Finding collections relating to d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse people

One of the aims of our project is to make collections relating to d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people more visible – and to share some of the objects our Fellows and Trainees are discovering.

Some will have quite obvious connections to disabled people’s lives – a walking stick, some braille or images of disabled people. But we will also be exploring less obvious connections too. Sometimes the significance of an object is its owner; its part in a bigger story, or the way someone with lived experience of disability has responded to it. In this way we hope to broaden the ways that d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent stories are told.

Collections

VICTORIAN OPTOMITREST SET (Optomitrest set)

1989/054/002

A wooden dark oak rectangular box. When opened, on the inside of the top lid is blue leather. On the bottom, there are rectangular slots for eye pieces. There are a total of 10; 8 are rows, 2 are columns. There are titles above these slots which include 'concave spherical', 'concave cylindrical', convex cylindrical', 'concave...

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Rights information: Copyright: Black Country Living Museum

Description

A wooden dark oak rectangular box. When opened, on the inside of the top lid is blue leather. On the bottom, there are rectangular slots for eye pieces. There are a total of 10; 8 are rows, 2 are columns. There are titles above these slots which include 'concave spherical', 'concave cylindrical', convex cylindrical', 'concave spherical'. There are numbers down the center, between two slots. For the 8 rows of slots, they are all mostly full of eye pieces.

This is a Victorian optomitrest set.

- Claudia Davies, Curating for Change Fellow at Black Country Living Museum