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The Disability Rag
The Disability Rag (also known as Ragged Edge magazine) was a periodical published between 1980 and 2004 as a subscription-based print publication, and as an online publication from 1997 to 2007. In addition to covering the U. S. disability rights movement, The Rag, as it was usually called, published a wide range of articles and opinion pieces from individuals with disabilities. It was considered one of the most important publications of the disability rights movement. The not-for-profit Advocado Press was incorporated in 1981 to serve as publisher of The Rag. The Advocado Press also published a number of books and monographs on disability issues.
The Disability Rag's first issue was a four-page bifold produced at a quick-print shop and published in January, 1980 in Louisville KY, with both news items for the local disability activism community in Louisville and a first-person account of "living like a refugee" as a person with a disability. The publication was the effort of two Louisville women who were active in local disability organizations: Cass Irvin, a polio survivor who believed that "there needed to be some way for [disabled] people to connect" and Mary Johnson, who was non-disabled and had a background in public relations. In 1994 Irvin was cited as one of 50 "American Heroines" by the Ladies Home Journal, in part for her work with The Rag. After a few years The Rag began to get national attention due to the efforts of Irvin, who was active in the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD).
The Disability Rag's national growth was accelerated in 1985 by a front page Wall Street Journal article. As it became a national periodical of the disability movement, it addressed the disability community's concerns about both personal and public issues. The Rag was a hybrid: both a news magazine, with coverage of emerging activism local and nationwide, and an opinion journal. In an era before social media, its articles by leading disability rights figures and a large and lively letters to the editor section debated the disability rights policy issues of the times as activists proposed, argued about and worked out ideology and strategies. The Rag covered the full range of disability political issues from charity telethons to physician assisted suicide to protests over inaccessible public transit. When ADAPT started a national activist effort to change public transit policy, The Rag provided continuing coverage of the activists and the issue, and the coverage was collected and published as To Ride the Public's Buses: The Fight that Built A Movement, The Advocado Press's first "Disability Rag Reader."
Another ongoing issue for The Rag was media coverage: it consistently railed against or poked fun at what it considered detrimental or misguided coverage of disabled people. Two ongoing features of the magazine — "Myth & Media" and "We Wish We Wouldn't See..." — critiqued the typical coverage of disabled people as either heroes and "overcomers" or victims of disease, and skewered ads for cosmetic surgery or from fundraising charities which used disability as tragedy to open purse strings.
It urged readers to view themselves not as victims of tragedy but survivors facing discrimination and barriers, which could be removed by society. It urged its readers to wake up to the fact that their lives could be better without cures if they would just fight for access and accommodation. The recurring cartoon feature "Disability Rat," kept up the theme. The Wall Street Journal told readers about the "wheelchair-riding rodent who, irked at having his handicapped-parking space swiped, blows up the offending vehicle." And The Rag was not shy about pointing out the value of its ideology: "Start Reading The Rag and start to think" was a slogan of early subscription ads.
The Rag served as a national forum as activists and leading thinkers and scholars of disability rights submitted articles and reacted to items and reader letters published in The Rag, and it grew to become an important outlet for creative expressions of disability culture, including essays, fiction, poetry and artwork reflecting the experience of disability. (In 1994 The Advocado Press issued an anthology of much of this writing as The Ragged Edge anthology.). Mike Ervin, reviewing the book in The Progressive magazine, called The Rag "the gimp-radical's bible."
Many disabled people first learned about disability culture through The Disability Rag, including Stephen E Brown, who wrote that "The Disability Rag published stories by kindred spirits" and noted that he "wanted to write for it one day."
Bob Ruffner, then the director of public affairs for the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, called The Rag "a strong voice for those who may not be associated with a lot of well-organized groups.
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The Disability Rag
The Disability Rag (also known as Ragged Edge magazine) was a periodical published between 1980 and 2004 as a subscription-based print publication, and as an online publication from 1997 to 2007. In addition to covering the U. S. disability rights movement, The Rag, as it was usually called, published a wide range of articles and opinion pieces from individuals with disabilities. It was considered one of the most important publications of the disability rights movement. The not-for-profit Advocado Press was incorporated in 1981 to serve as publisher of The Rag. The Advocado Press also published a number of books and monographs on disability issues.
The Disability Rag's first issue was a four-page bifold produced at a quick-print shop and published in January, 1980 in Louisville KY, with both news items for the local disability activism community in Louisville and a first-person account of "living like a refugee" as a person with a disability. The publication was the effort of two Louisville women who were active in local disability organizations: Cass Irvin, a polio survivor who believed that "there needed to be some way for [disabled] people to connect" and Mary Johnson, who was non-disabled and had a background in public relations. In 1994 Irvin was cited as one of 50 "American Heroines" by the Ladies Home Journal, in part for her work with The Rag. After a few years The Rag began to get national attention due to the efforts of Irvin, who was active in the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (ACCD).
The Disability Rag's national growth was accelerated in 1985 by a front page Wall Street Journal article. As it became a national periodical of the disability movement, it addressed the disability community's concerns about both personal and public issues. The Rag was a hybrid: both a news magazine, with coverage of emerging activism local and nationwide, and an opinion journal. In an era before social media, its articles by leading disability rights figures and a large and lively letters to the editor section debated the disability rights policy issues of the times as activists proposed, argued about and worked out ideology and strategies. The Rag covered the full range of disability political issues from charity telethons to physician assisted suicide to protests over inaccessible public transit. When ADAPT started a national activist effort to change public transit policy, The Rag provided continuing coverage of the activists and the issue, and the coverage was collected and published as To Ride the Public's Buses: The Fight that Built A Movement, The Advocado Press's first "Disability Rag Reader."
Another ongoing issue for The Rag was media coverage: it consistently railed against or poked fun at what it considered detrimental or misguided coverage of disabled people. Two ongoing features of the magazine — "Myth & Media" and "We Wish We Wouldn't See..." — critiqued the typical coverage of disabled people as either heroes and "overcomers" or victims of disease, and skewered ads for cosmetic surgery or from fundraising charities which used disability as tragedy to open purse strings.
It urged readers to view themselves not as victims of tragedy but survivors facing discrimination and barriers, which could be removed by society. It urged its readers to wake up to the fact that their lives could be better without cures if they would just fight for access and accommodation. The recurring cartoon feature "Disability Rat," kept up the theme. The Wall Street Journal told readers about the "wheelchair-riding rodent who, irked at having his handicapped-parking space swiped, blows up the offending vehicle." And The Rag was not shy about pointing out the value of its ideology: "Start Reading The Rag and start to think" was a slogan of early subscription ads.
The Rag served as a national forum as activists and leading thinkers and scholars of disability rights submitted articles and reacted to items and reader letters published in The Rag, and it grew to become an important outlet for creative expressions of disability culture, including essays, fiction, poetry and artwork reflecting the experience of disability. (In 1994 The Advocado Press issued an anthology of much of this writing as The Ragged Edge anthology.). Mike Ervin, reviewing the book in The Progressive magazine, called The Rag "the gimp-radical's bible."
Many disabled people first learned about disability culture through The Disability Rag, including Stephen E Brown, who wrote that "The Disability Rag published stories by kindred spirits" and noted that he "wanted to write for it one day."
Bob Ruffner, then the director of public affairs for the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, called The Rag "a strong voice for those who may not be associated with a lot of well-organized groups.