Woeful afflictions
Subtitle: disability and sentimentality in Victorian America
By: Mary Klages.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 250
Subjects: People with disabilities -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; People with disabilities -- United States -- Public opinion.; People with disabilities in mass media -- History.; People with disabilities in literature -- History and criticism.; Public opinion -- United States.
Description: Unique in its focus on blindness and its examination of the interplay between institutional discourse and popular literature, Woeful Afflictions offers a detailed historical analysis of the types of cultural work performed by sentimental representations of disability in public reports and lectures, exhibitions, novels, stories, poems, autobiographical writings, and popular media portrayals in the United States from the 1830s through the 1890s.

This book will interest anyone concerned with disability studies and the social construction of the body, with the history of education and of public institutional care in the United States, and with autobiographical writings.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-241) and index.