The Companion Earth: An Environmental History of Pediatric Hospitalization, 1920-1960

 

Sara Grossman, the Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities, presented “The Companion Earth: An Environmental History of Pediatric Hospitalization, 1920-1960.” Grossman was the final speaker in the Spring 2026 HMEI Faculty Seminar Series.

Disabled people are often consigned to the edges of the earth as misfits whose “unnatural” bodies serve as a foil for health and normativity. In this talk, Grossman shared archival research on the ways children engaged and were engaged by nature in long-term pediatric hospitals in the early- to mid-twentieth century. Primary source material from this period presents a novel opportunity to re-situate disability history as a form of environmental history and recast the central relation between disabled peoples and their environment. By examining how environments became companions for children living in isolation and often under conditions of medical distress, this talk highlighted disabled youth as central agents in environmental meaning-making.

The Companion Earth: An Environmental History of Pediatric Hospitalization, 1920-1960

Publish Date

May 5, 2026

Presenter(s)

Sara Grossman

Link to Video

https://youtu.be/KULHLKy3X1o

Video Length

54:33

 

Sara Grossman, the Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities, presented “The Companion Earth: An Environmental History of Pediatric Hospitalization, 1920-1960.” Grossman was the final speaker in the Spring 2026 HMEI Faculty Seminar Series.

Disabled people are often consigned to the edges of the earth as misfits whose “unnatural” bodies serve as a foil for health and normativity. In this talk, Grossman shared archival research on the ways children engaged and were engaged by nature in long-term pediatric hospitals in the early- to mid-twentieth century. Primary source material from this period presents a novel opportunity to re-situate disability history as a form of environmental history and recast the central relation between disabled peoples and their environment. By examining how environments became companions for children living in isolation and often under conditions of medical distress, this talk highlighted disabled youth as central agents in environmental meaning-making.