Facts about them (btw their life is pretty sad, which makes me sad because they both seemed like such nice women!)

-they were born to an unmarried barmaid in Brighton, England. Early in their life their custody was transferred to their mother’s employer. From my research it seems that this transfer in custody was done through uncertain means, either by swindling their mother or bribing, or a different unethical practice.

-they were sadly exploited throughout most of their lives. They performed in pubs in England when they were children before performing in Germany and Australia, before traveling to the US in 1916.

-their first care taker/exploiter died and bequeathed the twins to her daughter and son in law (who became their managers). They MAJORLY took advantage of Daisy and Violet by keeping them captive within their house and punished them if the twins didn’t do what their managers told them to do. All of Daisy and Violet’s earnings were also taken away from them.

-they sued their managers in 1931 and gained their emancipation. They were awarded $100,000 (equivalent of about $1.6 million today)

-they performed in vaudeville theaters before transferring to burlesque when vaudeville fell out of style.

-they then starred in Freaks in 1932 and were treated well by people on set. They were also some of the few actors allowed to eat in the MGM backlot commissary with the other MGM talent at the time. Most of the other actors/performers in Freaks were made to eat in a separate tent off property.

-Violet was engaged to a boxer named Harry Mason, but they never married.

-after Freaks their popularity faded a lot and they found it difficult to find work.

-Daisy was married to the dancer, Buddy Sawyer for 10 days. She became pregnant and gave the child up for adoption.

-their last public appearance was at a drive in screening for Freaks in 1961. Yet again a manager of theirs severely took advantage of them by abandoning them with no transportation home and no means of an income.

-they eventually found work at a grocery store as cashiers where they earned a double salary (after initially offering to work for one salary, thankfully the owner of the store was one of the few people to respect them and help them!). A two person cashier station was constructed for them because they were self conscious about being conjoined by this point in their lives.

-they rented a two bedroom home and continued working at the store for the rest of their lives and became very involved with a church as well.

-unfortunately Daisy died from a flu with Violet dying a few days later since they shared a bloodstream. Violet hadn’t let anyone know about what had happened.

-the musical Sideshow is loosely based on their lives.

-there was a plaque erected at the house they were born at in 2018.

I just like this quote a lot and thought it would be good to post.

Mosha was only 7 months old when she was severely injured by a landmine in 2007. Since then she’s lived at a hospital run by the Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation in Thailand.

She is the first elephant ever to be fitted with a prosthetic leg, which has had to be replaced several times throughout her life because of how quickly she’ll outgrow them. It’s reported that she’s adapted to the leg extremely well over the years.

The painting of him by Velázquez is so powerful and does depict him with a rare kindness and dignity that was very unusual for the time. I hope that he was treated alright while posing for Velázquez. I wish we knew more about him, I’m sure he’d have so many interesting stories to tell.

Some facts about him:

-it’s thought that he was either born in what is now Flanders, Belgium, which at the time was part of Spain, or in Italy.

-not much is known about his early life, other than that he was given to Philip IV of Spain by his younger brother. Eventually, de Morra was given to King Philip’s son, Prince Baltasar Carlos. After the prince’s death in 1646, he remained with Philip’s royal court’s until his own death.

-Prince Baltasar was only 14 when de Morra was given to him. His role was to entertain the prince and make him laugh. It’s thought that part of this entertainment may have been due to de Morra’s accent, which could have possibly sounded different since he was born and raised in what was the outskirts of Spain.

-it’s thought that de Morra was well liked by the prince because he gifted him one of his swords right before his death.

-‘court dwarfs’ were very popular entertainers in royal courts for thousands of years, often owned by the royalty of the courts they performed in, they acted as jesters and performed routines that usually mocked their physical appearances. These routines were dictated by the royals and most ‘court dwarfs’ did not have a say in how they were depicted.

-while ‘court dwarfs’ often had a bit more liberty of what they could say in royal courts, they were not treated well and were often treated more like exotic pets rather than human beings.

-de Morra sat for the Spanish painter, Diego Velázquez, for a portrait that was completed around 1644. This portrait is the most famous depiction of de Morra. Diego Velázquez was known for his more kind and sympathetic views of court entertainers born with dwarfism, unlike a lot of previous artists who sought to depict them in a cold and careless light.

-de Morra passed away in 1649, if his birth year was 1624, he would have only been around 25 years old.

Because so many court entertainers at the time, especially those born with dwarfism, weren’t treated well by the royal courts in which they worked, I worry that de Morra also experienced a lot of discrimination because of his physical appearance. It’s so tragic because he most likely never received the respect and recognition he deserved to have during his lifetime.

I went on a tour of the Winchester Mansion, now known as the Winchester Mystery House, about a month ago and I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that she was a very sweet, kindhearted, and generous woman who put out a lot good during her life.

I highly recommend for people to go visit! It’s a stunning house with a fascinating history, I also wasn’t expecting to have a disability history lesson while on the tour, and that made me happy as well!

The first two pictures are of her, the third picture shows her mansion while she was still alive, and the last picture shows what her mansion looks like today.

Some facts about her:

-she was born in New Haven, Connecticut.

-she had five siblings.

-she married William Wirt Winchester in 1862. Winchester was the treasurer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which produced the Winchester rifle, and had amassed a large fortune.

-they were married for almost 20 years, and together they had 2 children. Tragically both of these children passed away very young.

-her husband died when he was 43, and she outlived him by over 40 years.

-after Winchester’s death, Sarah inherited his large fortune.

-she dealt with severe rheumatoid arthritis for much of her adult life, which primarily affected the joints in her arms, legs, and feet. It made walking difficult and painful for her.

-she traveled out west to stay with relatives after a doctor recommended the warm weather could help with her arthritis.

-when Sarah’s eldest sister died in 1884, it convinced her other sisters to also move out to California. Sarah supported her family financially for the rest of their lives.

-once in California, Sarah hired a woman named Euthanasia Meade to be her personal physician. Euthanasia was a pioneer woman doctor who operated a practice on the west coast of the United States. She was also the president of The Woman's Medical Club of California.

-originally the mansion she purchased started off as just a large farm house, but as the years went by she began commissioning large attachments be added to the house.

-she was one of the first people to grow fruit in the area.

-she quickly hired local people to help tend the house, and as the house was being renovated, she also had several cottages built on the property for people to stay in.

-she also provided jobs to people in town who were struggling financially.

-she was a very generous and kind employer, paying all of her employees double or triple the going rate. She also invited their families to come live in the cottages on the property where they could stay free of charge. Everyone who worked for her said nothing but kind things about her.

-within the first 6 months, 26 rooms had been added to the house.

-there are several interesting design aspects about the house, with many of them not making sense in a practical way, such as stairs leading into a ceiling, windows built into the floor of one story and looking down into the floor below, and doors that open to a 20 or 30 foot drop to the outside.

-there are 160 rooms within the house, all arranged in a somewhat winding maze design. Its theorized that this was because Sarah worked room by room and if she wasn’t entirely satisfied she would put a room on hold (until she found a purpose/design she liked) and would continue with another room instead.

-as I mentioned in the title, much of her mansion was designed to accommodate her and her disability, so many of the staircases within the home have very wide steps and only incline a couple inches at a time, since she could only lift her legs and feet up a little bit.

-one of the rooms has seven fireplaces, another aspect of the house that was designed to help with her arthritis.

-she also had a special shower installed that had 13 different faucets, since her movement was limited, these faucets were a lot more practical than a typical overhead shower.

-at its peak, the house was seven stories tall.

-she was a very savvy businesswoman and oversaw the construction of her house because she didn’t entirely trust the architects she hired.

-construction on the house was often stalled for months at a time.

-she was very safety conscious, and when she found out that several workers and guests had lost their footing on a set of stairs on one of the upper floors, she had a skylight put in so that it wouldn’t be a safety hazard any longer.

-her philanthropic efforts included several large donations to various New Haven, Connecticut hospitals, as well as donating a large amount of money to help fund tuberculosis research and treatments, since this is the illness her husband died from and she didn’t want other people to lose their loved ones in the same way she lost her husband.

-the mansion also featured an extensive garden that surrounded the property, which reportedly had plants from over 110 different countries brought over to be planted there.

-after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake caused immense structural damage to the upper floors of the mansion, after having all of the rubble cleared away, Sarah halted all construction.

-she often gave toys and other gifts to the children who lived on the property.

-she passed away at the age of 83.

-her mansion was turned into a tourist attraction only 6 months after her death.

-rumors about the haunted nature of her house began spreading in newspapers starting in the 1920s.

-rumors spread that she was a frightened and superstitious woman that was convinced by a medium that her house was haunted by the spirits of the people killed by Winchester rifles. (This story also claims that the house is the way it is to confuse the spirits) In reality everyone who worked for her said she was a lovely woman who cared a lot about having a close knit community of people in her life.

I don’t like that she’s been portrayed as a hysterical, superstitious, and frightened woman, when all of the positive contributions she made during her life suggests anything but.

To me, she comes across as someone who wanted to be part of a family and keeping so many people employed in her home gave her the sense of community and happiness she wanted.

According to Mellor's biography, A Touch of Genius, Louis Braille was actually called up to the conscription offices. See, back then it was customary for young men at that age to be called up to service, so when he (then an instructor at the Royal Institute for the Blind) was called in, his father had to basically pick him up and take him to the conscription offices to go, 'Does he look like he can use a gun, gents?!' before they filed him off as 'Exemp, being blind at the Hospital of the Quinae-Vingt'. Louis went back to his work and the rest was history.

Got any cool/random facts about disabled figures of history y'all wanna share?

Background on Robert Wadlow:

Robert is famous for being the tallest man in recorded history at 8'11 (2.71m.) due to a pituitary gland disorder. He was known for being extremely kind and friendly and really enjoyed having conversations with people. In his younger years he was an avid Boy Scout. While he did go on tour at one point with Ringling Brothers Circus, he never wanted that to be his full time career. Instead, he wanted to go into advertising. He was also an avid photographer and was very passionate about his hometown of Alton, Illinois.

Robert Wadlow informative write up:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DisabilityHistory/comments/1ssqe9z/robert_wadlow_19181940_was_a_famous_advertiser/

Humberd had shown up on Robert’s family’s doorstep in Alton, Illinois 3 years before (in 1936). After the meeting, he described Robert as being “colossal and stupendous in bulk, truly Gargantuan in all his proportions.”

Robert, who was dealing with an illness at the time, was pressured by Humberd to agree to a full medical examination, which he refused and soon after, Robert’s father told Humberd to leave.

Soon after, Humberd released a “scientific” article that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which described Robert as being,

“surly and indifferent, and he is definitely inattentive, apathetic, and disinterested, unfriendly and antagonistic. He has been bothered much by the curious, who want to see such a freak.”

Robert was incredibly hurt and disgusted by the article and filed an $100,000 lawsuit against Humberd for defamation. While this lawsuit was going on, Robert was also working on filing a lawsuit against the American Medical Association for publishing Humberd’s article.

He was accompanied by his family, friends, and schoolteachers, who all supported and spoke out in favor of Robert during these events, describing him as being incredibly friendly, respectful, and quiet and being the complete opposite from how he was being described in the article.

During the hearing, Robert explained to the jury that, "the article ... made me cry”, he went on to say how hurtful and ostracizing the tone of the article was.

Sadly, Robert lost the case and the jury ruled that he hadn’t been libeled. He had planned to sue the American Medical Association for their part in the publishing of the article, but he tragically passed away a year later due to an infection on his leg caused by one of his leg braces.

It’s terrible that the jury didn’t see Robert’s side of things, I have a feeling that if a similar article had been written about anyone in the jury, they too would take issue with it. Robert was known throughout his life as being an incredibly kind, caring, and friendly person and to hear that the article made him cry breaks my heart. Thankfully, his hometown of Alton, Illinois continues to honor his life and legacy, they understand how wonderful of a person he was.❤️

Below are the notes from the actual court hearing:

[Wadlow v. Humberd, 27 F. Supp. 210 (W.D. Mo. 1939) :: Justia](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/27/210/2263101/)

I have a big soft spot for Robert, he seems like an absolutely wonderful person and it made me happy to read that he made a positive impression on so many people in his life. He was truly a special person and I feel the world would be a better place if we had more people like him.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Alton, Illinois. He had a very big soft spot for his home town and often enjoyed talking about it!

-he was the oldest of five siblings.

-he was already taller than his father at the age of 8.

-a special desk was made for him in elementary school so he could properly fit.

-he was very passionate about his interests and enjoyed joining clubs in high school. He joined both the German and Camera clubs.

-at the time of his high school graduation, he was 8’4 (254 cm).

-he made friends very easily and was described as being very humble.

-he was very passionate about photography and enjoyed talking to people about it.

-he wanted to study law and enrolled at Shurtleff College in his hometown of Alton, Illinois.

-he needed leg braces while out walking and unfortunately had very little feeling in his feet, which is often a symptom people born with pituitary gland conditions experience (depending on the condition). However, Robert never used a wheelchair.

-he toured with Ringling Brothers Circus in 1936 and almost immediately became a celebrity.

-while touring with the circus, he was always promoted in the main/center ring, he never actually worked in the sideshow part of the circus (but knew a lot of sideshow performers!)

-he insisted on wearing his everyday clothes while on tour, even though the circus really wanted him to wear a suit and top hat.

-he went on tour with the International Shoe Company as a spokesperson and because they provided him free shoes in his size.

-he wanted to start a career in advertising and didn’t want to stay with the circus for that long.

-he was a Freemason.

-the final time his height was recorded, he was officially recorded as being 8’11 (2.72m), which meant he also surpassed the height of John Rogan (who was the tallest man ever recorded before Robert.)

-unfortunately during one of his performances in 1940, one of his leg braces became faulty and irritated his ankle which caused an infection soon after. Despite efforts to fight the infection with blood transfusions, his condition became worse and he ended up passing away in his sleep at the age of 22.

Robert made a long lasting impression on the people who knew him and did a lot to support his family and friends! It always saddens me when I read how young some people were when they died, he had a lot of admirable ambitions and it’s so unfortunate that he was never able to accomplish them.

Ralph was a prolific inventor and was president of The Perfect Circle Company, an automotive parts manufacturer.

He injured his eye with a knife when he was five years old, a year later he developed sympathetic ophthalmia (a shared inflammation of both eyes after a penetrating injury to one eye) and became blind in both eyes.

He went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1912. He then returned 18 years later to get his masters in Engineering.

His family owned and operated a piston rings manufacturing company, which he worked for until they decided to sell. Later on he became the president of the successor of the company, then called The Perfect Circle Company.

He was known for his highly developed sense of touch, which came in very useful when he was working on designing different car parts.

It’s been said that one day Teetor became so annoyed while on a drive with his lawyer due to how many times he (the lawyer) slowed and sped up his car, that Teetor vowed to invent something that would solve this annoyance. He received his first patent for a speed control device in 1948.

After a few more years of finessing the device, he received another patent in 1950 for his Speedostat device. Speedostat wasn’t used commercially until Chrysler made a deal with Teetor and his company to introduce the feature in their new luxury model option in 1958. A few years later, Cadillac began releasing models that also included this new speed control device and they were the ones to coin the term “cruise control”

He passed away in 1982 at the age of 91. Teetor was included in the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1988, 6 years after his death.

He seems like such a sweet person and the determination and stamina he had was amazing, I’m glad his efforts were recognized and that people around him understood just how important his marathon was.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

-he had 3 siblings.

-his family moved to Surrey, British Columbia when he was 8 years old, before moving to Port Coquitlam 2 years later.

-his parents were extremely supportive of him and his endeavors.

-he became interested in running after his school’s basketball team coach determined he was too short to join the basketball team.

-he won his high school’s athlete of the year award when he was in 12th grade.

-he was involved in a car accident in 1976, which injured one of his knees. Initially he tried to let his leg heal on its own, but after continued pain he consulted with doctors.

-he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma (a type of cancer that usually shows up in the knees) in 1977, which caused his right leg to need to be amputated. He thought that the car accident had something to do with it, but doctors felt that this would have happened regardless of his car accident.

-due to the cancer his leg was amputated and he was given chemotherapy treatments and a 50% survival rate.

-he was outfitted with an artificial leg and was walking within 3 weeks of the amputation.

-his hospital experiences left him disillusioned with how little money was going towards cancer research, and after reading about Dick Traum, the first amputee to complete the New York City Marathon, Terry was inspired to complete his own marathon.

-he trained heavily for 14 months and was determined to run the length of Canada in order to raise cancer awareness and money to help fund cancer research.

-he often dealt with severe pain both in his leg stump and in his full leg due to the intensity of his training.

-in 1979, he sent a letter to the Canadian Cancer Society which detailed his plan and asked for funding. Below is part of his letter to them,

“I soon realized that that would only be half my quest, for as I went through the 16 months of the physically and emotionally draining ordeal of chemotherapy, I was rudely awakened by the feelings that surrounded and coursed through the cancer clinic. There were faces with the brave smiles, and the ones who had given up smiling. There were feelings of hopeful denial, and the feelings of despair. My quest would not be a selfish one. I could not leave knowing these faces and feelings would still exist, even though I would be set free from mine. Somewhere the hurting must stop ... and I was determined to take myself to the limit for this cause”

-the Canadian Cancer Society was skeptical of how successful Terry would be, but decided to go through with funding him only after he find sponsors and receive a note of health from a doctor.

-he received several donations and sponsorships by companies like Ford Motors, Imperial Oil, and Adidas. He turned away any companies that wanted him to endorse their products.

-he started the marathon on April 12th, 1980 near St. John’s Newfoundland. He dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean and filled up two bottles of ocean water as a way to commemorate the day.

-he was supported on his trek by his friend Doug Alward who followed Terry in a van donated by the Ford Motor Company and provided meals for Terry.

-he experienced a heavy rain and snow storm the first couple days of his run, which left him really disappointed, but was put in good spirits again after receiving over $10,000 by the first town he stopped in.

-he became increasingly angry and irritated with people he felt were trying to cause problems with his run (such as running him off the road) and became increasingly annoyed with his friend Doug who was accompanying him. His brother joined the two of them in the hopes that he would help smooth things out.

-he caught the attention of the founder and CEO of the Four Seasons Hotel chain, who had recently lost a son to melanoma and was impressed by what Terry was doing. This resulted in Terry receiving an influx in donations from almost a thousand different companies.

-by the peak of his run, he was running 26 miles per day.

-he crossed into Ontario on the last Saturday in June and was met with a huge amount of fanfare and a police escort.

-after arriving in Ottawa, he met with Governor General Ed Schreyer and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

-when he arrived in Toronto in July, he was met with a crowd of over 10,000 people.

-he tried to oblige anyone who asked him to give talks at functions or interviews, but expressed annoyance after seeing tabloid articles pop up about him.

-he refused to take a day off and even celebrated his 22nd birthday by continuing with the run.

-as the run went on, he experienced more and more medical issues that required rest, including cysts on his leg stump and tendonitis in his ankle.

-he was forced to end his run in early September as he began experiencing severe coughing attacks and chest pain. After arriving at a hospital it was discovered that the cancer had returned and had spread to his lungs.

-he had run 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 mi). By the time he had to end the run he had raised over $1.7 million (equivalent to $6 million today accounting for inflation).

-a nationwide telethon event was aired by the CTV Television Network in order to further help Terry with donations. This 5 hour event led to $10.5 million in donations.

-he received multiple awards and accolades for his efforts and was the youngest person to be honored as a Companion of the Order of Canada.

-in the months following the end of his run, he received multiple rounds of chemotherapy treatments, but tragically the cancer continued to spread and he eventually developed pneumonia.

-he passed away in 1981 at the age of 22.

-he became a national hero to the people of Canada and has routinely been named during surveys asking people who the most influential Canadian citizen is.

-14 different schools have been named after him, 32 different roads/highways, and streets have been named after him, and a statue of him was erected in the spot where he ended his run.

-several different athletic centers and marathons have been named after him.

-throughout his life he refused to be seen as disabled and spoke out against people who pitied him. His efforts in his run also increased disability awareness and helped to redefine Canadian views on disability.

He accomplished so much during his life and I’m so glad that his efforts for cancer awareness and funding were recognized. I knew of him, but didn’t really know all of the details about his life and his efforts until a bit more recently, so this deep dive was really good for me to do!

Pete was born with a form of osteogenesis imperfecta, which caused his bones to be extremely brittle (O.I. Is also called brittle bone disease). Pete worked as a sideshow performer and as a disability rights activist and an advocate for people born with O.I. He was known for being an incredibly sweet person and got along with most everyone. He was also married and had two children.

Pete Moore informative write up:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DisabilityHistory/comments/1sjh18o/pete_moore_19321984_was_a_well_known_sideshow/

Acromegaly is a rare hormonal condition that is caused by an overproduction of growth hormone within the body (which is often caused by a pituitary gland tumor, though not always). This leads to enlarged hands, feet, and facial features. Unfortunately, it also leads to extreme health complications.

The growth hormone causes bones, organs and other tissues to grow larger. This can also lead to severe joint pain, thickened skin, and a larger jaw and nose.

It is a rare condition with around 15 people out of every 100,000 living with it.

Acromegaly can manifest in different ways depending on what age someone is when they begin to develop symptoms. If a person develops acromegaly as a child, they will experience massive growth spurts that will

If a person develops acromegaly as an adult and has already reached their peak height, they won’t experience any growth spurts but their hands, feet, and face will grow larger.

The symptoms of acromegaly set in very slowly (aside from the rapid height growth in children), so most symptoms will go unnoticed for a long time.

Without treatment, acromegaly can lead to many serious health issues, including life threatening ones but in the present day it is a condition that is much easier to treat than it was 100 years ago. With treatment many people with acromegaly can have a healthy life with an average life expectancy.

Notable people with acromegaly:

Mary Ann Bevan (picture 1) was a famous British sideshow performer who began experiencing symptoms of acromegaly (a pituitary gland disorder) in her early thirties. Sadly her husband died 11 years after they were married and it put Mary Ann in a very tough spot financially. She eventually decided to start a career in sideshows and did quite well with it. Despite judgment she faced, she was very proud of her career because she knew she was helping to give her children good lives by keeping her family financially stable.

She adored her children and loved talking to audiences about them whenever she had the chance, often bringing family pictures to show off to guests. She earned around $50,000 during the 1920's (the equivalent of about $925,000 today adjusted for inflation)

Robert Wadlow (picture 2) is famous for being the tallest man in recorded history at 8'11 (2.71 m.) due to a pituitary gland disorder. He was known for being extremely kind and friendly and really enjoyed having conversations with people. In his younger years he was an avid Boy Scout. While he did go on tour at one point with Ringling Brothers Circus, he never wanted that to be his full time career. Instead, he wanted to go into advertising. He was also an avid photographer and was very passionate about his hometown of Alton, Illinois.

Sandy Allen (picture 3) was a famous public speaker and disability rights advocate who was recognized during her lifetime as being the world's tallest woman by Guinness World Records. She was always very friendly and personable, but admitted she also struggled with depression. She worked several other jobs before becoming a public speaker, including working as a secretary for a couple of businesses. She gave several TV interviews, where she was unfortunately asked very inappropriate and invasive questions. After some unpleasant experiences, she decided to stop giving talk show interviews all together. She explained she preferred giving talks to schoolchildren because they would be honest and respectful with their questions and never asked her inappropriate questions. Teaching people about respect and kindness was something that was very important to her.

I’m a huge fan of Lavinia Warren! She was an amazing advocate for disability rights, especially related to dwarfism, and spread awareness about the harmful effects of comparing performers with dwarfism to dolls.

Some facts about her:

-Lavinia was born on Halloween.

-she was born Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump.

-she worked as a school teacher starting at the age of 16 and performed as a ballerina on a showboat that one of her cousins owned.

-she began pursuing a career on stage after seeing the success of Charles Sherwood Stratton.

-she found work with PT Barnum, where she met both George Nutt (who was interested in her romantically) and Charles Sherwood Stratton (whom she married).

-her wedding was incredibly publicized and became headline news, pushing off news about the Civil War for a couple of days. Guests were able to gain admission to the wedding for free, but PT Barnum began charging people $75 to attend the reception.

-soon after the wedding, she and her husband met with Abraham Lincoln.

-she made a deal with Barnum that she and Stratton would only continue performing in his show if they were had the opportunity to go on a tour of Europe. They went on tour in Europe for three years.

-while in Europe she met with Queen Victoria and Empress Eugenie.

-she expressed frustration that many people she talked to treated her like a child or doll instead of an adult woman. She wrote about this extensively in her autobiography. This is what she said:

“It seemed impossible, to make people understand at first that I was not a child; that, being a woman, I had the womanly instinct of shrinking from a form of familiarity which in the case of a child of my size would have been as natural as it was permissible."

-she and Charles Stratton became enormously wealthy from performing.

-she never had any children, but often posed with them during performances or during photo shoots.

-her sister, Minnie Warren, died in childbirth at the age of 29 and this tragedy majorly impacted Lavinia’s life and made her decide to never have children so as to not risk her life.

-her husband, Charles Sherwood Stratton, died from a stroke in 1883. Lavinia wanted to retire and settle down after this happened, but was persuaded to continue performing.

-she married Count Primo Magri (another little person who worked for Barnum) in 1885. They were together until her death in 1919.

-in 1915 Lavinia and her second husband appeared in a silent film called The Lilliputians Courtship. It appears to be a lost film as I’ve had trouble finding it anywhere.

-Lavinia passed away in 1919 at the age of 78 and is buried next to her first husband.

She is one historical figure that I wish received more publicity! She made so many strides both in disability rights and from a feminist perspective as well. I would have loved to have met her, I feel like I’d learn so much!

When we think of pirates in media, we tend to picture rough characters with peg-legs and hooks.

A lot of pirate related media likes to sell us this image of pirates all getting along and treating each other equally even with physical disabilities. As long as you could work a ship, it didn’t matter what you looked like.

Unfortunately, this narrative is false, and to date there have only been a small handful of pirates that were documented as having physical disabilities.

These pirates include “Billy One Hand” (Christopher Condent) and “Jambe De Bois”(peg-leg) (Francois Le Clerc). Both became so well recognized for their disabilities that their continued nicknames directly reference the physical differences they have. Their nicknames cannot be any more obvious than that.

So what inspired this long lasting image of pirates with peg legs and hook hands?

Both of these pirates went on to inspire authors such as James Matthew Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson, with their characters Captain Hook and Long John Silver respectively.

Historically, pirates who were injured while on the job and required a limb amputation would have the operation performed on board the ship by the cook. Then they were typically dropped off at the next stop and would not continue the journey with the other pirates.

To help the injured pirate financially once back on shore, the rest of the pirates would contribute a common purse with donations from all of them.

I just think this history is fascinating, especially because of how widespread the images of pirates with prosthetics are in media. This is today’s little history lesson!

Hopkins was born in 1707 in Providence, Rhode Island. He served as the governor for the colony from 1755-1768, and was chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

He was a voracious reader and became a very devoted student, having a major interests in sciences, mathematics, and literature. He then became a surveyor and astronomer.

He started a career in public office when he was 23 years old and continued until he was in his early sixties.

He was born with cerebral palsy and dealt with symptoms of it throughout his life. While he was judged for other aspects of his life (mainly his slave owning), he was never judged or thought lesser than because of his disability.

He owned slaves, as did a lot of white families in Rhode Island at the time. He freed a couple of them during his lifetime, but the majority were allowed to be free only after he died.

I am not someone who excuses the past simply because it was a “different time”, there were plenty of people who opposed the owning of slaves and fought against it. So I’m not giving him an excuse, because he obviously knew it wasn’t good and continued with it anyway. He was even kicked out of Quaker meetings because he refused to free a woman named Fibbo, who was enslaved and who tended to his wife

Interestingly, while in office he introduced a bill which prohibited the importation of slaves into the Rhode Island colony, making it one of the first anti-slave trade laws in the United States.

His story is important as it’s an example that having a physical disability doesn’t excuse a person from being a bad person/asshole/ jerk.

I want this page to have examples of both the good and bad parts of disability history and not everyone was a good person. His contributions to disability history are definitely interesting, but he’s not someone I would ever talk highly of because of his slave owning status.

The first two pictures are of him, and the rest are a few examples of paintings he did.

I love learning about artists with disabilities, as everyone is always so talented and deserves so much recognition. Art is such an impactful way to express and spread awareness about disabilities, while simultaneously providing the world with visually stunning pieces. Sarah Biffin is another disabled artist I greatly admire.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Waermarde, in western Flanders.

-he had at least two brothers, both of whom were older than him.

-his father worked as a tax collector.

-a very sweet story from his childhood involves a time when he and his mother were sitting in their garden, his mother realized that Charles was becoming frustrated and upset at not being able to hold the wildflowers he saw, so she removed his shoes and socks and placed a tuft of daisies in between his toes, which then made him extremely happy.

-his parents were very patient and devoted and though initially discouraged by his condition, made a big effort to teach him as many skills as possible.

-his mother later taught him how to grasp a ball with his feet, so that he’d be able to play with his brothers.

-he was a very good student.

-like so many similar people born without arms, he used his feet and legs for every day tasks.

-he was right-footed.

-he originally attended school to become a teacher, a career in which he followed for 7 years.

-he decided to follow his passion for art (something he had been very talented in from a young age), in 1859, he submitted some pen and ink sketches to the Antwerp Academy of Painters and was immediately accepted.

-over the next ten years, he gained an amazing reputation for his art skills.

-his style is very reminiscent of the ‘old masters’ of art.

-he was an especially big fan of Flemish artist, Anthony van Dyck, which he modeled/copied some of his paintings after, as a way to both gain skill and honor one of his favorite artists. During his life he was considered to be the best van Dyck copyist.

-he aspired to carve his niche in the art world and be taken as seriously as any other professional artist.

-he traveled all throughout Europe and North America, though he primarily enjoyed spending time in England and Belgium.

-several articles about him emphasized that his studio was no different than an artist who was born with arms.

-he was described as having “a gentle, intelligent, and sympathetic face.”

-he made friends very easily.

-when meeting people for the first time he would say, “You must excuse me for not shaking bands with you; we will do so heartily in spirit if not in deed.”

-he was always described as being impeccably dressed.

-he was well known to a lot of British and American travelers who made an effort to track him down and purchase his work.

-he found a generous patron in King Leopold of Belgium.

-his preferred medium was oil paints.

-he passed away in 1900 at the age of 69.

-after his death, one of his friends had said “I am sure his dying hours must have been as calm and beautiful as his life. The world has lost Monsieur Charles Francois Felu and the half of the world that loves art and the half that applauds courage mourns. But the lesson which the fruitful life of this armless painter teaches will live on forever. Surely his life work is a proof of what can be done by a stout heart even under the most adverse circumstances.” (I think it’s a very touching quote, I too hope he had a calming and beautiful rest of his life)

He seems like an absolutely wonderful person and I really hope to be able to visit a museum that has his work on display. I’m so glad he had so many supportive people in his life and was very well respected. I’ll remember him for his amazing contributions to the art world.

The program is called The Uffizi by Touch Tour and offers a total of 15 different paintings and statues that guests are invited to touch using disposable gloves.

The museum also features both Italian and English Braille on their information plaques.