Material Embodiments, Queer Visualities: Presenting Disability in American Public History Andrew B
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository American Studies ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 9-12-2014 Material Embodiments, Queer Visualities: Presenting Disability in American Public History Andrew B. Marcum Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds Part of the American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Marcum, Andrew B.. "Material Embodiments, Queer Visualities: Presenting Disability in American Public History." (2014). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds/24 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Studies ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Andrew B. Marcum Candidate American Studies Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Rebecca Schreiber, Ph.D., Chairperson Amy L. Brandzel, Ph.D. David H. Serlin, Ph.D. Alyosha Goldstein, Ph.D. i MATERIAL EMBODIMENTS, QUEER VISUALITIES: PRESENTING DISABILITY IN AMERICAN PUBLIC HISTORY By Andrew B. Marcum B.S., English, Troy University, 2001 M.A., American Studies, University of Alabama, 2005 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy American Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July, 2014 ii ©2014, Andrew B. Marcum iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my parents Dan and Ann. Your love and support have made all I have and will achieve possible. I also dedicate this to my brothers Christopher and James and to the memory of our beloved sister Anna. You have all inspired and sustained me and I hope this makes you proud. iv Acknowledgements I wish to heartily and warmly acknowledge Dr. Rebecca Schreiber, my advisor and committee chair for her unwavering support, guidance, and encouragement throughout my years of teaching, researching, and writing at UNM. The project would not have been possible without her. I also wish to thank my committee members Amy L. Brandzel, Alyosha Goldstein, and David Serlin for their invaluable mentorship, feedback, and suggestions on this project and on pursuing a life in scholarship and teaching. I offer a special thanks to Dr. Katherine Ott, Historian of Medicine and Curator, The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Her incredible generosity, time, support, and inspiring work were indispensable to this project. Thanks also to the Bilinski Educational Foundation, The UNM College of Arts and Sciences, The UNM Office of Graduate Studies, and the Smithsonian Institution for assistance in funding the research and writing of this project. I wish to also thank the following people for their time, assistance, and inspiration. Dr. Dan Young of the University of New Mexico’s Research Service-Learning Program, Jim Dickson, Mike Deland, and Mary Dolan of the National Organization on Disability, Susan Reposa of the U. S. Commission of Fine Arts, Dr. Pamela Henson and Ellen Alers of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Janice Majewski of the U.S. Department of Justice, Beth Ziebarth of Smithsonian Accessibility Services, Glenn DeMarr of the National Park Service, Dr. Scott Sandage of Carnegie-Mellon University, David Underhill of the Mobile Bay Times, Professor Kim E. Nielsen of the University of Toledo, Albert B. Head of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and Dr. Joseph Busta of the University of South Alabama. v MATERIAL EMBODIMENTS, QUEER VISUALITIES: PRESENTING DISABILITY IN AMERICAN PUBLIC HISTORY By ANDREW B. MARCUM B.S., English, Troy University, 2001 M.A., American Studies, University of Alabama, 2005 Ph.D., American Studies, University of New Mexico, 2014 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the presentation of disability at three of the most popular sites for the consumption of public history in the United States including the U.S. Capitol, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. I de-construct the cultural and historical narratives and discourses of disability circulating at these sites and offer a visual culture analysis of the images, artifacts, and statuary found at each of them. My study is informed principally by the theories and methods of queer disability studies, visual culture studies, and cultural studies critiques of neoliberalism. I consider how questions of identity, inequality, and power raised by the Disability Rights Movement interact with modes of representation and practices of public history to produce cultural and historical knowledge about physical and cognitive difference. I contend that heteronormative notions of gender and sexuality have structured both the history of people with disabilities and the contemporary presentation of that history for public audiences. Accordingly, I argue that the history of disability in the United States should not be conceptualized or represented solely in terms of political efforts to achieve equal rights and inclusion for those with disabilities. Nor, I contend, should we understand vi the movement for disability rights in America primarily as a social struggle that has transformed architectural and “attitudinal” barriers. Rather, I propose that the history of people with disabilities in the U.S. must also be understood, explored, and presented, as a history of resistance to, and struggle against, the able-bodied, raced, classed, gendered, and sexed terms of disabled people’s inclusion in, and exclusion from, American society. Interpreting U.S. disability history in this way not only permits us to expose and challenge the normative cultural construction and deployment of disability in American life, but also, allows to develop histories of disability not grounded in nondisabled standards, norms, and expectations, of disability and not dependent on the able-bodied status of audiences. vii Table of Contents List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... x Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 Overview ....................................................................................................................... 1 Crip Theory ................................................................................................................. 13 Disability Studies, Visual Culture Studies, and The Politics of Representation ........ 22 Disability in Public History and American Studies .................................................... 31 Chapter Summaries ..................................................................................................... 39 Chapter 1: Making Public History: Disability, Heteronormativity, and Contemporary Representations Helen Keller. .................................... 39 Chapter 2: ‘An Argument in Bronze’: The FDR Memorial Controversy, Queer Disability Studies, and the Politics of Representing Disability in Contemporary Public History. ............................................................ 41 Chapter 3: Re-Presenting Disability at the Smithsonian: A Crip/Queer Analysis............................................................................................... 42 Notes ......................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 1: Making Public History: Disability, Heteronormativity, and Contemporary Representations Helen Keller .................................................................................. 46 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 46 ‘First Lady of Courage’: State Pedagogies of Helen Keller ....................................... 49 “Miracle” at the Water Pump ...................................................................................... 66 Beautiful though Disabled .......................................................................................... 69 Conclusion: Re-Presenting Keller at the Water Pump ................................................ 94 viii Notes ....................................................................................................................... 103 Chapter 2: ‘An Argument in Bronze’: The FDR Memorial Controversy, Queer Disability Studies, and the Politics of Representing Disability in Contemporary Public History .......................................................................................................... 107 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 107 ‘It was a Visual Thing’: The Origins, Strategies, and Rhetoric of the ‘FDR in a Wheelchair’ Campaign ................................................................................. 110 ‘Franklin’s Illness’: Towards a Critical Disability Studies Perspective on Disability History........................................................................................................... 134 Conclusion: Re-Presenting FDR’s Polio at the Museum .......................................... 140 Notes ....................................................................................................................... 155 Chapter 3: