Barbara Young Welke Summary

Barbara Young Welke, a professor of history and law at the University of Minnesota, in her book, Law and the Borders of Belonging in the Long Nineteenth Century United States, discusses how law constructs borders through creating a legal place for the other. The author primarily studies and writes within the areas of 19th and 20th century legal history, as she continues to present in this book. Barbara’s purpose for this book is to provide an educational foundation of historical policies and legal practices for why racism and discrimination is so present in the United States today. Welke particularly focuses on the groups of racialized others, women, and disabled persons by providing the legal precedence for those groups along with personal narratives from those individuals. The author produces her argument over the construction of law and borders of belonging …show more content…
Welke discusses how, “no black in a free state was safe from the allegation of being a fugitive slave” (Welke, 71). Welke claims that during this time no one was successful, due to the improper use of extended rights to racialized others, it was a game to the white, abled, men running the show. Lastly, the author analyzes her argument for disabled people as she presents what are known as the Ugly Laws. The Ugly Laws, are a compilation of laws from many states, establishing borders to hinder the accessibility of personhood and citizenship to disabled people at the time. During this era, disabled people were known as anyone who essentially did not look like an ideal normal white person. The author describes the terms of these laws as, “those labeled insane, idiotic, feebleminded, epileptic, and otherwise “defective” (Welke, 79). The author continues on to describe how labeled disabled people were to be institutionalized, and treated without the right to citizenship and