Slaves, Immigrants, and Suffragists: The Uses of Disability in Citizenship Debates

Author(s): Douglas Baynton

Source: PMLA, Vol. 120, No. 2 (Mar., 2005), pp. 562-567
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486185 .
Accessed: 16/09/2013 02:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to PMLA.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:06:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
562 Conference on Disability Studies and the University PMLA

Slaves, Immigrants, and

Suffragists:The Uses of Disability used to justify other forms of unequal rela
inCitizenship Debates tions between white and black Americans.
One of themost common arguments for slav

DOUGLAS BAYNTON erywas simply that the intelligence ofAfrican

Americans was
impaired to such an extent
University of Iowa
that they were unable to live in freedom on
an equal basis with white Americans. Doctors
warned that education of African Americans
Inan article published nearly two de
came "at the expense of the body, shorten
cades ago, Joan Scott discussed the difficulty
of persuading historians to take gender seri ing the existence" and resulting in bodies
"dwarfed or destroyed" by the unnatural ex
ously. A common response towomen's history
ertion (Van Evrie 121, 181, 221).1 An article
was that "women had a history separate from
on the "diseases and physical peculiarities of
mens, therefore let feminists do women's his
the negro race" in the New Orleans Medical
tory,which need not concern us," or "my un
and Surgical Journal explained that it is the
derstanding of the French Revolution is not
"defective hematosis, or atmospherization of
changed by knowing thatwomen participated
the blood, conjoined with a deficiency of ce
in it."Despite the substantial number ofworks
rebral matter in the cranium, and an excess
on women's history, the topic remained mar
of nervous matter distributed to the organs
women
ginal in the discipline. Simply adding
to history, Scott argued, while necessary and of sensation and assimilation, that is the true
cause ofthat debasement ofmind, which has
important, would not be sufficient to change
the paradigms of the profession. To accom rendered the people of Africa unable to take
care of themselves" (Cartwright 693).
plish that, feminists had to demonstrate that
A second line of disability argument was
gender was "a constitutive element of social
that African Americans, because of their in
relationships" and "a primary way of signify
herent and mental weaknesses, were
ing relationships of power" (1055,1067). physical

I argue that disability is likewise a consti
tutive element of social relationships. That is to
say,not only are disabled people significant ac
tors in history, but the concept of disability has
functioned rhetorically to structure thought
about social hierarchies in general. Iwant to
make that argument by talking briefly about
prone to become disabled under conditions
of freedom and equality. Samuel Cartwright,
in 1851, described two types ofmental illness
towhich African Americans were especially
a
susceptible. The firstwas "drapetomania,"
condition that caused slaves to run away, "as
much a disease of themind as any other spe

each of the three great citizenship debates of the cies of mental alienation." It apparently was
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Afri common among slaves whose masters had

can American freedom and civil rights,wom "made too familiar with them,
themselves
en's suffrage, and immigration restriction. treating them as equals." The second was dys
...
arguments were prominent aesthesia a "mental disease ac
Disability aethiopis,
or lesions of
in justifications for slavery in the nineteenth companied with physical signs
century and, after the demise of slavery,were the body," a symptom of which was a strong

A longer version of this essay appears as "Disability and the Justification of Inequality inAmerican History," in The New Disability

History: American Perspectives, ed. Paul Longmore and Lauri Umansky (New York: New York UP, 2001) 33-57.

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:06:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

desire to avoid work and cause mischief.
cause was similarly a lack of firm governance
and was therefore nearly universal among
free blacks as well as a "common occurrence
on badly-governed plantations." Cartwright
explained that the need of African Ameri
cans to submit to a master was evident in "the
physical structure of his knees, being more
flexed or bent, than any other kind of man"
(707-10).2 John C. Calhoun, senator from
South Carolina and one of themost
tial spokesmen for the slave states, argued in
defense of slavery that the "number of deaf
and dumb, blind, idiots, and insane, of the
negroes in the States that have changed the
ancient relation between the races"
times higher than in the slave states (337).
Physicians were still claiming at the turn
of the century that African Americans were
disabled by freedom and therefore in need
of greater oversight. An article in theNorth
Carolina Medical Journal inquired whether
"the effect of freedom upon the mental and
physical health of the negroes of the South"
had been "damaging." It concluded that there
were "more congenital defects" and a dra
matic increase inmental illness and tubercu
supposedly had been rare among
losis, which
enslaved African Americans. Freedom, for
which theAfrican American's weak mind and
frail constitution were ill suited, had brought
to the former slave a "harvest ofmental and
physical degeneration and he is now becom
ing a martyr to an heredity thus established"
(Miller 286, 289, 290). To justify slavery, it
was sufficient to claim that free blacks were
more likely to be disabled. The contention
had to be countered, and no
argument
other grounds could trump it.Writing in op
position to slavery in theNew York Journal
ofMedicine in 1844, for example, one doctor
responded to this argument by maintaining
that iffree blacks in theNorth did experience
more disability than slaves, the cause
might
instead be the climate. "The whole constitu
tion of the black is adapted to a tropical re
This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:06:44 AM
i 2 o . 2 Conference on Disability Studies and the University 563
Its gion," he wrote, and their health was there
fore bound to suffer in the northern climate
(Forry 313). He understood that to effectively
oppose slavery, he had to produce an alterna
tive explanation for the supposedly higher
rates of disability among free blacks. The no
tion that a people might be enslaved to protect
them from disability he did not question.
During the long-running debate over
influen women's suffrage in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, one of the rhetorical tac
tics of suffrage opponents was to point to the
physical, intellectual, and psychological flaws
of women?their frailty, irrationality, and
was seven emotional instability. Paralleling the argu
ments made in defense of slavery, two types of
disability arguments were used: thatwomen
have disabilities thatmake them incapable of
using the franchise responsibly and that, be
cause of their frailty,women would become
disabled if exposed
to the rigors of political
participation. The American antisuffragist
Grace Goodwin, for example, spoke of the
"great temperamental disabilities" with which
women had to contend: "woman lacks endur
ance in
things
mental.... She lacks nervous
stability" (91-92). The second
line of argu
ment is identified most closely with Edward
Clarke, author o? Sex inEducation; or,A Fair
Chance for Girls. Clarke's line of reasoning
chiefly concerned education but was often ap
plied to suffrage as well. He maintained that
overuse of the brain among young women
was responsible for the "numberless
pale,
weak, neuralgic, dyspeptic, hysterical, men
orraghic, dysmenorrhoeic girls and women"
on ofAmerica with "bloodless female faces, that
suggest consumption, scrofula, anemia, and
neuralgia" (18, 22). An appropriate educa
tion designed forwomen's frail constitutions
would ensure "a future secure from neuralgia,
uterine disease, hysteria, and other
derange
ments of the nervous system" (62).
Similarly,William Warren Potter, address
ing theMedical Society of New York in 1891,
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
564 Conferenceon DisabilityStudiesand theUniversity PMLA
suggested thatmany a woman was incapaci
tated formotherhood by inappropriate edu
cation: "her reproductive organs are dwarfed,
deformed, weakened, and diseased, by artificial
causes imposed upon her during theirdevelop
ment" (48). A. Lapthorn Smith asserted inPop
ular ScienceMonthly that educated women were
increasingly "sick and sufferingbeforemarriage
and are physically disabled from performing
a
physiological functions in normal manner"
(149). A prominent late-nineteenth-century
neurophysiologist, Charles L. Dana, estimated
that enfranchising women would result in a
twenty-fivepercent increase in insanity among
them and "throw into the electorate a mass of
voters of delicate nervous stability ... which
might do injury to itselfwithout promoting the
community's good" (qtd. inCamhi 18).3
Disability figured not just in arguments
against the equality ofwomen and minorities
but also in feminist arguments for equality. In
stead of challenging the notion that disability
justified political inequality, like antislavery
writers feminists maintained thatwomen did
not have the disabilities attributed to them and
therefore deserved the rights of citizenship.
was
Suffrage rhetoric repletewith references to
the intelligence and abilities ofwomen, coun
tering the imputations of female inferiority.
Although more common later in the century,
this form of argument was already in evidence
in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights
Convention. Delegates there resolved that "the
equality of human rights results necessarily
from the fact of the identity of the race in ca
pabilities and responsibilities" and further that
"being invested by the Creator with the
same
capabilities... it is demonstrably the right and
duty ofwoman" to participate in public politi
s
cal life (Woman Rights 4).
Suffragists turned the rhetorical power
of the disability argument to their own uses,
charging thatwomen were being erroneously
and slanderously classed with disabled people
who were legitimately denied suffrage. Suf
frage posters depicted thoughtful-looking
This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:06:44 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
women surrounded by slope-browed, wild
eyed men identified implicitly or explicitly
as "idiots" and "lunatics," with captions that
read, "Women and her Political Peers" (Tick
ner, illus. 4), or "It's time I got out of this
place. Where shall I find the key?" (Sheppard
30). The suffrage supporter George William
Curtis, speaking before a New York conven
tion in 1867, demanded to know why women
should be classed with "idiots, lunatics, per
sons under guardianship and felons" (qtd.
in Stanton, Anthony, and Gage 288), and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1869 turned to the
same rhetorical device when she objected that
women were "thrust outside the pale of politi
cal consideration with minors, paupers, luna
tics, traitors, [and] idiots" (256).
The exclusion of disabled people has long
been one of the fundamental imperatives of
American immigration policy. The firstmajor
federal immigration law, the 1882 Act to Reg
ulate Immigration, prohibited entry to any
"lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take
care of himself or herself without becoming a
public charge." Those placed in the categories
or "idiot" were automatically ex
"lunatic"
cluded. The "public charge" provision was in
tended to encompass people with disabilities
more generally and was left to the examining
officer's discretion. The criteria for excluding
disabledpeople were steadily tightened over
the next four decades, as the eugenics move
ment and popular fears about the decline of
the national stock gathered strength. The Im
migration Act of 1891 replaced the phrase
"unable to take care of himself or herself with
out becoming a public charge" with "likely to
become a public charge" (emphasis added).
The Immigration Act of 1907 denied entry to
anyone judged "mentally or physically defec
tive, such mental or physical defect being of
a nature which may affect the ability of such
alien to earn a living" (emphasis added).
In 1917, regulations formedical inspec
tors directed them to exclude persons with

"anymental abnormality whatever" and listed
diseases and physical disabilities that could
be cause for exclusion. Among them were
thritis, asthma, bunions, deafness, deformi
ties, flat feet, heart disease, hernia, hysteria,
poor eyesight, poor physical development,
spinal curvature, vascular disease of the
heart, and varicose veins (United States, Pub
licHealth Service 28-29). In short, the exclu
sion of disabled people was central to the laws
and the work of the immigration service. By
1907, the commissioner general of immigra
tion proclaimed that "the exclusion from this
country of themorally, mentally, and physi
cally deficient is the principal object to be ac
complished by the immigration laws" (United
States, Bureau of Immigration 8).
Once the laws and procedures restrict
ing the entry of disabled people were firmly
established, attention turned to restricting
the entry of undesirable ethnic groups, and
for this task the concept of disability was a
powerful tool. In 1924, a quota system was
instituted that severely limited the numbers
of immigrants from southern and eastern Eu
rope. Behind this law lay decades ofwarnings
from superintendents of institutions, philan
thropists, immigration reformers, and poli
ticians that immigrants from these nations
were disproportionately prone to congenital
defects (Trent 166-69). A rhetoric of "defec
tive races" was an essential element
figuring the image of the inferior immigrant.
References to "the slow-witted Slav," the "neu
rotic condition of our Jewish immigrants,"
and the "degenerate and psychopathic types,
which are so conspicuous and numerous
among the immigrants" were pervasive in the
debate over restriction (Grayson 103,107-09).
The earlier laws forbidding entry to defec
tives were motivated in part by the desire to
limit immigration from inferior nations and
were used to target particular ethnic groups.
According to Jewish organizations, for ex
ample, the diagnosis of "poor physique" was
used particularly against Jewish immigrants
This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:06:44 AM
i 2 o . 2 Conference on Disability Studies and the University 565
(Sanders). Conversely, itwas assumed that
the 1924 quota law would reduce the number
ar of defective immigrants. As one sociologist
noted, "the physiognomy of certain groups
unmistakably proclaims inferiority of type."
Among new immigrants whom he observed
landing at Ellis Island, "in every face there
was something wrong." Italians were "dwarf
ish," Portuguese, Greeks, and Syrians were
"undersized," and Jews were "very poor in
... the
physique polar opposite of our pioneer
breed" (Ross 285-90). The issues of ethnicity
and disability were so intertwined in the im
migration debate as to be inseparable.
The attribution of disease or disability
to oppressed groups has a long history. Yet
while many have pointed out the injustice of
this, few have asked why these attributions are
such powerful tools for inequality, why they
are so
furiously denied and condemned by
their targets, and what this tells us about our
attitudes toward disability. When historians
note the uses of disability in citizenship de
bates, they focus entirely on issues of gender,
race, and ethnicity and not on the ways dis
ability is used to constitute and maintain so
cial hierarchies. For example, Daryl Michael
Scott has described how both conservatives
and liberals long used an extensive repertoire
of "damage imagery" to describe African
in con Americans. Conservatives worked "within a
biological framework and argued for the in
nate inferiority of people of African descent"
to justify inequality. Liberals maintained that
social conditions were responsible for black
inferiority and used damage imagery to argue
for rehabilitation, thereby reinforcing "the be
lief system thatmade whites feel superior in
the first place" (xi-xvii). The "contempt and
pity"?a phrase that also describes historically
prevalent attitudes toward disabled people?
of conservatives and liberals defined Ameri
cans of African descent as defective. Scott
cites Charles S. Johnson, president of Fisk
University, who in a 1928 speech complained
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
566 Conference on Disability Studies and the University PMLA

that "the sociologists classify Negroes with other forms of inequality in American his

cripples, persons with recognized physical tory have been fueled also by a pervasive and
handicaps" (208nl2). Like Johnson, Scott la deep-seated fear of defectives in the land.
ments the fact that "African Americans were
often lumped with the 'defective,' 'delinquent,'
and dependent classes" (12). This is obviously
a bad place to be "lumped." He does not ask
Notes
why thatmight be the case; to be associated 1
with disability is self-evidently discrediting. Van Evrie notes in his preface that the book was
"about the time ofMr. Lincoln's election" and
In the case of women's suffrage, Lois
completed
was therefore originally an argument in favor of the con
Magner has described how women were said tinuation of slavery but now constituted an argument for
to bear the "onerous functions of the female," its restoration.
2
which brought on a "mental disability that See also Szasz.
3
rendered women unfit" for political engage
Goodwin echoed this rhetoric, warning that the "suf
are nerve-sick women"
ment or an "active life" (119-20). fragists who dismay England (92).
Nancy 4
See also Digby 192-220.
Woloch has noted that a "major antisuffrag
ist point was that women were physically,

mentally, and emotionally incapable of duties

associated with the vote. Lacking rationality Works Cited
and sound judgment, they suffered from 'log Act to Regulate Immigration. 3 Aug. 1882. Stat. 22.214.
ical infirmity of mind.'... Unable to with Calhoun, John C. "Mr. Calhoun toMr. Pakenham." 18Apr.
1844. The Works of John C. Calhoun. Ed. Richard K.
stand the pressure of political life, theywould
Cralle. Vol. 5. New York: Appleton, 1888. 333-39.
be prone to paroxysms of hysteria" (339). Ai
Camhi, Jane Jerome. Women against Women: American
leen Kraditor has observed that antisuffrag Anti-suffragism, 1880-1920. New York: Carlson, 1994.
ists "described woman's physical constitution Cartwright, Samuel A. "Report
on the Disease and Physi

as too delicate to withstand the turbulence cal Peculiarities of the Negro Race." New Orleans
Medical and Surgical Journal 7 (1851): 691-715.
of political life. Her alleged weakness, ner
Clarke, Edward. Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for
vousness, and proneness to fainting would Girls. 1873. New York: Arno, 1972.
certainly be out of place in polling booths Digby, Anne. "Woman's Biological Straitjacket." Sexu
and party conventions"(20). While such ste ality and Subordination: Interdisciplinary Studies of

reotypes are justifiably derided, historians Gender in theNineteenth Century. Ed. Susan Mendas
and Jane Randall. New York: Routledge, 1989.
generally leave unchallenged the notion that "On the Relative Proportion of Centenar
Forry, Samuel.
weakness or a tendency to faintmight legiti
ians, of Deaf and Dumb, of Blind, and of Insane in

mately disqualify one from suffrage.4 the Races of European and African Origin." New
Historians have also scrutinized the York Journal ofMedicine and the Collateral Sciences
2 (1844): 310-20.
common attribution of mental and physi
Goodwin, Grace Duffield. Anti-suffrage: Ten Good Rea
cal inferiority to new groups of immigrants,
sons. New York: Duffield, 1913.
but only to condemn it as slander. With their Immi
Grayson, Thomas Wray. "The Effect of theModern
attention confined to racial and ethnic ste on Our Industrial Centers." Medical Problems
grant
reotypes, what this might also tell us about of Immigration. Easton: Amer. Acad. of Medicine,
1913. 103-10.
attitudes toward disabled people has gone
Higham, John. Strangers in theLand: Patterns ofAmerican
largely ignored, and prejudice against people Nativism, 1860-1925. Piscataway: Rutgers UP, 1955.
with disabilities passes unremarked. While it
Immigration Act. 3Mar. 1891. Stat. 26.1084.
is certain that immigration restriction rested Act. 20 Feb. 1907. Stat. 34.899.
Immigration
in good part on a fear of "strangers in the Kraditor, Aileen S. The Ideasof the Woman Suffrage
land," as JohnHigham described it, this and Movement. New York: Norton, 1981.

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:06:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 i 2 o . 2 Conference on Disability Studies and the University 567

Magner, Lois. "Darwinism and theWoman Question: Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. "Address to the National Woman
The Evolving Views of Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Convention, Washington, D.C., January 19, 1869."
on Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ed. The Concise History ofWoman
Critical Essays Suffrage. Ed. Mari Jo
Joanne Karpinski. New York: Hall, 1992. 115-28. Buhle and Paul Buhle. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1978.

Miller, J.F. "The Effects of Emancipation upon theMen 249-56.

tal and Physical Health of the Negro of the South." Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda
North Carolina Medical Journal 38 (1896): 285-94. Joslyn Gage, eds. History ofWoman Suffrage, Vol. 2.
Potter, William Warren. "How Should Girls Be Educated? 1881. New York: Arno, 1969.
A Public Health Problem forMothers, Educators, and S. "The Sane Slave: A Historical Note on
Szasz, Thomas
Physicians." Transactions of theMedical Society of the the Use ofMedical Diagnosis as Justificatory Rheto
State ofNew York. Albany: Medical Soc. of the State
ric." American Journal of Psychotherapy 25 (1971):
of New York, 1891.42-56.
228-39.
Ross, Edward Alsworth. The Old World and theNew: The
Tickner, Lisa. The Spectacle ofWomen: Imagery of the
to the
Significance of Past and Present Immigration 1907-14. Chicago: U of Chicago
Suffrage Campaign,
American People. New York: Century, 1914.
P, 1988.
Sanders, Leon. Letter to Surgeon General of the Public
Trent, JamesW. Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of
Health and MarineHospital. 14Nov. 1909. National
Mental Retardation in the United States. Berkeley: U
Archives, Washington. RG 90, entry 10, file 219.
of California P, 1994.
Scott, Daryl Michael. Contempt and Pity: Social Policy
United States. Bureau of Immigration. Annual Report of
and the Image of theDamaged Black Soul, 1880-1996.
the Commissioner of Immigration. Washington: GPO,
Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1997.
1907.
Scott, Joan. "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical
-. Public Health Service. Regulations Governing the
Analysis." American Historical Review 91 (1986):
Medical Inspection ofAliens. Washington: GPO, 1917.
1053-75.
Van Evrie, John H. White Supremacy and Negro Subor
Sheppard, Alice. Cartooning for Suffrage. Albuquerque: U
dination, or a Subordinate Race. New York:
of New Mexico P, 1994. Negroes
Van Evrie, 1868.
Smith, A. Lapthorn. "Higher Education ofWomen and
Race Suicide." Popular Science Monthly Mar. 1905. Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience:
Volume One: To 1920. New York: McGraw, 1994.
Rpt. inMen's Ideas I Women's Realities: Popular Sci
ence, 1870-1915. Ed. Louise Mich?le Newman. New Woman's Rights Conventions: Seneca Falls and Rochester,
York: Pergamon, 1985. 147-51. 1848. 1870. New York: Arno, 1969.

In the session "HistoricizingDisability" Katherine Ott gave a slide presenta

tion entitled "ExhibitA: Public History and Bodily Difference on Display."
Ott's work focuses on the history ofmedicine, and she curates exhibitions
and evaluates and studies objects for the collections at theNational Mu
seum ofAmerican History,Smithsonian Institution.
Ott noted that public history is about narrative?that is, the sto
ries one chooses to tell and the way one tells them. When telling stories
through an exhibition, Ott keeps many factors inmind. The museum ex
perience takes place communally, inpublic, and is inflectedby the knowl
edge of the topic that visitorsbringwith them.Ott refersto thisknowledge
as an entrance narrative. Museums tell stories throughobjects and graph
ics. Objects (or the images of objects) stimulate the senses inways that the
writtenword cannot. The physical evidence of discrimination, according to

This content downloaded from 148.206.159.132 on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 02:06:44 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions