RIP: Anita Blair (1916-2010) and Betty G. Miller (1934-2012)

Two obituaries came to my attention this morning. Both women died more than a year ago, but I'm just seeing these now. If I write about them here, I won't forget to follow up with getting Wikipedia entries going about them, when the time allows.

I first mentioned Anita Lee Blair (pictured at left, a white woman dressed in a dark suit, in a portrait with her guide dog Fawn) at this blog a few years ago, when David Paterson had become Governor of New York, and the topic of blind elected officials was in the news.  Anita Blair was born in 1916, and became blind after head injuries sustained in a car accident, not long after graduating from high school (no seatbelts or safety glass in the 1930s).  She graduated from the Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy; later she earned a master's degree as well.  She was the first person in El Paso to receive a guide dog, a German shepherd named Fawn; she even made a short film about Fawn, to use on her lecture tour.  Fawn and Anita made headlines in 1946, when they escaped a deadly hotel fire in Chicago.  As far as anyone can tell, she was the first blind woman ever elected to any state legislature--she served one term in the Texas House of Representatives, 1953-55.  (Here's a Time Magazine article mentioning that she won the Democratic nomination for that race.)  She was also the only woman appointed to Harry Truman's Presidential Safety Committee, the first person to bring a service dog onto the floor of the US Senate, and later was a familiar presence in El Paso, vocal on talk radio and at city council meetings.  Anita Lee Blair died in 2010, just a couple weeks before her 94th birthday, survived by her slightly younger sister Jean.  Upon her passing, the Texas House of Representatives passed a resolution in tribute to their former member.  There's a video of Blair talking about her life on youtube (not captioned), and her El Paso Times obituary included a photo gallery from news files.

Betty G. Miller's obituary turned up in this month's Penn State alumni magazine.  (Miller is pictured at right, a white woman wearing a hat and glasses, with a big smile.) She was a deaf child of deaf parents, and learned ASL as a child at home, but was sent to oral education programs also, an experience that became a theme in her works.  Betty Miller was an artist, an art educator (she had an EdD from Penn State, and taught at Gallaudet), an author, and by her own account the first deaf person to receive certification as an addiction counselor.  In 1972 she had her first one-woman show, "The Silent World," at Gallaudet.  Further shows followed over the next several decades, and a large-scale neon installation by Miller is in the lobby of the Student Activities Center at the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf.  She was survived by her partner, artist Nancy Creighton.  Some of Miller's works can be seen in this Wordgathering article by Creighton and at this Pinterest board.

Apparently, this is post #1000 at DSTU, according to Blogger (I suspect that count includes some drafts that didn't ever get posted, for various reasons).  Happy 1000 to our readers, then!

Disability in the Presidential Campaign of 2012: Abram Powell

Saw this ad/video today from the Obama campaign, featuring Abram Powell, a deaf African-American auto worker from Michigan.  I like how specific it is to his life--it's not a generic disability message--and it's full of photos, and we see him speaking to an audience in ASL, etc. 
Seen other ads, from any campaign, that focus on disability themes? Drop a link in comments.

October 25: Grace Padaca (b. 1963)

"I am Grace Padaca. I share my story because I know there are many who are like me, not big people, not rich, not strong. I know there are many like me whose strength is inside."

--from a campaign appearance by Grace Padaca

Above: Gracia Cielo "Grace" Magno Padaca, former Governor of Isabela Province in the Philippines, standing on a stage while a group of other people are seated in a row behind her. Padaca was elected governor in 2004, was reelected in 2007, and was defeated in another bid for reelection, earlier this year.

Padaca survived polio in her early childhood, and uses crutches (seen in the photograph above). Padaca was valedictorian of her high school class and graduated with highest honors from college. Before politics, she worked as a radio journalist. In 2008, she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service. Today is her 47th birthday.

March 15: Sue Boyce (b. 1951)

[Visual description: family portrait of Australian senator Sue Boyce, who is shown with her three adult children, two women and a man; one of the daughters has Down Syndrome. All are smiling and embracing each other.]

"Anytime we allow people with a disability to be treated as special people who should live or learn or work or spend their leisure time in special places, we are shutting people with a disability out of the mainstream."

Happy birthday to Australian senator from Queensland, Sue Boyce, who has made disability rights issues a priority of her legislative work. She's currently serving on the committee to consider Australian immigration laws on the subject of disability. She is also a past president of the Down Syndrome Association of Queensland. Last week, she called a controversial decision of the Family Court in Brisbane concerning the sterilization of an 11-year-old disabled girl "appalling....completely discriminatory and inhumane."

Paging Sarah Palin

There really are still people out there who believe this hateful nonsense.

And they get elected. In the US. In 2010.

No amount of photo ops with cute children can change the ugly of this.

ETA: Not surprised at all to discover that FWD blog had a post about this, and Liz has a whole bunch of links to reactions on the topic. Joel at NTs are Weird also has a comment.

John Lind (1854-1930)

John Lind (LOC)
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

Photo above is from today's Library of Congress uploads to Flickr. John Lind (1854-1930) was a teacher and lawyer, the 14th governor of Minnesota, a US Representative, and President Wilson's envoy on Mexican affairs. You can't tell from this photo, but he was also noted for being an amputee--his lower left arm was lost in a sawmill accident when he was thirteen.

Because he was such a public figure, it's not difficult to find contemporary references to Lind's impairment. Many of them add the lost limb to a heroic narrative:

"His quiet and collected personality, made more heroic by the loss of his left arm, impresses one with immediate confidence and respect." (The American-Scandinavian Review (January 1913): 15.)

"Soon afterward he began work in a sawmill, in which he lost his left hand by an accident. This was probably not altogether a misfortune; for it compelled an immediate abandonment of manual labor for intellectual pursuits and thus directed his destiny to higher spheres of action." (Algot Strand, ed., A History of The Swedish-Americans of Minnesota (1910): 73)

But Lind was a politician, not a saint, and some other references make that clear. "For a one-armed man John Lind can make some telling blows once in a while," reported the Moose Lake Star on 17 January 1901, and they weren't being metaphorical. Fresh from his term as Governor, Lind walked into a newspaper office and attacked an editor who had long criticized him.

[posted on the occasion of a certain Minnesota-based blogger's birthday]

September 7: Daniel Inouye (b. 1924)

[Image description: A black-and-white portrait of a young Daniel Inouye]
Oftentimes, it takes as much, if not more, courage to speak out and oppose our government’s actions. It should be viewed no less patriotically than those who wave the American flag.

Happy 85th birthday to Senator Daniel Inouye, who has served in the Senate continuously since 1959. Inouye is also one of the several disabled veterans serving in Congress.

He was born to Japanese immigrant parents in Honolulu, and joined the Army in 1943; Japanese-Americans were prevented from enlisting before that year. In April 1945, his right forearm was amputated due to battlefield injuries in Italy. He met future colleague Bob Dole when both were recovering from their war injuries at an army hospital. Inouye abandoned plans for a medical career and used the GI Bill to study political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The day Hawaii became a state in 1959, Inouye was sworn in as its first senator.

Ha!

Gotta love the headline "Stephen Hawking Both British and Not Dead." In fact, I'm considering making pins with a similar phrase--want one?

Update: I made the pins.

Disability in other campaigns this year, part 2

Because disabled people (like Itzhak Perlman) don't just have opinions about healthcare and disability rights, but about the whole range of issues in play this election year:

Disability in other campaigns this year

We haven't had an equivalent of the 2006 Michael J. Fox ad this season (yet), but here's one current ad from a Senate race (New Mexico) that's tightly focused on disability, specifically on brain-injured young veterans:



[Video description: Erik Schei, a young man with close-cropped sandy hair and glasses is seated facing the camera, with a screen in front of him. We hear him in a computer-generated voice explaining that he is an Iraq War veteran who was brain injured by a sniper's bullet, and not expected to survive. He then thanks Congressman Tom Udall for supporting funding for research into traumatic brain injuries. At the end of the video, he mouths the words "thank you."]

Run across any others?

Added later: More on Erik Schei.

Say what?

From last night's debate (transcripts here):

MCCAIN: She'll be my partner. She understands reform. And, by the way, she also understands special-needs families. She understands that autism is on the rise, that we've got to find out what's causing it, and we've got to reach out to these families, and help them, and give them the help they need as they raise these very special needs children.

So... Sarah Palin understands about autism, because she has a six-month-old with Down syndrome? Walk me through that one, please. (Not surprisingly, Kristina Chew has the same question, with links. Yes, Palin has a nephew with autism. So do a lot of other people. That fact alone is not so impressive a qualification as McCain seems to think.)

And still, again, and again, only families with "very special needs" children are mentioned in the campaign's discussions of disability. What about disabled adults who need healthcare, jobs, access, transportation, etc. etc.? No mention of adults. What do they imagine happens to the "very special needs" children after about twenty years?

A hug and a wink from Sarah Palin won't keep my kid alive and well. Niceties are not a substitute for the programs and regulations that protect his rights--and his life.

Be sure to check out William Peace's commentary on the same passages in the debate transcripts, for further discussion.

The Candidate's Disabled Son--in 1872

[Image description: photo portrait of Victoria Woodhull, in a lacy dark dress, head turned to the camera, torso in profile]

There have been quite a few presidential and vice-presidential candidates with children who would today be considered disabled--especially in times when many families included someone who had survived measles or high fevers or accidents of various disabling kinds. (Nineteenth-century American children grew up around open flames, sharp and grinding farm equipment, large animals, and no antibiotics, among other hazards.) Maybe because it was so common, impairment in a candidate's family wasn't generally much remarked upon in the 19th century, from what I can tell. Or maybe in the era before photo ops and newsreels and TV ads, the candidate's family just wasn't as visible during campaigns.

But when Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) ran for president in 1872 as the candidate of the Equal Rights Party (with Frederick Douglass as her running mate), her lover Theodore Tilton included descriptions of Woodhull's teenaged son Byron when he wrote her campaign biography:

To add to her misery, she discovered that her child, begotten in drunkenness, and born in squalor, was a half idiot; predestined to be a hopeless imbecile for life; endowed with just enough intelligence to exhibit the light of reason in dim eclipse:--a sad and pitiful spectacle in his mother's house to-day, where he roams from room to room, muttering noises more sepulchral than human; a daily agony to the woman who bore him, hoping more of her burden; and heightening the pathos of the perpetual scene by the uncommon sweetness of his temper which, by winning every one's love, doubles every one's pity.'

In the context of the many (many) revelations about Woodhull that came out in 1872, and again the next year when she was on trial in connection with the Beecher-Tilton scandal, the existence of her son wasn't even a blip. And neither was the excessive horror-tinged language used in passages like the one quoted above much of an issue--it was clearly political language meant to evoke an emotional response (shock? admiration?), and it was the kind of language Woodhull herself used on the lecture circuit when describing Byron. She never hid Byron, never institutionalized him, always made sure he was well cared for, brought him along when she fled her legal problems and moved to England. But she was no friend of people with disabilities--she was, rather, an early and enthusiastic proponent of eugenics.

Woodhull's run for the presidency was clearly symbolic--generations before American women had the vote in national elections, she had no chance of winning, and to compound the impossibility she was younger than the minimum age specified in the Constitution--but it wasn't frivolous. She used the platform it offered to talk about women's rights and her views of marriage, education, and economics. She was a fascinating woman, a brilliant speaker who took outrageous positions, and enjoyed the stir she caused. And 136 years ago, she was the first woman candidate for the White House AND the first to work a son with developmental disabilities into her campaign.

[Woodhull wouldn't have a chance today either, but man, what 24-hour cable news would do with her story.... wow.]

September 6: Jane Addams (1860-1935)

[Image description: Sepia portrait of an unsmiling Jane Addams, younger, seated, facing camera with her elbow on a table and an open book nearby]

I do not believe that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislatures, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance.

--Jane Addams, in a speech to the Chicago Political Equality League in 1897

Settlement movement leader, feminist, and Nobel laureate (Peace, 1931), Jane Addams was born on this date in 1860, in Cedarville IL. She was a major figure in the international women's suffrage and peace movements, and among the founders of the ACLU and the NAACP.

Addams had spinal curvature and other permanent effects of tuberculosis in childhood, effects which were treated with experimental surgery and injections in her twenties, and a back brace made of steel, whalebone, and leather. She experienced chronic back pain for much of her life, both from the disease and from the treatments available. She mentions her own disability (and uses that word) in her classic memoir Twenty Years at Hull House; she also writes about the "crippled children" she sometimes encountered in her work:

The first three crippled children we encountered in the neighborhood had all been injured while their mothers were at work: one had fallen out of a third-story window, another had been burned, and the third had a curved spine due to the fact that for three years he had been tied all day long to the leg of the kitchen table, only released at noon by his older brother who hastily ran in from a neighboring factory to share his lunch with him....Hull-House was thus committed to a day nursery which we sustained for sixteen years.... (88)

Memo to Governor Palin

Some notes about this passage in your speech last night:

"And children with special needs inspire a very, very special love. To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House."

1. We're not friends. We may have some things in common--motherhood, kid with a chromosomal diagnosis, age give or take a coupla years, race, messy dark hair, glasses, check check check--but we've never had a coffee together, or watched each other's kids, or worked on an art project together. And I don't see any of that happening in the future, either. So cut the "you've got a friend" line. I grew up in a state where that sentiment was on every license plate, and it means nothing when used in such a wholesale, consequence-free way. Worse, it devalues the real worth and work of friendship. I like and need friends. You're just not one of them.

(BTW, I also bristle at agency literature using words like "partner"--uh, no. Unless you're willing to take a 3am shift whenever kids are sick, you're not my partner in this.)

2. I don't think "very, very special love" qualifies as a policy. My kid doesn't need your "special love." He needs to have his rights recognized and protected; he needs the appropriate school education the law says he's entitled to; he needs accessibility to make living in the community a reality instead of a goal, and not just when he's a kid, but his whole life. I expect a vision with policy specifics. Hey, there's one!

3. Unless you started being a disability advocate long before your youngest son was born in April of this year, you're not in any position to use the term "advocate" for yourself. It's presumptuous to claim otherwise. You're still learning. Keep learning. Gotta say, I'm glad there were no reporters writing down my every word when my son was four months old--I'm sure anything I might have said about disability back then would have been a bundle of contradictions and confusion, because I didn't have near enough experience to speak otherwise on the subject. (And I'm still learning every single day, after thirteen years.) Presenting yourself as the stereotypical "kn0w-it-all mom" who is (rightly) dreaded by many in the disability world is not doing the rest of us parents any favors, so please rethink that pose.

4. Truth is, I was never going to vote for your ticket anyway, no matter who the VP choice was. But you're sure making me more secure than ever about that position.

ADDED LATER:

5. Belittling the important work that community organizers do? Really not cool.

6. Vice-president Cheney, by all accounts, loves his daughter Mary--but it doesn't make the administration in which he serves any friendlier to gay marriage or same-sex parents. And Sarah Palin, by all accounts, loves her little son--but that doesn't mean the administration in which she'd serve would set any priorities for the equality of people with developmental disabilities.

LINKS: More Palin critiques and commentaries from disability bloggers:

Joel at NTs are Weird
Kara at Disaboom
William Peace at Bad Cripple, and in a sequel post
Sweet Machine guest posting at Shakesville
BadMama at BadMama
Sarahlynn at Yeah, but Houdini Didn't Have These Hips
Ruth at Wheelie Catholic
Dave at Chewing the Fat
Angie at Nuvision for a Nuday (and more from Angie here)
Terri at Barriers, Bridges and Books
Cindy at Bissellblog
CityzenJane at Daily Kos
ABFH at Whose Planet is it Anyway?
Emily Elizabeth at Lovely and Amazing
Kristina Chew at Autism Vox
Nicole at All 4 My Gals
Miryam at Breeding Imperfection
Becky Blitch at Open Salon
Dad at Kintropy in Action

See also Patricia Bauer's really nice FAQ about Palin, Down syndrome, and policy (thanks to Jeff at Big Dawg Tales for the heads up on that one), and the disability-specific portions of both the RNC and DNC platforms, as laid out at JFActivist (thanks to Stephen Drake at Not Dead Yet for pointing that one out).

Disability, Blogging, and the DNC

Mark Siegel passes along news of his friend Kelsey Neumann, who will be blogging from the Convention next week as a delegate. Kelsey uses a wheelchair, and Mark's predicting "plenty of photo ops with party bigwigs." Many of you will have read Harriet McBryde Johnson's chapter on attending the DNC as a delegate in 1996; Kelsey Neumann's reports continue the genre, and we can only hope she'll find improvements in accessibility (and just basic comprehension).

June 8: Ida Saxton McKinley (1847-1907)

[Image description: head-and-shoulders photograph in black-and-white, of a woman with an elaborate jeweled hairstyle and high-necked lacy dress or blouse]

Every election cycle, Americans are treated to another round of speculation about "the role of the First Lady," complete with the kind of questions reporters ought to be ashamed to ask about any woman in public life: should she have a job? what will she wear? do we like her hair, or does she need a makeover? It's tedious and worse, to see the spouses of candidates forced to chat about cookie recipes and "good causes." So, while I write here about a past First Lady, be assured that I don't ordinarily find them too interesting. (Except Lou Henry Hoover--a geologist who translated a 16c. Latin metallurgy text, and lived overseas much of her adult life.)

Ida McKinley (born on this date in 1847; portrait above right) was disabled throughout her adulthood--she had epilepsy, and intense headaches, and phlebitis that made it difficult for her to walk. She was probably overmedicated with sedatives. And she had a rough time emotionally--both her daughters died young in the 1870s, and in 1898 her only brother was murdered by his mistress, with an ensuing sensational trial.

A discreet press was mostly silent about her "fainting spells," and "a special campaign biography" of her was released to frame her health in the most gentle terms. Reporters, forbidden to write about her health, instead focused on her gowns. Her husband, President William McKinley, was devoted to Ida's care: like many partners, he could see the subtle signs of an impending seizure, and knew how to cover for her during required periods of rest. And that devotion became part of his public reputation. Even her absence on the campaign trail was seen as helpful--a gap that reminded voters of the candidate's tender personal life. Her "frailty" was held up as ladylike and unthreatening, in contrast to Mary Baird, Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, the trained lawyer and reform-minded woman who was rumored to write her husband's fiery speeches. (McKinley defeated Bryan in the 1896 and 1900 elections.)

Privately, some in Washington read Ida McKinley as a manipulative "invalid," using her perceived delicacy to demand indulgences (think of Zeena in Ethan Frome for a well-known literary version of this archetype). She would appear at state events propped in a velvet chair, with the understanding that she would neither rise from her seat nor shake hands. She wore luxurious lacy gowns and jewels, to enhance her persona as a fragile beauty. (She was the first First Lady to appear in newsreels, so she had a much wider audience for her fashion choices than previous First Ladies). Ida McKinley crocheted a lot--a fine sickbed tradition; while in the White House she reportedly made 3500 pairs of slippers to raise money for charities. There's some evidence that she was sedated not only for medical necessity but to control her "irrational" personality.

Unfortunately, we have little of Ida's own writing to know her experience at the center of all this rumor and spin: her early correspondence with William was burned in a warehouse fire, and the couple used the telephone a great deal in later years. Ida Saxton McKinley didn't write an autobiography, or give any in-depth interviews. And she had no surviving children to recall her.

When William was assassinated in 1901, among his last words were concerns about how Ida would learn the news: "My wife--be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her--oh, be careful." Ida was a widow for six years, living with her sister in their hometown of Canton, Ohio. Her childhood home is now a restored historic site in that town.

See also:

Nancy L. Herron, "Ida Saxton McKinley: Indomitable Spirit or Autocrat of the Sickbed?" in Molly Meijer Wertheimer, ed., Inventing a Voice: The Rhetoric of American First Ladies of the Twentieth Century (Rowman & Littlefield 2003).

Diana Price Herndl, Invalid Women: Figuring Feminine Illness in American Fiction and Literature, 1840-1940 (UNC Press 1993).

Blind elected officials

With today's resignation of Eliot Spitzer from the office of governor of New York, David Paterson becomes acting governor--the third African-American state governor since Reconstruction (after Deval Patrick and Douglas Wilder), AND the first *or second, see "stop the presses" below* blind state governor in US history.

I've made a list of some other political leaders who experience blindness, as a reference. Folks who do disability studies may be asked questions about this in the next few days--I figure it's good to have some handy details to share.

On the international scene, there's the UK's Gordon Brown--the current Prime Minister is partially blind from a rugby injury in his youth.

Here in the US, I know of two* blind Congressmen in US history:

Thomas D. Schall (1878-1935), blind from a 1907 electrical accident, served five consecutive terms in the House of representatives (1915-1925) and then was elected to two terms in the Senate (1925-1935).

Ira Clifton Copley (1864-1947), founder of the Copley Press newspaper publishing company; served six consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, 1910-1923; vision significantly impaired by childhood case of scarlet fever, and further affected by later episodes of snow blindness

This year, another may be added to the list, as Rabbi Dennis Shulman is running for office in New Jersey--he would also be the first rabbi elected to Congress.

Willie Brown, the recent mayor of San Francisco (1996-2004), has significant vision impairment from retinitis pigmentosa. Brown was also a state assemblyman for seventeen terms, and the longest-running Speaker of the California Assembly (1980-1995). Elsewhere in the US, Randy Meyer, mayor of Sheboygan Falls WI, has been blind since surviving cancer in early childhood. Some other blind mayors on the recent international scene: Apolinar Salcedo, mayor of Cali, Colombia; Richard Lees, mayor of Taunton, Somerset, England.

That's all I've got right now. Anyone have more to add? I've probably left out some important names...

*UPDATE: Yes, I sure did leave out some important names! In comments, Day in Washington quickly added Thomas P. Gore (1870-1949), who served in the Senate (1907-1921). (No close relation to Al Gore or his family, but TP Gore was the grandfather of Gore Vidal. Also, interestingly, Thomas P. Gore's given name at birth was Governor Thomas Pryor Gore--but he wasn't ever an actual governor.) Thanks Day! Keep them coming.

**SECOND UPDATE: H-Disability network members came up with a couple more: Joan Tucker suggested Senator Floyd Morris, who is the current Minister of State in Jamaica's Ministry of Labour and Social Security; and Roger Daniels suggested MP David Blunkett, a member of Tony Blair's cabinet. Thanks!

***THIRD UPDATE: Another couple from the H-Disability discussion thread: Harilyn Rousso asked if there were any blind women in elected office; so I searched a little further and found Anita Blair (b. 1916), who was elected to the Texas state legislature for one term (1953-55). She was blind from a car accident at age 20, and was the first person in El Paso to receive a guide dog (she even made a film about that, called "A Day with Fawn"). Blair's got a listing in Nancy Baker Jones and Ruthe Winegarten's Capitol Women: Texas Female Legislators, 1923-1999 (University of Texas Press 2000): 130-131. And there's a 1952 Time magazine article about her winning the Democratic nomination that year. But she sounds worth a research paper, at minimum, somebody? Cathy Kudlick also pointed to Henry Fawcett (1833-1884), a member of Parliament in the 1860s and 1870s, Postmaster General too (1880-1882), and husband of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett.

****BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! (3/13): The website Political Graveyard has a very comprehensive listing for "politicians with physical disabilities" (which, in their categories, includes blindness). More blind legislators there: Ellis Barkett Bodron (1923-1997), who spent more than thirty years in the Mississippi State legislature; Pennsylvania's Matthew Anthony Dunn (1886-1942) was in the House of Representatives, 1933-41; Nehemiah Hezekiah Earll (1787-1872--can't beat that name) served one term in Congress, 1839-41, representing New York; Robert D. Mahoney (b. 1921) served almost twenty years in the Michigan state house of representatives; T. Euclid Rains Sr. (c1921-2000) was in the Alabama state house of representatives (1979-91), but was also known as an avid beekeeper and Little League coach; and Mo Udall (1922-1998) was a professional basketball player and US Representative from Arizona (1961-91)--he had a glass eye from age 6.

*****STILL MORE! (3/14): Hernando de Soto Money (1839-1912) was a longtime US Representative from Mississippi (1875-85, 1893-97), and was appointed to the Senate in 1897 to fill a vacancy (he was elected in his own right in 1899, re-elected in 1905, and was at one point minority leader). His obituary in the New York Times noted that "He was long troubled with an affection of the eyes, which made him almost blind."

And while I'm here, Stephen Kuusisto wrote a fine, fine op-ed piece on Paterson for the New York Times today.

******STOP THE PRESSES! (3/15): Bob C. Riley of Arkansas (1924-1994) was acting governor of his state for eleven days in 1975, and was blind from a 1944 WWII injury. Eleven days -- covering the gap between Dale Bumpers becoming a Senator and David Pryor's swearing-in -- isn't exactly a governorship, but if this technicality is relevant to your needs, call Paterson the second blind governor in US history--but the first to have a substantial term to serve.

Glenn Votes (or, access to the polls, 1940-style)

[Image description--a black-and-white news photo shows a man carrying another man across wooden planks leaving a building, with signs indicating that it's a polling location.]

This image is from Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990, an online exhibit of Los Angeles Times photos, hosted by UCLA Libraries. I've drawn from this archive before, but this photo in contrast (or comparison) to so many photos from the polls this last week caught my attention anew. Glenn Switzer, the man being carried above, was a veteran disabled in World War I. To vote in Duarte, California, in 1940, he had to be carried by another man, Walter Howard. The ground looks muddy; those wooden planks are a makeshift sidewalk for pedestrian voters, but they're insufficient for Switzer's independent access, and they probably kept a lot of other folks from even trying to vote that November.

Amy Votes

[Image description: woman with grey hair, long skirt, and walker, smiling over her shoulder, on a ramp near a sign that says "Vote Here"]

From the New York Times Polling Place Photo Project--this is Amy Pitt, voting (with a broken ankle) today in Rochester NY. Amy Pitt is (or was, in 2004) active with Metro Justice of Rochester, "an independent, grassroots, progressive membership organization, seeking a peaceful and just society....[working] for human rights, total equality, and economic and environmental justice by raising community awareness and engaging in non-violent direct action."

More accessibility-related images in the project (so far, I'll keep adding links as I find more): "Stairway to Democracy" by Brian Scott (San Francisco CA); "Handicap Access" by Kirk Bravender (Chicago IL); "QH Sign" by Anonymous (Jacksonville FL); "Privacy" by Daniel Goscha (Urbana IL); "Vote Here!" by Anonymous (Minneapolis MN); "Other Arrangements" by Eric Talerico (Sierra Vista AZ); "Primary Distortion" by Marcus C. Emerson (San Diego CA); "A Chance for All" by Anonymous (Knoxville TN); "South Philadelphia" by Anonymous (2006 Midterms, Philadelphia PA); "Birmingham, Alabama" by Louise McPhillips; "Easy Access" by Nancy Wynn (Glastonbury CT); "Access to the Hawaiian Democratic Caucus" by Bruce Behnke (Pearl City HI).

[last updated 20 February 2008]

Super Tuesday

[Image description: Polling place sign, with arrow, outdoors on a brick walkway.]

In twenty states, tomorrow is a presidential primary (and it's also Mardi Gras--so vote first, then party). How accessible is your polling place? The New York Times Polling Place Photo Project isn't primarily intended to document accessibility, but by collecting images of polling places this election year, they may inadvertently create such documentation. So take a picture tomorrow, or whenever you vote; and if you can, show any access features or barriers for disabled voters.

UPDATE 2/5: My polling place is a senior center, so the wheelchair access is fine.