No Right to Be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1840s–1930s

by Sarah F. Rose

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Americans with all sorts of disabilities came to be labeled as "unproductive citizens." Before that, disabled people had contributed as they were able in homes, on farms, and in the wage labor market, reflecting the fact that Americans had long viewed productivity as a spectrum that varied by age, gender, and ability. But as Sarah F. Rose explains in No Right to Be Idle , a perfect storm of public policies, shifting family structures, and economic changes effectively barred workers with disabilities from mainstream workplaces and simultaneously cast disabled people as morally questionable dependents in need of permanent rehabilitation to achieve "self-care" and "self-support."

By tracing the experiences of policymakers, employers, reformers, and disabled people caught up in this epochal transition, Rose masterfully integrates disability history and labor history. She shows how people with disabilities lost access to paid work and the status of "worker--a shift that relegated them and their families to poverty and second-class economic and social citizenship. This has vast consequences for debates about disability, work, poverty, and welfare in the century to come.

Genres: Disability, History, Nonfiction, Disability Studies, Research, Mental Health, Sociology

398 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2017

Reviews

[Francesca Calarco · Rating 3 out of 5]

True to its title, No Right to Be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1840s-1930s by Sarah F. Rose, researches and details exactly what it sets out to describe. Centering on the history of disability in the United States, this work follows how different economic and industrial movements impacted, directly or indirectly, the ability of people with disabilities to find and maintain employment.

Very interesting was the passage on the complicated nature of worker’s compensation and how it’s introduction inadvertently hurt people with preexisting disabilities. Also fascinating (and disturbing) is how veterans have been systematically disenfranchised even they got their disability in service to the country. African American veterans in particular were completely frozen out of opportunity.

Furthermore, intention and impact of policy did not always overlap in execution. Furthermore, this is an area where personal acts of “charity” or the openness of individual employers to hire disabled workers, really did not move the needle on the whole for disabled Americans in general. Good efforts should not be frowned on, but this is simply one of those areas where large structural change is what’s needed.

Overall, this is a great resource if you are interested in the topic.

Rating: 3.5 stars

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

HHistorian Sarah F. Rose’s monograph, No Right To Be Idle, 1840s-1930s, is an economic history of disability in the United States during that time period. Rose’s central argument is that during that time period, people with disabilities went from being a vital part of the economic makeup of the United States to becoming essentially not a large part of the American economy from the 1910s to the passage of the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 have only started to address the large-scale exclusion of people with disabilities from the workforce (Rose 226). In the 1840s, the economic unit of the United States was the family, so people with disabilities were seen as helpful members of the workforce within their capacity to work within the family (Rose 15). Between the 1840s and the 1870s, the rise of the urban economy with wage labor changed the economic value of people with disabilities because the family unit became less important as an economic unit (Rose 10). There were many other factors involved in the exclusion of people with disabilities in the United States from the workforce as well. Before reading this monograph, I had never thought of the economic history of disability in the United States, but I found this angle to be an interesting angle from which to view the history of disability.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have bee about 75 pages shorter if the author would just stop repeating what they said two pages earlier.

[sube · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well-written history of disability in the USA, specifically of how people with impairments because a distinct class of 'disabled' workers who were expelled from the labour market. She grounds this in the fact that a) the transition from farming to industrial mechanized labour made it far more important for workers to have intact bodies & removed the agency of farmers to use their relatives to supplement workers, b) shrinking households made financing their relatives more complicated and c) workers' compensation laws for injuries incentivised companies to screen out workers more prone to do injuries, i.e. disabled workers. Relying on the sources and literature at hand, it is a very interesting book.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed, very academic. I think this was originally the author's doctoral dissertation. (Which would explain why over a third of the content is extensive endnotes.)

Fantastic content that made me experience emotions ranging from grief to rage. If I laughed at all, it was bitterly.

Not something I'd recommend to casual readers, but if this is an area of interest or if you're a researcher, I highly recommend it.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent look at a critical period in disability history

[Jason DeLillo]

Very Good Book. I must reread it sense my notes are more extensive than my memory of it.