Season 3, Episode 2: Gouverneur Morris and the History of Disability

In this episode, we discuss the field of Disability History and how it relates to several items at the MHS. Jenny Reiss, a Ph.D. candidate at University of Pennsylvania, introduces us to Gouverneur Morris, a founding father of the United States who lived with disabilities. We then take a look at several 19th and 20th century objects in the collection that relate to the history of disability.

Episode transcript

Click the images above to learn more about each item.

Episode Special Guests:

Jennifer W. Reiss is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is working on a dissertation, tentatively titled "Undone Bodies: Women and Disability in Early America", exploring the relationship between gender and disability in colonial America and the early Republic. She holds a B.A. in History and Political Science, also from Penn, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and two Master's degrees, in Law and in History, from the University of Cambridge.

Mary Yacovone, Curator of Rare Books & Visual Materials, has been at the MHS since 1994, after beginning her library career at the Essex Institute in Salem, Mass. She holds a B.A. in English from Tufts University and a Masters in Library Science from Simmons College.

This episode uses materials from:

Across The River by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)
Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)
Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)

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