For Life and Limb: The Reconstruction of a Nation and Its Disabled Soldiers in World War I America (2006)
Linker, Beth (Author)
Yale University
Warner, John Harley
Edition Details: Advisor: Warner, John Harley
Physical Details: 219 pp.
Language: English
In World War I America, physical rehabilitation symbolized a political dream, a hope that permanently disabled men could be "rebuilt" into economically viable citizens. Reformers of all political stripes---from industrialists and laborers to educators and physicians---stood behind the movement to federally mandate rehabilitation, believing that the health of the nation rested on the working class man's ability to be a productive wage earner. Physical and vocational rehabilitation became a federal program in 1920 and continued to shape America's health policies---namely through the Veteran's Administration---well into the 1960s. This project focuses on the formative years of the rehabilitation movement, when the idea of physical restoration was first articulated, debated, and instituted. The chief focus of the dissertation is on civilian rehabilitation physicians, orthopedic surgeons, and medical aides, all of whom were hired by the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office to heal amputee veterans and assist them in returning to the "Great Industrial Army." Using papers from the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office held at the National Archives and Records Administration, as well as newspapers, periodicals, Congressional debates, and published rehabilitation manuals from the period, I argue that World War I physical rehabilitation should be understood as part of a larger Progressive-era social reform movement rather than merely as a medical specialty. Rehabilitation medical workers were not committed to one body part, system, or medical theory but instead to getting disabled working class men back to the factory and farm in the name of economic and national strength. The medical professionals featured in this dissertation worked in so-called curative workshops rather than traditional clinics. Here they not only rebuilt disabled veterans through exercise, prosthetic limb wear, and vocational training but they also produced educative materials to reform public attitudes about disability, applying a gender norm that defined manliness as the ability to earn a living. Ultimately, these medical professionals promised to eradicate economic dependency among the nation's veteran population, thereby solving what they considered to be the most pressing social problem of disability.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 67/04 (2006). UMI pub. no. 3214246.
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