of the 19th and 20th Centuries <a href="http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm">http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/did/index.htm</a> </li> <li> Berger, Kenneth W. The Hearing Aid, it’s Operation and Development. Michigan, USA: National Hearing Aid Society, 1970. </li> <li> Goldstein, Max A. Problems of the Deaf. St. Louis: The Laryngoscope Press, 1933. </li> <li> Koelkebeck, Mary Lou, Collen Detjen, and Donald R. Calvert, Historic Devices for Hearing: The CID-Goldstein Collection. St. Louise: The Central Institute for the Deaf, 1984. </li> </ul> Advertisement Deafness Prosthesis Technology https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/145eea89916fbad772e9418fb8ae923f.jpg ecb1ed3f15257f9d554a70913a4d24b1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource "It was a sight to see, a deed to record." Black and white illustration of Slope bending over Signora Neroni, who lies on her invalid couch. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1837 to 1860 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. She had fallen, she said, in ascending a ruin, and had fatally injured the sinews of her knee; so fatally, that when she stood she lost eight inches of her accustomed height; so fatally that when she assayed to move, she could only drag herself painfully along, with protruded hip and extended foot in a manner less graceful than that of a hunchback. She had consequently made up her mind, once and for ever, that she would never stand, and never attempt to move herself. Stories were not slow to follow her, averring that she had been cruelly ill-used by Neroni, and that to his violence she owed her accident. Be that as it may, little had been said about her husband, but that little had made it clearly intelligible to the family that Signor Neroni was to be seen and heard of no more. […] Madeline Neroni, though forced to give up all motion in the world, had no attention whatever of giving up the world itself. The beauty of her face was uninjured, and that beauty was of a peculiar kind. Her copious brown hair was worn in Grecian bandeaux<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> round her head, displaying as much as possible of her forehead and cheeks. Her forehead, though rather low, was very beautiful from its perfect contour and pearly whiteness. Her eyes were long and large, and marvelously bright; might I venture to say, bright as Lucifer’s<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>, I should perhaps best express the depth of their brilliancy. They were dreadful eyes to look at, such as would absolutely deter any man of quiet mind and easy spirit from attempting a passage of arms with such foes. There was talent in them, and the fire of passion and the play of wit, but there was no love. Cruelty was there instead, and courage, a desire of masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief. And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were long and perfect, and the long steady unabashed gaze, with which she would look into the face of her admirer, fascinated while it frightened him. She was a basilisk<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> from whom an ardent lover of beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth and teeth and chin and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than they had been at eighteen. What wonder that with such charms still glowing in her face, and with such deformity destroying her figure, she should resolve to be seen, but only to be seen reclining on a sofa. Her resolve had not been carried out without difficulty. She had still frequented the opera at Milan; she had still been seen occasionally in the saloons of the noblesse<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a>; she had caused herself to be carried in and out from her carriage, and that in such a manner as in no wise to disturb her charms, disarrange her dress, or expose her deformities. (75-76) <h3>Notes</h3> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> A bandeaux refers to a narrow band of ribbon worn around the head, as a kind of headdress. Especially popular in Regency fashion, the ribbon could be made from a variety of materials, such as velvet or silk, and might be worn both formally and informally. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> Lucifer is the name given to the rebellious archangel who falls from heaven and becomes known as Satan. Here Trollope plays on the notion of the Signora’s literal and figurative “fall” from beauty and grace. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[3]</a> Ancient writers describe the basilisk as a reptilian creature with a loud, frightening hiss and fatal breath. Like Medusa, the basilisk’s very look had the power to destroy its viewer. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[4]</a> Of noble birth or rank. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Barchester Towers Description An account of the resource Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers (1857), the second novel in his “Chronicles of Barsetshire” series, details the public ecclesiastic conflicts between the newly powerful Evangelicals of the Church and the reigning Tory conservatives. However, the private realm of the novel’s accompanying domestic plot offers a fascinating depiction of a physically disabled woman who captivates men with her beauty and sensuality. Signora Madeline Neroni, Trollope’s crippled seductress, forms a stark contrast to Trollope’s chaste and comparatively dull heroine, Eleanor Bold. As with many disabled women in nineteenth century novels, Madeline’s physical defect is linked to her transgressive sexuality—a physical manifestation of dubious morality. Her legs are irreparably damaged as a result of the violence of a husband who has abandoned her, and the novel seems to frame the injury as due punishment for succumbing to pre-marital sex. Like the many disabled female figures of sexual excess Martha Stoddard Holmes describes, Madeline functions only as a catalyst to the able-bodied heroine’s romance plot before disappearing from view in order to alleviate the anxiety her body generates. Yet, as modern feminist critics note, the spectacle of Madeline’s damaged body makes Trollope’s text a key site for tracing historical links between domestic abuse, sexuality, and disability. As Kate Lawson suggests, Madeline “keep[s] the image of the maimed body before us, the tantalizing yet repellent reminder of a—perhaps–grotesque act of domestic violence. Her disfigurement is both a source of continual fascination, of curiousity, and…repulsion” (57). Trollope describes Madeline’s defective body in shocking detail, making the reality of her damaged body visible for the reader. Yet, paradoxically, her meticulous construction of herself as beautiful, elaborately adorned, and sexually desirable depends upon her careful concealment of her crippled limbs. This consistent tension between grotesque display and mysterious veiling haunts Madeline’s character throughout the novel. Suzanne Rintoul notes that her “always only partially visible disability marks a break-down in representation and interpretation for those who work to circumscribe their identities through her abnormal body,” arguing that this “indecipherability” exposes the flaws of the community that surrounds her (7). Ultimately, the spectacle of the Signora’s body, always simultaneously hidden and revealed, invites a complex reading of female disability, agency, and the politics of display, as well as the notion of the mutilated woman’s body as evidence of unspoken violence between men and women. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Trollope, Anthony Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1857 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Melina Moore Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource "It was a sight to see, a deed to record." Black and white illustration of Slope bending over Signora Neroni, who lies on her invalid couch. Illustrated by Hugh M. Eaton (New York: the Century Co, 1902): 252. Image courtesy<a title="Wikimedia Barchester Towers" href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barchester_Towers"> Wikimedia Commons</a> under a Creative Commons license. Relation A related resource <ul><li> Holmes, Martha Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture, The Corporealities Series (Ann Arbour: U of Michigan P, 2004). </li> <li> Lawson, Kate. “Abject and Defiled: Signora Neroni’s Body and the Question of Domestic Violence in Barchester Towers,” Victorian Review 21:1 (1995) 53-68. </li> <li> Rintoul, Suzanne. “The Mysterious Woman and Her Legs: Scrutinizing the Disabled Body in Barchester Towers,” Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 7.1 (2011). Available <a href="http://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue71/rintoul.htm">online.</a> </li> </ul> Anthony Trollope Gender Invalidism Literature Mobility Novel https://nineteenthcenturydisability.org/files/original/ff3ff4b6d69ad75c393097ccbd3e94cb.jpg 0db76012c44426486226dec3a696c6ec Omeka Image File The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files. Width 337 Height 549 Bit Depth 8 Channels 3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Description An account of the resource This black and white photograph shows <a title="Wikipedia for Elizabeth Gilbert" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Margaretta_Maria_Gilbert" target="_blank">Elizabeth Gilbert</a> wearing a cape and shaded glasses.  From the Frontispiece of the book Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, Frances Martin, 1887 [available at <a href="http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493">http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493</a>]  Elizabeth Gilbert, the founder of the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, lost her sight in early childhood as a result of scarlet fever. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1860 to 1880 Description An account of the resource Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. I was walking along a rather lonely road, humming a tune to myself – a most indefensible habit, which I only name as it accounted for my being suddenly stopped by a civil voice – “Ma’am, if you please” I turned, and now first noticed a young man who had just passed me by, stepping out quickly and decisively, with a stick in his hand and a bundle on his shoulder. “Ma’am, if you please, would you direct me to …?” naming a gentleman’s house close by, which I was proceeding to point out to him, when I perceived he had no eyes. It was a well-featured and highly intelligent countenance, with that peculiarly peaceful expression that one often sees on the faces of the blind; but of his calamity there could be no doubt: the eyes, as I said, were gone: the eyelids closed tightly over nothing.<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a> Yet his step was firm, and his general appearance so active and bright, that a careless passenger would scarcely have detected that he was blind. Of course I went back with him to the door he named – in spite of his polite protestations that there was not the least necessity – “he could find it easily” – how, Heaven knows: also, I had the curiosity to lies in wait a few minutes, until I watched him come cheerily out, shoulder his big bundle, plant his stick on the ground and walk briskly back – whistling a lively tune, and marching as fast and fearlessly as though he saw every step of the road. “Have you done your business?” My friend started, but immediately recognised the voice. “Oh yes thank you, Ma’am. I’m all right. Very much obliged. Good Morning.” He recommenced his stopped tune, and pursued his way with such determined independence, that I felt as if more notice of him would be taking an unwarrantable liberty with his misfortune. But his cheerful face quite haunted me, and I speculated for a long time what ‘business’ he could be about, and how he dared trust himself alone, in the great wilderness of London and its environs, with no guide except his stick. At last I remembered he might be one of the ‘travellers’ belonging to an institution I had heard of (and the foundress of which, by coincidence, I was going that day to meet) – the ‘Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind.’<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> <h2>Notes</h2> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[1]</a> Sealing the eyelids over the sockets suggests this man may have lost his eyesight as a result of an ophthalmic infection which caused the eyeballs to rupture. See Mary Wilson Carpenter, Health, Medicine and Society in Victorian England (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2010): 128-148 for further information on blindness. <a title="" href="#_ftnref">[2]</a> The Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind continues today under the name ‘Clarity’. A video clip, made by Clarity, to celebrate the 200-year anniversary of Charles Dickens is available at <a href="http://www.claritymatters.org/blog/charles-dickens-and-clarity/">www.claritymatters.org/blog/charles-dickens-and-clarity/</a>. Here Clarity staff members discuss Dickens’ essay and the degree to which things have changed or remained the same since the nineteenth century. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Blind! Description An account of the resource When Dinah Mulock Craik, the author of John Halifax, Gentleman and The Little Lame Prince, wrote her essay, ‘Blind’, about the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, in 1861, she was engaging in an active discussion about the education of the visually impaired in the mid-nineteenth-century. Charles Dickens had written an essay in 1859 entitled ‘At Work in the Dark’ and Craik’s friend and flatmate, Francis Martin, published another in 1864 for Cornhill Magazine entitled ‘Blind Workers and Blind Helpers’. Each essay promotes the valuable work of the association, in providing education and retraining for the visually impaired, and explains how readers can help and support the association, and by extension the people who work there, through the purchase of brushes, baskets and mats etc made by the pupils and workers at the association. In the following extract, which opens Craik’s essay, we are told of a chance encounter between a sighted person (Craik) and a young visually impaired man. Craik portrays the man as being at ease and confident in his movement and remarks on his firm step and active appearance, walking as if he ‘saw every step of the road’. Whilst Craik presents a more personal encounter with the man than Dickens does in his essay, nineteenth-century attitudes to blindness are evident. Craik expresses surprise at the man’s ability to walk through the city independently, a common view as it was widely believed that the blind were incapable of living productive lives and were often treated as children in need of protection. Craik’s insistence that she accompany the man to the door, despite his protestations, reveals how the sighted struggled to understand how the blind could manage without their help. The extract also highlights the way in which the blind were seen as a curiosity or spectacle by the sighted as Craik lies in wait, virtually spying on the man, in order to observe how he found his way without assistance. In addition to this we can see how blindness was considered to be a tragedy or ‘misfortune’ as the face of the young man continued to ‘haunt’ Craik long after their meeting has ended. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dinah Craik   Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dinah Mulock Craik, The Unkind Word and Other Stories, Volume II (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1870): 1-12.  Available at: <a href="http://archive.org/stream/unkindwordothers02crai#page/n7/mode/2up">http://archive.org/stream/unkindwordothers02crai#page/n7/mode/2up</a>  Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1861 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Theresa Miller Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This black and white photograph shows <a title="Wikipedia for Elizabeth Gilbert" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Margaretta_Maria_Gilbert" target="_blank">Elizabeth Gilbert</a> wearing a cape and shaded glasses.  From the Frontispiece of the book Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, Frances Martin, 1887 [available at <a href="http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493">http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493</a>]  Elizabeth Gilbert, the founder of the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, lost her sight in early childhood as a result of scarlet fever. Relation A related resource <ul> <li>Carpenter, Mary Wilson. Health, Medicine and Society in Victorian England. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger, 2010. </li> <li>Frances Martin, Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, 1887. Available at: <a href="http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493">http://archive.org/details/cu31924031232493</a></li> <li>Stoddard Holmes, Martha.  Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009 [2004].</li> </ul> Language A language of the resource English Blindness Dinah Mulock Craik Institutions Journalism life writing