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Rehabilitation, Eugenics, and Institutionalization Discourses: Disability in American

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Rehabilitation, Eugenics, and Institutionalization Discourses: Disability in American Rehabilitation, Eugenics, and Institutionalization Discourses: Disability in American Literature, 1893-1941 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Kristen L. Johnson Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Debra Moddelmog, Co-Advisor Dr. Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Co-Advisor Dr. Amy Shuman Copyright by Kristen L. Johnson 2015 Abstract Rehabilitation, Eugenics, and Institutionalization Discourses: Disability in American Literature, 1893-1941 explores how certain writers challenged prominent discourses--rehabilitation, eugenics, and institutionalization--in their respective literary works. Their stories create a larger intervention in understanding institutionalized discourses and practices in early twentieth century that advocated and reinforced the medical and scientific models, which viewed people with disabilities as needing to be fixed, cured, or institutionalized. Chapter 1 sets the historical contexts of the post World War I era, exploring how the trauma of war, the national economic decline, the increasing number of orthopedic surgeons, and the rise of industrialization all raised the national consciousness about persons with disabilities. It also discusses how scholars such as Rosemarie Garland- Thomson, Alice Hall and others have contributed to the understanding of disability in literature. Chapter 2 analyzes how Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun addresses the disastrous consequences of war, and how medical and military professionals, as well as society, reacted to disabled veterans. Disabled veterans were required to overcome their disabilities, to be men, and become productive members of society to avoid stigmatizing attitudes. Trumbo’s work complicates the straightforward reading of dominant cultural ii narratives by challenging national concerns about reproduction, production, and disability fostered by the Rehabilitation Movement during and after WWI. Chapter 3 examines how twentieth-century writers such as Eudora Welty, Mary Austin, William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eugene O’Neill resisted and countered the endorsement of popular eugenic ideologies and discourses that fostered the concepts of the “degenerate” female body and of impoverished domestic spaces as portrayals of “bad blood,” and the disabled child as a burden and threat to family and state. Their respective stories, through the techniques of the gaze and setting (space), illustrate how spaces can blur the lines between what is “defective” and what is normal, and that “defective” is only in the gaze—that is, only in the eyes of the beholder. Chapter 4 investigates how people with disabilities who were institutionalized resisted the dominant narratives that attempted to label and contain them, and that reinforced and reaffirmed the local community’s censure of and fears about mental disability. Stories such as Katherine Anne Porter’s Noon Wine and Jack London’s “The Drooling Ward” posit that the diagnoses of disability are too frequently inaccurate, and that normalcy and craziness are relative terms that create unnecessary social mistreatment and misjudgment. Chapter 5 concludes how the writers in chapters 2-4 successfully dispel the connection between normality and citizenship. They employ literary techniques such as the gaze and the concept of space to resist and counter dominant institutionalized discourses, and to reflect the gaps and tension in their respective works. Jessica Benjamin’s concept of “the moral third” illuminates how “the gap” can be a useful “space” for understanding the complexity by which disabled characters are represented in iii literary works. This position of the moral third allows readers to comprehend how various tensions, disparities, and interpretations can co-exist (as opposed to just seeing oppositions between able-bodied and disabled individuals and their representations). iv Dedication Dedicated to Nikai Johnson, with love v Acknowledgments I would like to thank those who have made the process of writing this dissertation a rich experience for me. I am always reminded that the work we do is never done alone, but always with the help that we receive from others. I would like to thank the English department for their generosity in providing me with the Two-Chapter Fellowship during my last semester at The Ohio State University, which allowed me to dedicate myself full-time to my dissertation work. Thank you for believing in my work and its importance. I want to thank Kathleen Griffin, who was always there for every question I had, for every problem I had to resolve. I also want to thank Mike Bierschenk for always setting time aside to work with me when the need would arise. I am convinced that Mike knows every angle to OSU there is to know. Many thanks to Dr. Eddie Singleton for his unwavering support all throughout my time at OSU. I would also like to thank my wonderful committee. I could not have asked for a better committee. Thank you, Debra, for the countless feedback and time that you have given me. Your words were always encouraging, articulate, and upbeat. I appreciate every one of your literary insights and our equal love for Katherine Anne Porter’s works. Brenda, if it were not for you believing in me from the moment I applied to OSU, I would not be where I am today. Thank you. Your mentoring and long emails will always be vi imprinted in my memory, as well as your gentle coaching for me to see the “forest” as well as the trees. Amy, you were the first to introduce me to Disability Studies, and I cannot thank you enough for guiding me down this path. I also appreciate how you brought out in me my love for studying “gaps” and how this idea helped me to finalize my dissertation. A big thanks goes to Karin and John Hooks. I know that if it had not been for you both, I would not have survived the program. John, thank you for assisting me with every computer problem I have had. Karin, you have been with me every step of the way, always rooting for me, never complaining once when I would ask for your time, feedback, proofreading, editing, and more. I cannot thank you enough for your encouragement and friendship. This dissertation is dedicated to my son, Nikai, who spent his last four years of high school without me at home. Nikai, I know this was a sacrifice on your part, and I thank you for your gentle ways, loving support, and understanding. I would also like to thank my daughter, Chelsea, for her constant thoughtfulness, insight, and support. Chelsea, you have the biggest heart I know. My final appreciation goes to Paul Jaussen who helped me get started on this path. vii Vita 1981 ....................................... B.A. Child Development, California State University, Northridge 1987 ....................................... M.A. English, California State University, Northridge 1989 ....................................... M.A. Cultural Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles 1994 ....................................... Ph.D. Cultural/Linguistic Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles 2011- 2014 ............................ Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University Publications Ideology and Practice of Deaf Goodbyes, University of California, Los Angeles, 1-695, 1994. “A Multiplicity of d/Deaf Identities: A Review of Irene W. Leigh’s A Lens on Deaf Identities.” Disability Studies Quarterly. 32.4 Fall 2012. Locker McKee, Rachel, Kristen Johnson, and Nathie Marbury. “Attention-Getting Strategies of Deaf Children at the Dinner Table.” Issues in Applied Linguistics, 2:2: 239-268, 1991. viii “Miscommunication in Interpreted Classroom Interaction.” DAS ZEICHEN, University of Hamburg, September 1991. “Miscommunication in Interpreted Classroom Interaction.” Sign Language Studies, 70: 1-34, 1991. Fields of Study Major Field: English ix Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ vi Vita .................................................................................................................................. viii Publications .................................................................................................................... viii Fields of Study .................................................................................................................. ix List of Charts .................................................................................................................. xiii Chapter 1: Introduction: Society’s Waste, 1893-1941 ................................................... 1 Rehabilitation, Eugenics, and Institutionalization Discourses: A Historical Overview ...... 5 Disability and American Literature: Working the Gap ...................................................... 14 Chapter 1 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 39 Chapter 2: Disability Heroic and Rehabilitation Discourses: Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun .......................................................................................................
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