Ep2: Disability. A Parallel History | Two Steps Forward. One Step Back.

[3-part documentary]

Episode 2 of 3

Two Steps Forward. One Step Back.  

1500s - 1800s 

In this new Yarn Miniseries I’m going to give you a rough history of Disability. 

In episode two we will see how the aftermath of the Reformation effected people with disabilities.
We look at the Elizabethan Poor Laws and the Poor houses many Disabled people ended up in.
We enter the massive institutions that were created for people with disabilities, including the infamous Bedlam Asylum and we explore the age of Enlightenment and beyond, when philosophers and physicians attempted to understand, classify and cue mental and physical disability.     

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Full episode transcript available here: 

https://medium.com/@mrjohnroche_42475/disability-a-parallel-history-ad51c7673cdb  

Sources  

Short history of disability By Dr Robert Jackson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js2qgVhmH88  MN Department of Administration - Council on Development Disabilities https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels/index.html  World Bank https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/disability  Historic England https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/  History Channel https://www.history.com/topics/germany/eugenics  PBS https://www.pbs.org/weta/throughdeafeyes/deaflife/bell_nad.html  United Nations Human Rights Office of High Commissioner https://www.ohchr.org/  Dr. William Bronston, Willowbrook Memorial Lecture https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels/five/5f/willowbrook-bronston-memorial.html  Welcome Collection https://wellcomecollection.org/works  IWM Archive https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-of-the-first-world-war-shell-shock  RTE Archive https://www.rte.ie/archives/  The Times Archive https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ancient-walking-aids-5232vx5n9j0  Special Olympics https://www.specialolympics.org  JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/3288457?seq=1  IPC https://www.paralympic.org/  Greek Gods info https://www.greek-gods.info/greek-gods/hephaestus/  YouTube

Documentaries and dramas. Spinning yarns and unraveling them, Yarn is a podcast dedicated to storytelling at its finest.

We have 29 different stories now, each in a different style. Most episodes are standalone but some bigger stories are part of a series. We've done a 3-part doc series on the history of disability, a 2-part docu-drama about a German spy in Ireland during WW2. We've taken listeners on a trip around the Chernobyl exclusion zone, on a ride-along with a New York police officer and into the bizarre palace of a corrupt dictator.

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• No. of episodes: 35
• Latest episode: 2025-05-01
• Society & Culture Documentary

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