This book asks what happened to disabled people during industrialization by examining the experiences of those disabled in the coal industry. It presents new perspectives on disabled people's working lives in the past, and for the first time places disabled people at the heart of the story of Britain's Industrial Revolution.

David M. Turner is Professor of History at Swansea University
Daniel Blackie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the History of Science and Ideas at the University of Oulu, Finland

Introduction
1. Disability and work in the coal economy
2. Medicine and the miner's body
3. Disability and welfare
4. Disability, family and community
5. The industrial politics of disablement
Conclusion
Select bibliography
Index