Omsorg och Kontroll En handikapphistorisk studie 1750- 1930

Summary
The accounts submitted by the inspectors contain detailed descriptions
of the living and social conditions of the blind and visually-impaired, their
labour capacity, and ability to earn a living. Needless to say, the middleclass
social origins of the inspectors coloured their impressions.
The venture to design special vocational training for the blind was a necessity
to late nineteenth century society, but a failure during the first decades
of the twentieth. By restricting the blind to traditional handicrafts, their
integration into society´s modern means of production was delayed. It also
served to isolate the blind in their homes, where their work was done.
Class, gender and other concurrent factors determined the degree in
which blind people succeeded in supporting themselves independently or
if they were forced to turn to public and private social services for help. In
the most pessimistic opinions, the inspectors estimated that as little as ten
percent of the blind were able to live entirely off their earnings, which included
professions not usually considered ”blindwork”. The most optimistic
ones estimated the number to lie closer to the fifty-percent mark.
The most important support that could be offered, according to the
same inspectors, was the will of relatives to help a blind member. Unfortunately,
many lacked this kind of support and found themselves at the mercy
of strangers.
Individual actors, including blind ones, played a significant philathropic
role. The latter were individuals from good homes with recourse to capital
in the sense of Bourdieu´s use of the term; cultural, social and financial capital
which could guarantee a happy childhood and proper education. Among
these we find numerous leaders of blind organizations, from chairmen Alrik
Lundberg and Ernst Retsler to a businesswoman like Anna Wikström, who
founded and ran the Trade School for Blind Women in Uppsala.
Three historical and genealogical eras, each a turning point in an ongoing
story, have comprised the framework for the present dissertation´s investigation
of the perceptions and dominant discourses on the care and
control of the deaf, blind and disabled. Easily the most significant development
was the establishment of a school system comparable to the one offered
to other poverty-stricken children. The scarlet thread running through
this entire account has been the idea of a proper upbringing and educa-
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