Disability Activism: Reframing Mental Disability in Nineteenth Century American and British Literature and Culture

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Abstract

There is evidence of disability activism present in nineteenth-century British and American literature that reflects a culture far more supportive of disability than is commonly understood, what with the preponderance of ableist narratives in the literary canon. I employ close readings of original texts, literary criticism, historical research, and modern studies to draw out the significance of disability representation in texts from the late eighteenth century through the Victorian era. Texts include poetry by Charlotte Smith and Paul Laurence Dunbar, as well as novels by Catharine Sedgwick, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontё, and Wilkie Collins. Studying disability activism in nineteenth-century literature reveals the historical heritage of the disability rights movement, therefore demonstrating how people have always resisted the hegemonic enforcement of normalization.

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