Nicole recently published “‘Confined to Crutches’: James Logan and the Material Culture of Disability in Early America,” Pennsylvania Legacies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Fall 2017): 6-11.
Nicole Belolan
University of Delaware
-
Research Fellow
Navigating the World: The Material Culture of Physical Mobility Impairment in the Early American North, 1700-1861
When an early American elite fell and broke a hip at home, necessitating moving his bed to the parlor, or when a laborer broke his leg, resulting in the use of crutches, what were the everyday consequences of those disabilities, and what did those disabilities mean? Using material culture as interpretive touchstones for disability in the early American North from about 1700-1861, my research highlights the critical role that objects—including furniture, conveyances, clothing, accessories, prosthetics, and disabled bodies themselves—played at home, on the street, and inside institutions as both tools and signs. My work probes when disability mattered, explores disability’s relationship to disease, and delineates the disabled body’s relationship to the material world. Managing and living with what we call “physical mobility disabilities” or “impairments” shaped and continues to shape everyday life and how Americans have thought about bodily appearance, identity, longevity, and citizenship, historically and today. You can read Belolan's research report here.
Updates
Nicole Belolan
Nicole Belolan
has been selected by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities to participate in their Public Scholars Project. New Jersey non-profits will be able to apply to have her present her workshop on site called "Disabilities Then, Disabilities Now."
Nicole Belolan
Nicole has accepted a position at Rowan University as the Megan Giordano Fellow in Public History and the Curator at Redbank Battlefield and the Whitall House in Gloucester County, NJ.
Nicole Belolan
Belolan has won fellowship support from four sources for 2015-16: A University Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Delaware; a Winterthur Library Dissertation Fellowship; a Center for Historic American Visual Culture Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society; and a Caesar Rodney Fellowship from the General Society of Colonial Wars.
Nicole Belolan
Belolan has won fellowship support from four sources for 2015-16: A University Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Delaware; a Winterthur Library Dissertation Fellowship; a Center for Historic American Visual Culture Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society; and a Caesar Rodney Fellowship from the General Society of Colonial Wars.
Nicole Belolan
2014-15 Research Fellow, 2017-18 Fellow in Residence