Article ID: CBB723380993

“The Workmen’s Compensation Law Is a Direct Slap in the Face”: Industrial Medicine, Safety Engineering, and the Problem of Disabled Workers, 1910s–1940s (2024)

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In the wake of workmen’s compensation law, the modern category of disability began to be represented in even more highly negative ways than in the late nineteenth century, linking inability to work and blame for one’s impairment, thanks to the efforts of industrial surgeons, safety engineers, and other applied scientists. While safety work had begun before workmen’s compensation laws passed, safety engineering (and safety inspection work in general) kicked into high gear once compensation was legally required for workplace injuries: safety engineering burgeoned as a parallel force helping to define disability. In effect, applicants deemed to have disabilities, especially visible ones, were pushed out of the mainstream, industrial labor market and some small businesses and farms. Those injured on the job were increasingly held responsible. But workers were well aware of the hazards and outcomes of dangerous working conditions both prior to and after lawmakers started passing workmen’s compensation laws.

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Article Mara Mills; Jaipreet Virdi; Sarah F. Rose (2024) Disability, Epistemology, Sciencing. Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 1-24). unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Wosk, Julie
Blume, Stuart S.
Galis, Vasilis
Hessler, Martina
Jones, Claire L.
Knowles, Scott Gabriel
Journals
Blätter für Technikgeschichte
Design Issues
Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
History and Technology
Science, Technology, and Human Values
Social History of Medicine
Publishers
Cambridge University Press
M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
Manchester University Press
University of Illinois Press
University of Nevada Press
University of North Carolina Press
Concepts
Labor and laborers
Disabilities; disability; accessibility
Industrialization
Medicine and industry
Engineering, Safety
Technology and society
People
Amar, Jules
Gilbreth, Frank Bunker
Haraway, Donna Jeanne
Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von
Henderson, Lawrence Joseph
Taylor, Frederick Winslow
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, early
18th century
20th century, late
Places
United States
Great Britain
Finland
Germany
Nevada (U.S.)
West Germany
Institutions
Interagency Archeological Salvage Program
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