Lead blog post for
Industrialization and Disabilities
Hello all, I hope you had a
fabulous Halloween and a good reading. This weeks reading of Sarah Rose’s
chapter interesting touched on the intersectionality of disability and the role
it had in shaping the occupational status of thousands. However, for this week, I would like to
focus on the prominent effect the economy and legal system had on determining the value of a disabled worker.
The ability to work has always been seen as a
socially and economically significant factor in determining one’s social status
and self-sufficiency; independence and power has always been directly related
to one’s ability to labor. The Market Revolution, primed off of the idea of
productivity and efficiency, continued the trend of workability into the later
19th century and early 20th of the Industrial Revolution.
Rose breaks her chapter into three
main sections regarding disabled individual's position in the work place: disabled
people ability to work, the industrial company's paradigm shift, and Ford Motors rejection
of the status quo.
As an aside, I would like to point out one thing in the introduction. Rose
makes an interesting claim referring to “a spectrum of productivity,” which she argues all
workers are apart of over the course of their working career (2). What I find
intriguing about this idea of work fluidity is that one’s position on the
productivity graph is constantly fluctuating depending, theoretically, on his or her physical ability. People's productivity constantly changes, altering their value to society.
Focusing on the first section of her chapter, the main claim centers around the idea that disabled
people “continued to work after becoming disabled” (9). While many jobs at the time commonly resulted in work related injuries, those disabled often desired to return to their job in order to achieve economic
independence and were successful in doing so, which closed the social barrier
between normalcy and being a “cripple.” Although disabled people were not seen
completely as incapable, they were never completely seen as normal. Looking
back at previous readings, we understand that disabilities were common and
detrimental – among African American, Women, and Immigrants – to marginalized
groups, which often contributed to society’s predetermination of their work
ability. Therefore, regardless of previous social status, a person would always
be reduced to “a significantly lower standard of living” after becoming
disabled (12). While they were still given jobs, the disability effectively
devalued their skills forcing them into lower paying jobs often requiring less skill
because “companies assumed that disabled workers could do little” (15).
The
preconceptions that disability is inferior resulted in a conflict
between employers and employees over the rehiring and pay wages for people disabled caused by a work "accident." In order to avoid lawsuits,
company’s rehired them, but placed them in rudimentary and useless jobs as a
“charity or pension” to help (15). Once again, the common theme
of giving, helping, and donating to the worthy poor resurfaces as the
abled-bodies supported the dependent “crippled,” which creates or strengthens
the physical hierarchy in society, stigmatizing them all as unproductive and
less efficient.
This idea
of charity and lawsuits perfectly transitions into Rose’s second section
regarding the exclusion of disabled workers and the societal paradigm shift away from viewing disabled people as viable work options. While given lower pay and seen as inferior,
disabled people were still capable of working and were fairly integrated within
their communities, as a disability was an “expected aspect of working-class
life” (21). However, with the industrialization of machines and desire for
efficiency, disabled persons became seen/deemed as inefficient and
“unproductive citizens” (22). The legal system and policies regarding factories
heavily contributed to this mindset; workmen compensation laws and safety
regulations persuaded employers to reject disabled workers. Interestingly,
companies began using physical exams as a way to justify the exclusion of
disabled people. The combination of laws and Capitalism’s progression towards
“efficiency” once again marginalized disabled people from the work force.
It was a result of society’s mindset placing disabled people in the doghouse, for
disabled people did not all of a sudden become incapable of working when the 20th
century came rolling around. Disabled people didn’t change; society and its
regulations did.
However,
Rose ends the chapter offering Ford Motor Company as a deviation from the norm,
which resulted in a very prosperous company. Instead of simply deeming disabled
able people as inferior, Ford believed that if disabled people were situated in
the correct positions, they could be as “productive and efficient as their
able-bodied counterparts” and avoid safety hazards and lawsuits at the same
time (31). He held both able bodied and non-abled bodied person to the same
expectations. Adjusting the jobs and not the personnel seemed to be the
solution for the Ford Company. Due to this mindset, Ford did not view it as
charity, for he viewed disabled people as efficient and productive eliminating the social barrier between t the two. He created a work environment where disability was not seen as different but as normal, which similar to Martha's Vineyard enabled disabled people to be successful because they were not looked down upon by others. Proving the point that when treated as "normal," disabled people can be equally productive as non-disabled people.
Capitalism
and the drive for efficiency, effectively, marginalized disabled people from
the work force. However, I would argue that even with the desire for profit and
productivity, the main cause for the exclusion was the policies and legal
reforms created by unionized protest attempting to protect workers from abuse. I
believe the worker unions, while strengthening legal protection for the able
body workers, detracted and harmed disabled people's ability to work. Unions,
Capitalism, and machinery all contributed to the stigmatization and exclusion of
disabled people from the working force during the industrialization period in
America.
Capitalism is the economic system for maximum prosperity by
eliminating the weak and allowing the most successful to rise. Companies viewed
abled-bodies as the best way to achieve productivity.
Interesting enough, while history is often depicted as a movement towards progress, in reality, disability history seemingly has gone backwards. While the present is suppose to be better than the past, in reality, the discrepancy between the two has, in fact, worsened.
Here is a short article outlining the role disability had
during the English Industrial Revolution from 1780 to 1830 ish.
Essential Question for the week:
1.
While much of what we have read focuses on the
disabled people ability to act “normal,” what is the relationship between
economic stability and normalcy? Can a disabled person ever, theoretically, be
free of stereotypes or economic dependency?
2.
It seems that the movement towards helping one
group often results in the harming of another; is there a connection between
abled bodied people and disabled bodied people? In the work place? In the legal
system?
3.
While in all of our reading the common theme
that disabled people, when seen as “normal” (in the Vineyard, in schools, and
in the workplace), have thrived, what about society changes that environment?
4. The industrial revolution in both
American and England are strikingly similar. Are the Industrial Revolutions
responsible for the work disparities or are the revolutions results to common
ideological beliefs we have previous looked at?
5.
Does the idea of a “spectrum of productivity”
hold true today even with the increase of desk and office jobs?
I would like to respond to Kyle’s question regarding the ability of disabled people to transcend societal and economic barriers to success. While Kyle presents the question in a generalized sense, I intend to respond more specifically within the context of the Rose document.
ReplyDeleteThroughout much of the reading, Rose cites many examples of the difficulty newly disabled workers faced in reintegrating into the workforce. In addition to many other challenges, these workers often lost high paying jobs in specialized fields, only able to find employment in low-skill jobs with insufficient wages which in many cases were only given as charity (15, 16, 26-27). However, in some instances, as Rose notes, disabled people were able to overcome discriminatory practices and conceptions exerted upon them and recovered or even surpassed former economic success. From this group of individuals, I would like to focus upon the cases of a man only described as a former cabinet maker, David Chapman, and David Moylan.
The cabinet maker, “who had lost his right arm above the elbow at age 23” and “suffered from inflammation of the kidneys,” established a saloon “ though he disliked [the] type of business” (18). It is also important to note that though he disliked his occupation, his “work seemed [the] only opening” (18). Similarly, David Chapman, who, “having lost the use of a hand in a work related accident,” “developed a safer paint remover,” achieved great success as he “ successfully marketed it to Wanamaker’s and other stores” (10). David Moylan, “a dual-arm amputee,” while not engaging in entrepreneurial pursuits, nevertheless “learned to hold a pen in his teeth” and “attended law school, graduating seventh in a class of two hundred” (21).
All of these individuals demonstrate exceptional success especially within the context of their peers and exemplify the heights disabled people could achieve in this time period. However, the nature of their success may only serve to emphasize rather than minimize the difficulties disabled people faced. While the cabinet maker certainly transferred from one profitable trade to another, his assertion that he both disliked it and felt that his occupation was the only one available demonstrates the limited variety of professions that disabled people could be successful in. Additionally, for both the cabinet maker and David Chapman, entrepreneurial ventures offered their primary route to success, yet this requirement of independence only indicates the necessity for disabled people to depart from the labor system as a whole in order to achieve prosperity. David Chapman’s brilliance and ingenuity in creating his own paint remover suggests that disabled people had to possess some additional cleverness or genius that non-disabled people lacked in order to reach sufficiency. Last, the requirement for David Moylan to learn to write with his teeth demonstrates the demand for additional skill, mirroring David Chapman. The difficultly apparent in reaching these achievements only serves to magnify those challenges omnipresent in the life of the disabled worker. To answer Kyle’s question, examples within the Rose reading suggest that in order to transcend stereotypes and discriminatory practices, disabled people must possess some skill that non-disabled people lack or retreat from the oppressive structures entirely (though the ability for this departure to occur remains undetermined especially because of the omnipresence of structures that are not necessarily confined to employment).
Hello everybody. This week, I will discuss Kyle’s essential questions concerning the Industrial Revolution and modern-day productivity.
ReplyDeleteFirst, in response to the question concerning the role of an Industrial revolution in the redefining of an “able bodied worker,” I believe that the new way of evaluating a human leads to a new way of identifying disablement. Just as “disabling injuries were an expected… aspect of working-class life,” so too were employees expected to be nonchalant about them (3). This casual way of viewing serious injury gave way to a mutual understanding between employers and employees that injured workers would still be given work after recovery. Thus, disability was not as big of an issue in the late 19th/early 20th century.
However, when the once-held paradigm of disablement as a fact of life collapsed, a vacuum of work followed. With unions now only backing able-bodied workers, many once-productive people found themselves without work. “’The slight disability of a missing finger from a badge of honor and a sign of experience’ was transformed into ‘a bar to continued employment’” writes Sara Rose (24). A new definition of efficiency now signified a new ideal worker—one who was without disablement. While the Ford Motor Company was an exception, the overwhelming majority of corporations followed this new model of working efficiency.
Extending this paradigm for the next 90 years, in contemporary society this bias still exists. While desk jobs discount the physical differences of many disablements, the concept of a different efficiency level is still prominent. Many employers view a disabled person as one who cannot keep up with the demands of the workplace. However, this belief is mostly socially constructed. At its heart, the idea of productivity positively correlating with physical ability became popular as a result of the heavy industries’ adaptation of it. Thus, in order to recognize this flawed way of thinking, we as a society must look to the past for evidence of our flaws.
The Rose article lends valuable insight to this point, and notes an example of an outlier. While Henry Ford had many bad character traits, I believe that his inclusion of disabled people was incredibly advanced for his time, and was characteristic of Fords extreme efficiency. In addition, this article connects easily to last week’s reading on citizenship. That immigration officers denied entrance to disabled immigrants also corresponds to employers denying work to disabled workers.
*Anybody in AP Literature, look at the article Dr. Hickman gave us for homework (“What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?”) and think of how disability can work in somebody’s favor. It’s an interesting perspective.
I would like to focus on Kyle’s first question concerning economic and social barriers.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Patrick’s post was particularly intriguing. I think that the instances of success are an important narrative to look at, but at the same time these examples tie in to one of the concepts we discussed in the first week. To an extent, these narratives may be the narratives of “overcoming” that the social model of disability challenges. That being said, I think Patrick is correct when he claims that, at least in the context of getting a job in the Industrial Revolution, "disabled people must possess some skill that non-disabled people lack or retreat from the oppressive structures entirely.” I also think that those narratives of skill are important to recognize.
The Rose chapter focuses on how businesses adopted a mindset that disabled people were not good workers. While the Ford Motor Company avoided this assumption, Ford “stood alone among large industrial concerns in willingly hiring disabled job applicants and finding means of making them profitable employees” (41). Thus economic dependency is difficult to achieve if companies won’t hire. So, when Kyle asks "Can a disabled person ever, theoretically, be free of stereotypes or economic dependency?,” the answer in this case lies upon the actions of the companies.
(side note: after writing this, I considered what the role is of current organizations in fighting for disabled workers rights. I found this Facebook page, which is for the NAIDW (National Association of Injured & Disabled Workers https://www.facebook.com/naidw/)
This analysis supports the thesis of the social model of disability: that disability or the problems associated with it are constructed by a society that is prejudiced against any form of ability not perceived as “normal.” Furthermore, the social model interpretation can be supported by the fact that Ford Motor Company progressed as a business while accommodating and hiring workers (and, perhaps most importantly, giving them equal wages). For example, by striving to find safe workplaces for workers with disabilities the Ford Motor Company saved money by “reducing accidents and payouts of workman’s compensation” (35). Furthermore, "the two salvage programs produced profits of over $3,200 per week” (36). Thus the Ford business model benefitted both the company and its disabled workers, disproving the assumption that disabled workers were undesirable.
One other thing I noticed was how this reading connected to the Carson article from last week. Rose explains that “companies instituted physical examinations” (24). I think it is interesting that the subject of testing and how that testing relates to occupation are so common in disability history.
Thank you for the reading!
Will
I want to address the topic of how efficiency implicated disabled individuals by posing them as inefficient. Something that I found particularly interesting within Rose’s work was the discussion of Henry Ford when compared to the rest of the industry. Rose elucidates how, “Ford’s belief that disabled workers could continue to be productive derived in large part from his understanding of mechanization. While other industrial employers assumed that mechanization required workers with intact bodies, Ford understood that machinery could actually expand the potential of human labor by making work easier and more specialized” (36). This point emphasizes Ford’s understanding of the industry and efficiency because Ford recognized that the assembly line required more specialization and thus, disabled workers could be better integrated into their positions because they did not have to perform a litany of jobs, just one specific job repetitively.
ReplyDeleteRose supplements this argument with a number of examples of disabled workers who worked for Ford. For example, a blind man was given the job of counting bolts and nuts for shipment to branch establishment, because this job did not require sight (30). In fact, the Ford Motor Company screenings were used to place disabled workers in “jobs appropriate for their physical capabilities” (32). In addition, Ford workers were paid the same amount as able-bodied workers, which demonstrates that Ford’s thinking to increase efficiency did not marginalize disabled individuals, and instead integrated them into the workforce. Not only did this benefit the workers, but it also benefited the company as a whole. Rose explains how they workers were placed where they wouldn’t incur more injuries, which also benefitted the company “by reducing accidents and payouts of workmen’s compensation” (35). Thus, Ford’s model was one that demonstrated how efficiency and reducing stigma against disabled individuals were not mutually exclusive.
Of course, many other companies did not adopt this trend. A large reason why other industries and companies viewed the disabled as inefficient is that workers were treated as tools in a machine. Rose explains, “employers began to demand workers with intact fully functional bodies….who could themselves serve as interchangeable parts” (2). However, something that was not discussed in this excerpt that I wish was addressed is the question of integration into efficiency. While Ford was able to integrate many disabled people into the workforce, this integration did not question the underlying presumption that integration into the workforce was beneficial. In the same way that marginalized groups in the last reading did not question that disability was a basis for exclusion, none of the companies listed in the Rose document questioned the presumption that to be integrated was positive.
Kyle’s third question draws upon an interesting observation about how social environments created by society dictate norms. Much like how in previous readings, certain disabled groups managed to find liberation from oppressive societal norms and gain agency (in the Vineyard area or in schools for the Deaf), Rose illustrates how Ford relied on principles that both challenged and entrenched societal notions of disability. Though one could easily see Ford solely progressive, his motivations for hiring disabled people aligned with the overall transition to making the American economy “mechanized and dependent on piecework as the idea of efficiency became even more popular” (21). Rose emphasizes how major mechanized corporations used this view to justify their exclusion of disabled people from the workspace. She highlights how disabled people represented “inefficiency and unproductivity,” and seemed a clear obstacle for maximizing production potential (22). This environment along with workmen’s compensation laws demanded fully functional bodies rather than those with injuries or “worn out” (28). These economic conditions of thriving capitalism along with social conditions of striving for efficiency cemented the exclusion of disabled people. The interplay of laws meant to help abled-bodied individuals find work yet produced significant consequences for disabled individuals not only by pushing them out of the workplace but also by lending credibility to a system that labeled abled-bodied individuals as more useful. This observation answers Kyle’s second question about how abled-bodied laws and workplace standards produced greater stigma for disabled individuals.
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding the employer mindset in the midst of intense capitalist expansion proves significant when observing Ford’s both conformity to and deviation from these values. Ford saw potential in hiring disabled individuals and viewed them as capable of living productively. For example, unlike how many corporations used categorization of disability and diagnosis to justify exclusion of disabled people, Ford’s company used screenings to ensure that they ended up in the most optimal positions that allowed for the greatest productivity while minimizing the risk of injury (32). Instead of earning inferior wages for completing unsuitable tasks, disabled people earned equal pay and received Ford’s genuine interest (44). Yet, as in past readings, one must recognize how abled-bodied interest in the fate of disabled people often still depended on abled-bodied principles of rehabilitation and normalization. Ford similarly relies on the desire to transform disabled people into productive citizens (40). His sentiments reflect the complexity of disability in a time obsessed with efficiency. It seems that in these economic circumstances, disabled individuals cared more about the chance to work in Ford’s company and escape menial tasks than they did about resisting acts of incorporation.
A frequent theme in disability history regards the idea of disabled people as incapable of working and thus deviant from societal norms. This relationship offers the groundwork for numerous instances of exclusion and oppression. The desire for pure productivity provides justifications for exclusion in society as people are portrayed as deficient in some manner.
ReplyDeleteRose cites the change in wages of people who suffered some sort of accident that disabled them while working. Initially she cites many instances in which people returned to earning the same amount of money they had made prior to their accident, but she acknowledges that “More often, though, permanent injury precluded a return to one’s prior job and resulted in a significantly lower standard of living” (12). Employers frequently feared that a disabled employee would be less efficient than an able bodied worker. Rose goes on to argue that the able bodied “workers…could be used as interchangeable parts” (22). Rose aptly represents workers as commodities who are only valued for their productive work. In the systems of capitalism workers are solely portrayed as a means to an end of production, devaluing their humanity. The rise of assembly lines also meant that there was nearly no expertise needed in these production lines so that people only needed to act as these “interchangeable parts.”
These further developing conceptions of workers as cogs in a machine lead to the exclusion and persecution of disabled workers. Rose indicates that the idea of disabled workers as ineffective or deficient started with the railroad companies, and later spread to other work forces. Interestingly, Rose cites “minor disabilities such as the loss of a finger” (22) in these contexts as opposed to the major disabilities such as amputations she cites elsewhere in the chapter. Rose argues that “railroads – were the first to associate disabled people with inefficiency and unproductivity” (22), which led me to wonder about conceptions of disabled workers prior to industrialization. Disabled people were generally seen as inefficient or defective as they could not perform manual labor like farming as discussed in a few of our previous discussions. Thus it is important to note the types of disabilities that Rose focuses on for this part of her argument. When viewing the notion of efficiency and productivity we have to notice the extent of a disability and the different implications of said disability instead of homogenizing people into the all encompassing label of “disabled.”
In the last portion of her chapter, Rose notes Henry Ford as a notable exception to this viewing of disabled people as ineffective workers. For the most part, “Disabled people continued to work, although often in unskilled positions and at lower wages” (21). Ford realized the folly of this and instead “argued… to place disabled people in the proper positions” in order to increase their productivity (31). Still relying on the ideal of productivity, Ford deviated from the cultural norm of excluding or avoiding disabled workers and instead realized that they served as an ample work force. Choosing to place people in different jobs based on their disability, Ford fostered an effective and productive work environment without excluding disabled populations, revealing the potential for economic stability. Due to the large portion of disabled workers in his factories, at points “more than eighteen percent” of employees, and the equal payment for disabled and able-bodied workers, Ford created an environment that did not depict disabled workers as abnormal. Thus when disabled people had the potential for equal productive worth, they would be considered “normal” or “acceptable” in the society.
A fascinating portion of this discussion of normalcy and productivity relates to the idea of people who became disabled as a result of working in factories or other dangerous environments. Rose cites numerous examples of people who were injured while working and argues “workers moved up and down a spectrum of productivity during the course of their lives” (2). Here we see disability as a fluid identity as people can become disabled from an accident and recover from these accidents meaning that people would transition between the two identities. This rejected static notions of identity and framed disability as a non-permanent identity marker.
DeleteI'm answering the third question "While in all of our reading the common theme that disabled people, when seen as “normal” (in the Vineyard, in schools, and in the workplace), have thrived, what about society changes that environment?" Ford's style of assembly line mechanization created an understanding of productivity that did not tend to exclude the disabled as much from the sphere of economic productivity. In the places cited in Kyle's question like the vineyard the disabled people there were able to dictate the "rules" for their society based on a mutual need for a certain norm. The same concept holds true for "the schools" Kyle cited which I must assume applies to the schools for the deaf in the readings from the readings regarding deafness and deaf culture. Both of these are examples where people understand disability as a culture defined in its own right. I think it is important to understand why the way people understand disability in the American Industrial age is much different than that. Kyle equates these two things but I would argue that they are completely different. As many people have already talked about in their posts Ford treated workers with disabilities as a group of people who, given the factory was willing to make an accommodation, were able to participate into the economic sphere. Rose cites different examples of Ford creating accommodations for workers such as giving people with Tuberculosis special jobs to not inflame their lungs in the factory (35).
ReplyDeleteThis evidence exemplifies the point that Ford's attitude toward disability is not similar to deaf culture. Rose points out on page thirty-nine that Ford did not take the position he did about disabled workers because he was vehemently against the exclusion of the disabled but because he disliked inefficiency. While Ford's action were seemingly positive for the disabled there is definitely an argument to be made for the fact that Ford's integration of disabled people into his factories stemmed from an unabashed willingness to take any worker that had the capacity to meet a standard of production efficiency.
Which is why I disagree with the sentiment in Kyle's post that Ford wanted to break down boundaries between disabled and non-disabled workers. The statement is too extreme and also not supported by the article. While the chapter does say that Ford was willing to modify the way his factories worked in order to have a larger amount of people to recruit workers from. The way Ford conceived of disabled workers while it seems progressive actually retrenched the medical model of disability. The staff at Ford even went as far to say that assigning a person to a certain job could stabilize them and cure them of their disability. Which is the epitome of the medical model of disability.
Hello all I will be answering Kyle’s question, “ While much of what we have read focuses on the disabled people ability to act “normal,” what is the relationship between economic stability and normalcy? Can a disabled person ever, theoretically, be free of stereotypes or economic dependency?”
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I will address Kyle’s statement about disabled people’s ability to act normal. I felt that Rose set up the point that before mechanization “disabling injuries were...expected” (3) if not a “part of the job” (4). This sets up the argument that before mechanization disabilities were an accepted affliction to the common work man. She goes even farther by suggesting injuries might have been a positive indicator of “experience” and “good judgement” (3). Another reason for disability or loss in efficiency was the “wearing out” had on people as they aged. Steel workers told that they “would not be able to work... past the age of 40 or 50” (6), so therefore there would be generation after generation of workers who by being worn out by the job had contracted disabling injuries. These examples presented by Rose show that disability was very normalized before mechanization.
Second of all I will address the part of his question that asks, “what is the relationship between economic stability and normalcy?” I will include in the focus of this question what Kyle brings up later the ability of the disabled to achieve “economic dependency” because I felt that Rose connected the two. Rose states that “the key to social standing” was “the ability to be self-supporting” (3), so therefore we can see if that if the disabled were able to support themselves then they would be able to maintain higher social statuses. Rose’s main example of the disabled being able to be self sufficient is by being employed by the Ford Motor Company, which hired those disabled “back at full wages” (43). Ford also held the belief that “no person shall be discharged... because he is physically unable to do his work” (33). By having these two policies Ford allowed those who were disabled to have equal opportunity as those who were able bodied, and as a result have equal ability to support their families as those who were able bodied. Rose also presented many examples of those from other companies on pages 9-11 who were able to keep their jobs and wages and even possibly “improve on [] [their] pre-injury social standing” (11) as Richard Mayberry did. Professional circles proved also to offer the opportunity to the disabled to achieve equal opportunity like Lacy Simms was able to. Other possible responses to keep the ability to support themselves were to turn to self employment like Elias Jones, the man referred to as the Italian, and the Irish widow becoming successful members of society who were self supporting. However, Rose illuminates how harmful this chance to self-employment was to “the entire household’s economy” (19). She points out that the “family capacity” (19) was essential for the disabled to reach this point of self-sufficiency. Also she shows that most “companies provided ill-paid” (16) jobs to those who were disabled just to “avoid lawsuits” (16). Even though they were still rehired these worse paying jobs “significantly lower the standard of living” (12) for the disabled workers. Rose summarizes this idea by saying disabling injuries “deskilled workers” (13) “bar[ring] a worker from his... trade” (13).
Third I will address the final part of Kyle’s question “Can a disabled person ever, theoretically, be free of stereotypes?” I feel like they can only if all jobs are adapted so that they would be able to efficiently be done by the “disabled”. I feel like many will answer that merely including the disabled in the economic system like Ford did and not just paying them wages because the able-bodied feel they are “in desperate need of charity” (9) led in the direction of freeing the disabled of stereotypes; however, I feel like Ford’s system of giving them specialised jobs still contributed to stereotypes of the disabled. My example for this is how many companies gave jobs to certain races based on racialized beliefs on abilities by certain races, such as the ability of African Americans to “withstand searing temperatures” (9). I feel like a similar effect could be reversed in the way that if those who were disabled worked certain jobs then stereotypes could be formed from the jobs they worked.
DeleteThank you,
Jack Scaife
I would like to discuss Kyle’s question about what societal changes create an environment where disabled people are viewed and treated as normal. I believe there are two necessary factors in creating this environment: a large disabled population and an emphasis on efficiency. In Martha’s Vineyard, the town population was largely deaf, causing the culture to adapt to fit its diverse population. Since Martha’s Vineyard is a port town, and its commerce was dependent upon its ports, clear communication between sailors and port men was vital for both safety and efficiency. Deafness was not seen as a disability; in fact, not being proficient in sign language was thought to be more of a disability than deafness itself, because it hindered clear communication between port men and sailors. Additionally, the success of Deaf schools was dependent on these two factors. The concentrated population of deaf people led to increased productivity in learning. Additionally, although these schools were in some ways the beginnings of Deaf culture, they were started with the goal to help deaf people become more efficient and productive in society. Finally, disability in the workplace from 1880-1920 was defined by these two factors. Due to the high possibility of machines to physically injure its workers, disability, especially physical disability, saw a stark incline during the Industrial Revolution. The amount of disabled citizens also increased after WWI because of an influx of wounded and disabled veterans. This increase of disability in the overall population of America, accompanied by the cultures emphasis on efficiency, prompted both positive and negative responses towards disabled persons. In other words, disability in the workforce had to be addressed because of the increasingly large population of disabled people. However, unlike in Martha’s Vineyard and Deaf schools, in this scenario, the problem of efficiency resulted in both positive and negative rulings for disabled people. I predict this occurred because the large disabled population was a part of a population immensely larger than that of Martha’s Vineyard or the Deaf schools; the growing disabled population was “concentrated” within an entire country. This truth resulted in the establishment of different ideas and treatment surrounding efficiency in relation to disability. For example, the workmen’s compensation laws, the safety first movement, and the overall association of disability with “inefficiency and unproductivity,” was completely opposite of Ford’s perspective and treatment of disability in the workforce (22). In contrast, Ford believed with “creative use of mechanization and physical examination to place disabled people in the proper positions, workers with disabilities could be as productive and efficient as their able-bodied counterparts” (31). In conclusion, disability is only considered (or discussed as possibly being) normal when there is a large disabled population and when the idea of efficiency, in a community, culture, or workforce, is held at the highest level of importance.
ReplyDeleteI would like to address Kyle's third question, as I think that it has created an interesting thread of discussion. Emily, Jaden, and Maddie have all had very interesting analysis on this question. However, I think a lot of their analysis becomes too pessimistic. The common thread that they all identify is that Ford's incorporation of disabled people into the workforce only served to retrench the existing able-bodied power structures. I will argue, like I have in the past, that this interpretation is too reductionist and fails to appreciate the true benefits of Ford's actions.
ReplyDeleteOne argument that they all make is that Ford's actions failed to challenge the notion of productivity. I think that this claim fails to capture the nuances of Ford's philosophy behind "productivity." Rose cites Ford as stating: "Life has taught me that adults... want to be doing something... I believe in the kind of charity that helps a man to help himself. Give him a decent job with a living wage and he won't need charity" (41-42). Ford's attempt to create the productive citizen cannot be reduced to a solely economic purpose. If that were the case, then Ford would not have provided the disabled workers with wages that equalled those of his able-bodied workers (33). If my peer's claims were true, Ford would have attempted to minimize the salary of the disabled workers, as that would economically be the most logical course of action. Furthermore, this claim ignores the fact that one justification for Ford's actions emerged out of his "sincere interest in disabled people themselves, as well as the challenges that they faced in finding employment" (44). To suggest that Ford's actions were purely based in economic benefits ignores Ford's genuine concerns for the disabled population. Ford recognized that society was set up to exclude the disabled individual, and he developed relations with these individuals such that he cared for them on a personal level. Therefore, to reduce his actions to a sole attempt and acquiring profit ignores the personal, compassionate aspects of Ford's actions.
Another claim that my peers make is that Ford's actions failed to challenge the notion of inclusion. However, I think that Ford's actions explicitly address the prevailing idea of inclusion. Given the large-scale assumptions about disabled workers, Rose indicates throughout the article that companies often excluded disabled people from the workforce because of their perceived "ineffectiveness." Ford, on the other hand, recognized that the nature of mechanization allowed for more focused jobs; thus, Ford was able to come up with "creative use of mechanization and physical examinations to place disabled people in the proper positions" (36, 31). The fact that Ford attempted to create new jobs demonstrates a refusal of traditional conceptions of inclusion. Rather than try and force disabled people to fulfill existing jobs, Ford developed new forms of labor geared toward the disabled individual. Therefore, his actions were not an attempt to include disabled people into the workforce, but rather shaped the workforce around the needs of the disabled individuals.
ReplyDeleteFinally, my peers argue that Ford's actions fail to address the medical model of disability. While Ford's actions may not have been perfect, his actions definitely challenged the medical model. The thesis of the medical model relies on an idea that there is a disability that can be cured and that the disability emerges from a biological ailment. Ford's actions, as demonstrated by the evidence in the above paragraph, transformed the factory into a place that tried to fulfill the needs of disabled people, rather than disabled people being forced into a pre-determined workplace. Instead, Ford recognized the way in which traditional forms of factory work excluded disabled people from participating in economic development, and he sought new methods to reform the workplace such that "workers with disabilities could be as productive and efficient as their able-bodied counterparts" (31). This effort to change the factory demonstrates a recognition of the way in which social institutions shape disability; therefore, Ford's actions undermine the medical model in favor of the social model of disability.
As I have stated in my previous blog posts, we cannot allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. I cannot stress this idea enough. The goal of disability studies is not to create a utopian world in which all inequalities and social hierarchies cease to exist. Instead, as students engaging in disability studies, we ought to recognize the benefits of actions from people like Ford. Rather than denouncing every positive action for its failure to upset the entire system, we must recognize that these actions definitely provided a better world for disabled individuals.