Disability: A New History

Across the country, historians are discovering the voices of disabled people from the past. In this 10-part series, Peter White draws on the latest research to reveal first-hand accounts of what it was like to live with physical disability in the 18th and 19th centuries. The result is moving, revealing, and sometimes very funny: 'Sirs, I am a dwarf. I have lost my job at the circus and what is a dwarf to do in such a situation? In this Godforsaken place the snow comes so deep that a self-respecting dwarf can't even walk along the street without drowning!'This document is from a huge archive of letters from disabled people in the 19th century, applying to the local authorities for money. They are a rich source of what life was like with a disability. Sources like this are only now being discovered and interpreted by historians across the country - it amounts to a new historical movement. In the first programme, Peter explores what this new history reveals, and challenges our pre-conceptions. For Peter, as a bl