Selected articles by Cass Irvin:
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We are happy to announce that Cass Irvin has written a memoir, Home Bound, published by Temple University Press.
If you have read much of Cass's work in The Disability Rag and Ragged Edge magazines, you will find some of this book familiar. In Home Bound, Irvin tells of the remarkable journey that transformed her from a young girl too timid to ask for help to a community activist and writer who speaks forcefully about the needs of people with disabilities. This book also is testimony to the importance of community building and organizing as well as the story of one woman's struggle for independence. More about Home Bound
"The role models I had were President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had polio like I did and who was successful and was a hero for a whole nation; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a romantic poet who was considered an invalid and was 'rescued' by poet Robert Browning when he whisked her away from her oppressive father and began with her one of the most famous courtships in literature; and Tiny Tim from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, who was poor and humble and all-forgiving. I knew from the beginning that if you were handicapped but had money, class, and stature, you could be like Roosevelt or Browning and have a good life. But if you were poor, you were Tiny Tim -- or the little boy in elementary school I gave my sandwich to. He had wooden crutches and braces and worn-out brown high-top shoes. He was skinny and looked hungry. He was 'crippled.' At that time, I was not. When I gave him part of my sandwich, Mom fussed at me for giving away my lunch. After I became handicapped, I was afraid I might end up like him." Home Bound, Chapter 1
Q: How did you come to write the book? What is the message of your book?
A: After twenty years of community organizing and disability advocacy, I realized that when I tried to educate people about our issues, I found people understood better if I illustrated those issues with stories about people having to deal with those issues. Angela's Story about segregation or Myrna's Story about the importance of IL centers and peer support. MORE.
"I learned when I was growing up that if you were a girl, you went to school, then college, and then you married, became a wife, and had a family. (I grew up before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique.) When I became disabled, my journey, I was pretty sure, was not meant to take me in those directions. So I tried to find my place. What was I supposed to be? What kind of life was I supposed to have?" Home Bound, Chapter 1
RESUME
- Executive Director, Access to the Arts, Inc., Louisville, KY, 1992-2004
- Resource Coordinator, May Media Meeting, The Advocado Press, Louisville, KY, 1999
- Director, Access to the Arts Project, The Advocado Press, Inc., Louisville, KY, 1990-91
- Contributing Editor, The Disability Rag, 1984-92
- Publisher, The Disability Rag, Louisville, Kentucky, 1983-89
- Director, Disabled Advocates for the Arts project, Prime Movers, Inc., 1980-82
- Community Consultant/Project Director (VISTA Volunteer), PMI, 1978-82
- Instructor of Disability Issues, Continuing Ed, Jefferson Community College, 1977/80
- Instructor of English, Jefferson Community College, Louisville, KY, 1974-76
Professional and other honors and offices:
- First place for short prose, Women Who Write, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 2002
- Grant Award for writing, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Louisville, KY, 1993, 1997, 2000, and 2002
- Board member, Center for Accessible Living, Inc., Louisville, KY, 1999-2004
- Governor's Appointee to the Statewide Independent Living Council, KY, 1995-8
- Board member, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Inc., Louisville KY, 1993-4
- Professional Development Award for writing, Kentucky Arts Council, 1990
- Media Award, Kentucky Governor's Arts Award, 1987
- Outstanding Kentuckian of the Year, Kentucky Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, 1986
- American Heroine Award, Ladies' Home Journal magazine, 1984
- Various certificates of appreciation from local officials for community service, Louisville & Jefferson County, KY, 1979-91
SELECTED
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