Dave Earl - Disability history in Australia and the world

I'm a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Sydney. I'm currently based in the Race and Ethnicity in the Global South Research Collaboration.

My research interests include histories of youth, gender, welfare, education and disability. I have a keen interest in digital history and all things web.

My dissertation is titled "Help Us/Help Them: How Australian parents understood the problem of mental retardation, and what they did about it, 1945-1970."

Caring for their Children, Forever

March 10, 2010

tags: australia, disability, history, intellectual disabilities, mental illness, new south wales, non-government, not for profit, NSW, parents, Publications, voluntary, volunteers

Late one Wednesday afternoon in 1950, staff at the Peat and Milson Islands Mental Hospital on the Hawkesbury River found the body of an eleven-year-old patient “wedged into a drum used for soiled clothing.” Police initially suspected that he had been “the victim of some other patient,” but soon abandoned this theory. Instead, they concluded that

the boy [had] hid himself in the drum… [His]… medical history showed that he had a weak heart. Once in the drum,… he struggled to release himself and in the confined space his efforts caused him to collapse, and during his collapse he suffocated.

The Detectives figured that such behaviour was typical of the boy’s “type.” “The urge to escape and conceal himself,” they explained to The Sydney Morning Herald, was a common “symptom” of his “mental derangement.” The Herald, in turn, assured its readers that Peat and Milson Islands housed only “the state’s worst mental cases.” [1]

Martime Museum Blogs

March 10, 2010

tags: australia, australian national maritime museum, blogs, cerberus, gun, history, museums, naval, navy, online, pistol, rifle, weapons

In 2008 & 2009, I undertook an internship at the Australian National Maritime Museum. As part of this, I got to put together some entries on my work for their blog.

Here they are:

A Mauser in the House?

My name’s Dave Earl and I’m a volunteer intern in the curatorial department of the museum. For the past six months I’ve been researching and documenting the museum’s collection of naval and civilian small-arms.

I’m no expert on weaponry—when I’m not at the museum I’m undertaking a PhD in social and cultural history at the University of Sydney— but the project is providing a great chance to become familiar with the museum’s staff, collections, and registration processes…