'A Man Knows a Man': Illustrating Disability in Harper’s Weekly after the Civil War

Title'A Man Knows a Man': Illustrating Disability in Harper’s Weekly after the Civil War
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2017
AuthorsJohnson, Russell L.
JournalAmerican Nineteenth Century History
Volume18
Issue2
Pagination131 - 158
Date Published05/2017
Abstract

Images in the post-Civil War illustrated press regularly featured disability, manipulating it to make arguments which went beyond the obvious attempts to excoriate the South for attempting to dismember the Union and to acknowledge the sacrifices of the men who preserved it. These illustrations, however, have not received the attention they deserve, either in histories of the war’s effects or in disability studies scholarship. To call attention to these over-looked sources, this essay explores the uses of disability in Harper’s Weekly illustrations, focusing on depictions of Union army veterans with missing legs in the first two years after the war. These illustrations reflect complex attitudes towards disabled veterans after the war and offer a clear lesson in the ways disability is socially and culturally constructed as well as historically contingent. [author]

URLhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14664658.2017.1324595?journalCode=fanc20
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