'The Invention of Disability' by Sarah F. Rose, professor at the University of Texas

The equation of 'disability = unable to work' is itself a kind of 'invention'

Industrialization pushed people with disabilities out of the workforce

Cases like Bernstein and Ford show they can and should be brought back in

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A common assumption persists in our society: people with disabilities cannot work and must be protected by the state. In a modern philosophical tradition that treats labor as proof of human worth, people with disabilities — seen as unproductive and dependent — have long been treated as second-class citizens, stripped of social and economic rights. But were they excluded from the labor market from the very beginning?

Sarah F. Rose, a historian and disability studies scholar at the University of Texas, argues in her new book "The Invention of Disability" that the equation of disability with an inability to work is itself a kind of "invention" — one produced by the rapidly shifting conditions of a particular era. Industrialization, urbanization, changes in family structure and the unintended consequences of public policy combined to push people with disabilities out of the workplace, she contends. The problem, Rose argues, is not the disabled body itself but the meaning society has assigned to it.

Rose examines the history of institutions for people with developmental disabilities in the United States to trace how they came to be excluded from the labor market. The New York State Asylum for Idiots, founded in 1851, was originally designed to make those it called "idiots" — a category that encompassed not only cerebral palsy and epilepsy but also hypothyroidism and cognitive impairments caused by high fever — into "less burdensome" individuals who could be returned to their families.

By the early 19th century, however, the rise of eugenics fueled growing calls to separate people deemed incurable from the general population. At the same time, the shift from farm-based to wage-based labor eroded families' capacity to care for disabled relatives, making it harder for institutionalized individuals to reenter the mainstream workforce. Institution administrators compounded the problem by portraying residents as "lacking productivity" or "liable to cause social problems" in order to secure larger state budgets, effectively blocking their release.

New release
New release

Workers' compensation laws, originally designed to protect injured workers and their families, paradoxically deepened the difficulties disabled workers faced in the mainstream labor market. Because such laws could not account for the diversity of disabilities or their variation over time, they failed to address the long-term economic hardship of workers with permanent impairments — and in some cases gave employers a financial incentive to exclude disabled workers altogether. By the 1920s, pre-employment physical examinations had become standard practice, and any disability discovered in the process was grounds for rejection.

Not everyone, however, regarded people with disabilities as unfit for all work. Charles Bernstein, superintendent of the Rome State Custodial Asylum, sought to return residents to the labor market by assigning them farm work and domestic tasks. He introduced a colony system — similar to today's group homes — along with a conditional discharge program, placing roughly 700 residents, about a third of the institution's population, into colonies. Those who met certain requirements could find jobs on farms or as domestic workers and leave the institution. The approach allowed Bernstein to ease the asylum's chronic budget shortfalls and its backlog of applicants waiting for admission.

Ford Motor Company took a systematic approach to integrating workers with disabilities into its mechanized production lines. Rather than using physical examinations as a filter to screen people out — as other employers did — Ford used them as a sorting tool, matching workers with disabilities to roles where they could be just as productive and efficient as their non-disabled colleagues. The result was a workforce with notably lower turnover and a higher proportion of loyal, long-tenured employees, even as the broader industry struggled with high attrition.

Despite such efforts, disability remains synonymous with unproductivity in much of the public mind. American social welfare policies have tied social standing and economic citizenship so tightly to the capacity for work that they have in effect erased any place for those who cannot work in the conventional sense. Yet Rose argues that the cases of Bernstein and Ford show that employing people with disabilities across a range of abilities need not disadvantage employers — it can, in fact, be an asset. The failures of past policy, she says, should be treated not merely as history but as a reference point for "inventing" a different future.

"The Invention of Disability" by Sarah F. Rose, translated by Kim Seung-seop, published by East Asia Publishing.


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