Reflections in Time
I find history fascinating. The whole world is made up of billions and billions of different stories, weaving in and out of each other to create this mind-bendingly complex tapestry we call ‘history’. This tapestry is so vast that it’s impossible to see every single thread that makes it. Countless stories fade, other stories are cut out entirely, some stories are re-dyed beyond recognition. My goal with this project is to discover the neglected or abused threads and highlight their story again. Too often stories of disability, neurodiversity, chronic and mental illness are torn out of history, in favour of creating a prettier picture of the “good old days”. Some would rather remember historical figures as either gods or monsters,
refusing to see our ancestors for what they are; people.
I have called this project Reflections in Time because I want to emphasise humanity; I want people to see themselves represented in our histories. Sometimes bodies aren’t perfect, sometimes brains don’t work like we want them to, sometimes we don’t fit in with the people around us - and that’s okay! Some of the most famous historical figures in the world struggled with physical, mental and societal issues; Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Darwin,
Mozart, Lady Gaga, Michelangelo, Frida Khalo. You don’t have to fit the able-bodied, neurotypical world to live a wonderful life and follow your dreams - you can do it all, and maybe even make history!
I’m not a professional historian. I’m just a person who wants other people to feel a little less lonely. Looking back into history makes me feel more grounded and surer in myself. I hope it can do the same for you too.
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AUDIO AND BSL TRANSLATION COMING SOON
Deafness
Princess Alice (1885—1969)
Born deaf in Winsor Castle, she married Prince Andrew of Greek and Denmark.
Despite being slow to start speaking she became fluent in English, German, French and Greek.
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She worked as a nurse during the Balkan Wars, earning herself the Royal Red Cross in 1913. After she was forced to flee Greece, Princess Alice suffered a nervous breakdown and was taken to a sanatorium. She repeatedly tried to leave but was only allowed to two years later.
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During World War II she worked for the Red Cross in Athens, organising soup kitchens, shelters for orphans, and a nursing circuit.
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In 1943 she hid a Jewish mother and two children from the Nazis, who has already killed the majority of Jews in Athens.
Although guerrilla fighters had imposed a city-wide curfew in 1944, the princess insisted on distributing rations to policemen and children. When asked whether she was frightened of being shot, she said "they tell me that you don't hear the shot that kills you and in any case I am deaf. So, why worry about that?".
In 1949 she established a nursing order of nuns. She trained on Tinos and undertook two tours of the USA to raise funds.
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By the time she died she had no possessions of her own, having given everything away to those less fortunate. Princess Alice was posthumously named a Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government.
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770—1827)
His music lessons started when he wad five years old and his first public performance was at age seven.
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In 1798, at the age of 28, Beethoven started to go deaf. The cause of deafness in uncertain, but he complained to his friends of lots of buzzing noises in his ears.
while his hearing deteriorated steadily he wrote 4 sonatas, 5 piano trios, 9 symphonies, 11 string quartets, 13 concertos, 12 piano sonatas, 15 overtures, 18 short piano pieces, 54 songs, 56 musical jokes, and 171 folksongs and more.
Beethoven was almost completely deaf by 1814, at age 44. Despite this he wrote over 150 pieces of music.
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He communicated with friends by having them write in a notebook and he composed music by feeling the vibrations of his piano. Today, his works are one of the most frequently played pieces of classical music. He is one of the most admired Western composers in history.
Annie Jump Cannon (1863—1941)
She lost most of her hearing during her childhood and young adulthood, from scarlet fever.
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She studied astronomy and physics in college, where she simultaneously taught physics to the junior classes and earned a Masters degree.
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In 1896 she became a member of the Harvard Computers, a group of women hired to map and define every star in the sky. She swiftly became known as the fastest person at classifying stars. In her lifetime Cannon manually classified 350,000 stars, more than anyone else. At 50 years old she could classify three stars a minute just by looking at them.
In 1925 she became the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate of science from Oxford University.
Thomas Edison (1847—1931)
He developed hearing problems aged 12, becoming completely deaf in one ear and severely deaf in the other.
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Edison had difficulties with speech and his teachers labelled him “dull”. He barely concentrated in school and bunked off regularly. Historians now believe he had ADHD as well as being deaf.
At age 13 he was making $50 a week profit from selling produce on trains. This money went towards his many electrical experiments.
At 22 years old his first patent was granted and he set up an electrical company with his friend Franklin Pope.
At 27 years old he had his first major success, selling his multiplex telegraphic system for $10,000 ($226,000 in today's dollars).
In 1876 Edison set up his first laboratory, Menlo Park, which resulted in over 400 inventions.
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He invented the long-distance telephone, longer lasting lightbulbs, automatic telegraphs, the phonograph, and the alkaline storage bat-tery (used in lamps, trains and submarines). He even set up a movie studio and a botany centre!
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In his lifetime Edison has 2,332 patents to his name.
Millie Bobby Brown (2004 - current)
She was born with partial hearing loss in one ear, which over time degenerated to complete deafness.
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She began acting in 2013, earning her first starring role in 2014.
In 2016 she was cast as Eleven in the Netflix show Stranger Things, a role in which she won 26 nominations and 10 awards.
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She is the youngest ever person to be appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
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In 2017, Time magazine named her one of the top 100 most influential people in the world.
Bruce Willis (1955 - current)
During the filming of Die Hard, Willis lost 2/3 of his hearing in his left ear from firing a gun to close to his ears.
Even after this he was in over 100 films and 9 TV shows.
He has received 10 awards and honours, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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He has three solo albums (two recorded after his hearing loss) and as been featured in 7 songs.
Helen Keller (1880—1968)
At 19 months old Keller suffered an illness that left her deaf and blind.
Anne Sullivan, 20 years old partially blind, became Keller’s governess and lifelong companion. She immediately started teaching the young girl how to communicate by tracing letters on her palm.
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After attending several deaf schools Keller entered into Radcliff College, the all-girls section of Harvard University. She became the first deaf-blind person to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree.
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She learned how to speak, and listened by touching the mouth and throat of the speaker. She was also fluent in reading sign language and braille.
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Keller became a world-famous author and public speaker. She wrote 12 books and travelled to over 40 countries. Despite coming from a family who had owned slaves, she donated money to the NAACP and helped set up the ACLU to protect the rights of Black Americans.
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In 1964 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was elected to the National Women’s Hall of Fame the next year.
Autism
Hans Christian Andersen (1805—1875)
Born to an illiterate washerwoman, Anderson received only basic education whilst financially supporting himself.
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At 14 he was accepted into the Royal Danish Theatre. The director, Jonas Collin, was very affectionate with the boy; he sent him off to grammar school, persuading King Frederick VI to pay part of his fees.
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Andersen’s time in school was bitter. Children in his class bullied him and one schoolmaster abused him “to improve his character”.
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He wrote his first story, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave, in 1822.
He made him name publishing volumes of fairy-tales; critics hated his informal style but young children and Royal Families loved him.
He travelled across Europe collecting stories, as well as making up his own; Thumbelina and The Little Mermaid were a few of his own creations.
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According to psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald, Andersen showed many symptoms of having Asperger's Syndrome such as social difficulty, specific interests, repetitive routines, speech and language particularities and clumsiness. When staying with his friend Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen baffled the family with strong displays of emotion, throwing himself onto the lawn and weeping when a book of his got a bad review.
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Andersen said that The Ugly Duckling story was a “a reflection of his life” - it is the story of a duckling that is bullied by everyone for being different, but then grows into a beautiful swan.
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His fairy tales are now known worldwide. He has inspired Disney films, ballets, operas, TV shows, and figures of speech. His birthday is celebrated on World Book Day.
Hannah Gadsby (1978—present)
Before starting comedy, Gadsby worked respectively in a bookshop, as a projectionist, and planted trees and vegetables. She suffered from homelessness and hospitalisation.
In 2006 she entered Raw Comedy, an annual comedy competition in Australia. She won the national first prize. She won second prize in the So You Think You’re Funny? competition at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, prompting her to enter comedy festivals all over Australia.
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In response to a national debate regarding same-sex marriage, and to her di-agnosis of autism and ADHD, Gadsby wrote Nanette. It was released to Netflix in 2018; it earned a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Time magazine listed it as the Best Stand Up Comedy Special of 2018, and it won seven awards.
In 2019 Gadsby wrote and toured with a new stand-up comedy show, Douglas, which aired on Netflix in 2020.
She has also written and acted for TV shows, and gives art lectures (she has a Bachelors Degree in Art History and Curatorship).
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In just over a decade, she has earned 17 nominations and 12 awards for her comedy.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Mozart wrote his first musical composition at five or six years old, and performed alongside his sister in a Royal Court when he was six.
He wrote his first symphony at eight years old and his first opera at 14.
After working for Archbishop Colloredo and doing a period of freelance work, Mozart achieved his dream; he was employed by Emperor Joseph II.
In just 29 years, Mozart composed over 600 works and is considered one of the greatest classical com-posers of all time.
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Mozart was reported to have had repeated facial expressions, unintentional constant motion of hands and feet, and a tendency toward jumping; during a fit of boredom one day he jumped over furniture and did cartwheels whilst mewing like a cat.
He swung regularly between extreme boredom and intense focus, and he was highly sensitive to loud noises. Mozart may very well have had autism and/or Tourette’s Syndrome, and his extreme creativity may have stemmed from his neurodivergence.
Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941)
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and also pioneered the use of stream of consciousness as a nar-rative device.
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After being home-schooled as a child she attended King’s College London, where she first came into contact with the women's’ rights movement.
She began writing in 1900 and helped form the artis-tic and literary Bloomsburg Group in 1912; the group was made up of painters, writers, and an economist wo all loved and valued the arts.
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Her first novel, Voyage Out, was published when she was 33 years old. One of its themes is the discordance between thoughts and spoken words. In 1917 Virginia founded the Hogarth Press with her husband, which published most of her writing.
She wrote nine novels in total, along with over 500 essays and reviews (some of which were book-length themselves). One essay, A Room of One’s Own, is considered a key work of feminist literary criticism.
Her work has been translated into 50 languages.
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Virginia Woolf took longer than the average child to learn how to speak. She suffered with anorexia, couldn’t look people in the eye, and was intense-ly shy and felt isolated as a teenager. She enjoyed socializing but hated being peered at. She was also obsessed with her pens and would only write stand-ing up.
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She likely suffered from bipolar disorder, which as many as 30% of autistic people may exhibit symptoms of. There were no effective treatments for mental illnesses during Woolf’s lifetime, leaving her to endure mental breakdowns and tragically die by suicide.
Greta Thunberg (2003 - present)
Thunberg first learned of climate change at eight years old; the revelation made her so depressed that at 11 years old she had stopped eating and talking.
For two years she challenged her own family to re-duce their carbon footprint until they went vegan, began upcycling and gave up flying (this ended her mother’s career as an international opera singer).
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She was inspired to start striking from school by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, who refused to attend school in protest of lax gun laws.
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After winning an essay writing competition she was contacted by Fossil Free Dalsland, who encouraged her to strike. None of her peers could be persuaded to join, so in August 2018 Thunberg began protesting alone.
Thunberg posted a photo of her first strike day on Instagram and Twitter. Word quickly spread on social media and on her second strike day she was joined by other activists. In little over a week she was featured on international news.
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By December 2018 more than 20,000 students had held strikes in at least 270 cities. Greta Thunberg spoke at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the 2019 World Economic Forum, the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the 2020 World Economic Forum, and the 2020 European Parliament's Environment Committee. She also met with climate activists across the globe, national governments, and Pope Francis.
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She has spoken openly about her Asperger’s, stating “Being different is a gift. It makes me see things from outside the box. I don’t easily fall for lies, I can see through things. If I would’ve been like everyone else, I wouldn’t have started this school strike for instance.” .
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (1937—present)
Anthony Hopkins is a Welsh actor, director, pro-ducer, composer, and painter.
He disliked school, preferring instead to concen-trate on theatre and painting. He said in 2002 "I was a poor learner, which left me open to ridicule and gave me an inferiority complex. I grew up ab-solutely convinced I was stupid."
Hopkins graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, and went on to study at the London Royal Acade-my of Dramatic Art.
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He made his first professional stage appearance at the Palace Theatre, Swansea, in 1960. In 1965 he was spotted by actor and director Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre in London.
He debut on TV in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear, and had his first film star role in 1964 in Changes.
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Hopkins’ earned his first award nomination in 1968 for his role of Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter. Arguably Anthony’s most famous role is that of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. He won an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Actor, and was named the number one best movie villain of all time.
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He was famous for his ability to remember lines; during the shooting of Amistad (1997) he delivered seven-page long courtroom speech in one go.
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In 1998 Hopkins was Britain's highest paid performer, and in 2003 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In a 2017 interview with The Desert Sun, Hopkins reported that he had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. By 2021 he has been featured in over 80 films, over 40 TV shows, and over 20 plays. He has won 50 awards for his various works.
Chronic Pain
Norma Jean Mortenson /
Marilyn Monroe (1926 - 1962)
Norma Jean suffered a turbulent childhood. Her mother and grandparents were committed to mental institutions and she was shuttled between foster homes and an orphanage. She endured abuse and neglect which made her develop a stutter. She married at 16 to avoid going back to the orphanage.
In 1944 she was photographed at her job in the Radioplane Company. While her husband was at sea, she signed a contract with the Blue Book Model Agency in August 1945 and began her career as a pin-up model. She was extremely hard-working and ambitious; in just one year she appeared on the front covers of 33 magazines.
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In 1946 she signed her first film contract and began training to be an actress. She chose the stage name Marilyn Monroe, and divorced her husband for disapproving of her career.
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In 1952 alone, Photoplay Magazine named Marilyn Monroe the “Fastest Rising Star” of the year, Redbook Magazine crowned her “Best Young Box Office Personality”, the Advertising Association of the West called her “The Most Advertised Girl in the World” and she won a Golden Globe award as the “Female World Film Favourite” of the year. Throughout her life she was nominated for 20 awards and won 11 of them.
Her most famous film is the comedy Some Like it Hot (1959). She earned a Golden Globe for “Best Actress” and the film has been voted “one of the best films ever made” by the BBC and AFI.
Monroe likely suffered from severe endometriosis. She endured debilitating period pain, struggled with insomnia, had several miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy, and became addicted to painkillers. She refused to have a hysterectomy as one of her lifelong dreams was to have a biological child. Some people attribute her suicide by barbiturate overdose partially to her chronic pain. She died aged just 36.
Despite her short life, Marilyn Monroe is known across the world. She has inspired countless musicians, artists, fashion, plays, academic works, and women.
Alfred the Great (848/849 to 899)
Alfred was born to the Saxon king Æthelwulf. His three brothers reigned before him, but none of them reigned long.
He learned to read when he was 12. He was passionate about encouraging literacy in his kingdom and ordered books to be trans-lated from Latin to English so more people could read them.
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​Alfred was crowned King of Wessex, a kingdom that spread roughly from Devon to Kent, in his early 20s. Most of England by then had been invaded and colonised by Danish Vikings, and while he was arranging his brother’s funeral they invaded Alfred’s kingdom. Alfred was forced into a peace treaty as soon as he ascended to the throne.
In January 878 the Danes broke the peace treaty. They attacked the stronghold Alfred had been staying in for Christmas, and killed almost everyone. Alfred managed to escape with a small band of soldiers.
Even though he was in hiding, and had virtually no power or leverage, Alfred mounted a resistance campaign and by early May he had three armies.
The Battle of Edington was won by Alfred’s Saxon army, who then blockaded the Danish Stronghold at Chippenham and starved their enemy into surrender. As part of the surrender, the Danish King and 29 of his chief men were forced to renounce their gods and be baptised into Christianity.
By around 880, Alfred had negotiated a treaty with the Danes that gave him Western Mercia (including London) and the Vikings Eastern Mercia. There was mostly peace for over a decade, aside from some small raids every now and then.
Early in the 890s the Danes began attacking again but withdrew back to Denmark, largely defeated, by 897.
King Alfred most likely lived with Crohn’s Disease. He suffered random and excruciating attacks of abdominal pain (even at his wedding feast), constipation, diarrhoea, and haemorrhoids. Despite this he still fought in battles, governed his kingdom, instructed his craftsmen and animal trainers, pursues his passions of literature and design, and lived to the ripe old age of 50.
Frida Kahlo (1907 to 1954)
Frida Khalo had contracted polio at 6 years old. She was bedridden for nine months and her right leg grew much thinner than her left one. Throughout her life she wore long skirts to hide her asymmetrical legs and limp.
Khalo enjoyed art from an early age but did not plan to pursue it as a career; she was headed to medical school until a severe bus accident left her disabled and in chronic pain at 18 years old.
She started painting in earnest whilst bedbound from her injuries, using art to distract herself from the pain. She used a specially-made easel that allowed her to paint lying down. Most of the paintings at this time were portraits of herself, her sisters, and her school friends.
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Khalo married artist Diego Rivera in 1929; he was much more famous than she during their lifetimes, and so they travelled frequently for his work. Their relationship was an unusual one, with the two living separately and having multiple affairs, but they loved each other passionately.
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Khalo continued to artistically evolve. Her portraits explored themes of identity and existence, often depicting deeply personal and painful aspects of her life.
In 1938 Frida Khalo had an exhibition in the New York City gallery, where she sold some paintings and earned two commissions. In 1939 she was invited to exhibit her work in Paris, where she befriended Pablo Picasso. That same year she painted one of her most famous pieces, The Two Fridas.
In 1941 Khalo was commissioned by the Mexican government to paint five portraits of important women in their country's history. Her father died and her chronic ill health worsened, so she was unable to finish the project.
In 1944 she painted another of her most famous works, The Broken Column, depicting her chronic back pain.
Khalo was diagnosed with gangrene in 1950. Despite this, she attended her solo art exhibition; she arrived in an ambulance and celebrated in a bed set up in the gallery.
Her last public appearance was when she took part in a demonstration against US-backed overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala; she died less than two weeks later.
Frida Khalo’s art and life has inspired artists, feminists, LGBT+ people and people living with disabilities. Frida Khalo has risen to being a world-renowned icon.
George Clooney (1961 to present)
George Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter.
He never graduated university, and worked in retail and construction before starting acting.
Clooney landed his first major role in 1984, in the short-lived tele-vision sitcom E/R. He rose to fame in the medical drama ER, for which he received two Emmy and three Golden Globe nominations. He began acting in films during his time on ER.
In 2001 George Clooney starred in Ocean’s Eleven; the film earned $451 million worldwide, making it Clooney’s most successful movie with him as the star.
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In 2005, a stunt during the filming Syriana led to Clooney cracking his skull and ripping his spine in two places. The accident caused a persistent leakage of cerebrospinal fluid, leading to incurable chronic pain; for a while, the movie star contemplated suicide. Nevertheless, Clooney starred in Good Night, and Good Luck that very same year, and Syriana won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Between his accident on the set of Syriana and 2020, he acted in 21 productions and directed 6 movies. Clooney was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2007, 2008, and 2009. He has won 21 awards for his directing and acting work, and was awarded the Life Achievement Award by the AFI in 2018.
Louisa May Alcott (1832 to 1888)
Alcott’s family always struggled financially. Her father was a philosopher and relied on his wife and daughters to provide for the family every time his idealist endeavours failed. To support the family, Louisa worked as a teacher, seamstress, governess, domestic helper, nurse and writer. Only the youngest of the four sisters went to school.
In 1847 her family served as Station Masters on the Underground Railroad. Alcott had an acute sense of social justice, advocating for slavery abolition and women's suffrage throughout her life. She was the first woman to register to vote in her town.
She wrote her first book, Flower Fables, aged 17 and published her first poem aged 19. Throughout her life, Alcott had many different writing jobs; she edited magazines, wrote letters for newspapers, comical sketches, sensationalist short stories, fairy tales, and novels.
Louisa May Alcott served as a Union nurse during the American Civil War, where she became deathly ill with typhoid. Some historians attribute her lifelong ill-health to the medicine she took during this time, as it contained mercury. Others say the mercury triggered an autoimmune disease, potentially lupus.
Alcott recorded her illness and chronic pain in letter and journal entries. She suffered from headaches, fatigue, joint and nerve pain, digestive problems, and a “butterfly rash” on her face. She frequently went on long walks and runs, challenging society’s gender norms, and experimented with a range of homeopathic remedies.
In 1868 Alcott published her most famous novel, Little Women. It was semi-biographical, with characters and events inspired by her own life. Good Wives and Little Men were published shortly after, and Jo’s Boys in 1886 finished the series.
Louisa May Alcott wrote 20 novels, 19 volumes of short stories for children, over 40 magazine stories and sketches, and several poems in her lifetime. She also helped found the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and cared for her niece when her sister died.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475 to 1564)
Michelangelo’s mother died when he was six years old, so he lived with his nanny. Her husband was a stonecutter and they lived near a marble quarry; Michelangelo fell in love with sculpting young.
The young boy was sent to Florence to study grammar, but he preferred painting and spending time with artists to studying. At 13 years old he was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, and by 14 Michelangelo was earning an artist’s wages.
At 24 years old, Michelangelo completed the Pietà, a statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. It was regarded as one of the world’s greatest masterpieces of sculpture. At 29 years old he completed David, another one of his most famous sculptures.
Michelangelo’s mother died when he was six years old, so he lived with his nanny. Her husband was a stonecutter and they lived near a marble quarry; Michelangelo fell in love with sculpting young.
The young boy was sent to Florence to study grammar, but he preferred painting and spending time with artists to studying. At 13 years old he was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, and by 14 Michelangelo was earning an artist’s wages.
At 24 years old, Michelangelo completed the Pietà, a statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. It was regarded as one of the world’s greatest masterpieces of sculpture. At 29 years old he completed David, another one of his most famous sculptures.
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A year after completing David, Michelangelo was commissioned by the Pope to build his tomb. At the same time, the artist was painting 500 square metres of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. The ceiling took 4 years to complete and the tomb took 40.
As well as being a sculptor, painter and architect, Michelangelo also wrote over 300 sonnets and musical compositions.
As Michelangelo grew older, he began complaining about “gout” and stiffness in his hands. By 1552 writing had become very painful for him and eventually he stopped altogether, only signing his name when needed. Portraits of him showed small deformities in his hands; modern medics have diagnosed him with arthritis.
Despite the pain and deterioration of his hands, Michelangelo painted a fresco for the Pope, assisted in designing 5 buildings, and sculpted the Rondanini Pietà; this last sculpture was finished just days before his death.
His sculpting with hammer and chisel likely caused his pain, but it also slowed down the degeneration of his joints; Michelangelo kept creating art until six days before his death, at the age of 88.
Some people consider Michelangelo one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of his works are rank among the most famous art pieces in history.