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History of Wheelchair Part 1 · Living Loud and Proud: Disability Conversations

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Living Loud and Proud Podcast, brought to you by Disability Pride Pennsylvania. If you need a link to the transcript for this episode, please visit our accessible website at www.disabilitypridepa.org. And now, here is your host.
• 0:28
  Hey folks, welcome to the Living Loud and Proud Podcast, Season 2 from Disability Pride PA. I'm your host, Phill Rosen.
• 0:37
  Today, I'm chatting with President of the Disability Pride PA Board, Izzy Kaufman, about the history of wheelchair design.
• 0:45
  Izzy, are you excited for Season 2?
• 0:48
  Yes, I'm so excited for Season 2!
• 0:50
  I want to thank all of our listeners for listening to Season 1, and we're embarking on a new journey in the podcast.
• 0:59
  Yeah, we're going to have a very different vibe.
• 1:03
  Last season was a lot of back and forth interviews, but we're going to be focusing more on disability stories and the history of the development of different accessible devices.
• 1:15
  This is going to be the first in the series about wheelchairs specifically.
• 1:19
  I think it's going to be a great season that we're about to embark on.
• 1:22
  I think so too!
• 1:24
  Awesome. So, Izzy, you're a wheelchair user, and I think many wheelchair users probably don't think too much about the development of the wheelchair when they go about their day rolling around.
• 1:38
  Yeah, I honestly think lots of wheelchair users don't really think about their wheelchair a lot in general. If you're just using it, it feels like it's a part of your body.
• 1:51
  So it's almost like I don't think about it because it's part of my body, but it's also an amazing piece of engineering, and I want to appreciate all of that human thought that has gone into it.
• 2:05
  Yeah. So you're really, really interested to find out a little bit more about this history and development of everything.
• 2:13
  Yeah, I really honestly haven't done any research really on this, so you're teaching me.
• 2:20
  All right. Well, yeah, and I'm certainly no expert by any means. So, like, you know, if I'm way off, please tell me, but I found a lot of good information, I think.
• 2:36
  So, last year in 2024, researchers reported the earliest evidence of Wheel-like technology was found in present-day Israel. It dates back to about 12,000 BCE. So that's like 14,000 years ago.
• 2:50
  Like, we're in 2025 now. That's like...
• 2:54
  Thousands of years ago.
• 2:56
  Long time. Certainly a lot longer than I think the research prior to now had shown. I mean, the earliest that I saw outside of that was a potter's wheel found in Western Ukraine in the 5th millennium BCE, which is attributed to the Cucuteni-Tripillia culture,
• 3:20
  which predates the earliest use in Mesopotamia, you know, Iraq, Iran, Syria, that area, the Tigris and Euphrates, like the Fertile Crescent.
• 3:33
  Bringing me back to high school world history.
• 3:35
  Yeah. And wheels of uncertain dates have been found in the Indus Valley civilization of the late 4th millennium BCE, which is in present-day India and Pakistan. So, like, you know, the wheel is very old.
• 3:51
  Anyways, you know, 4500 to 3300, the potter's wheel, solid wooden disc wheels, earliest wheeled vehicles were developed. Some attribute depictions of wheeled vehicles to the Halaf culture of 6500 to 5100 BCE.
• 4:13
  Do you know what the wheel vehicles like looked like? Can you describe it a little bit?
• 4:21
  You know, honestly, I did not get that far in my research, so I can't actually confirm or deny, but I imagine they would be similar to wagons or chariots.
• 4:31
  You know, things that would transport humans or items around.
• 4:39
  But there was no evidence for using wheels of any type by the Halaf culture. So they just have the depictions.
• 4:50
  So interesting. It could just have been some artists that were. So you're saying the depictions were like they were painted. Yeah, like on pottery.
• 5:02
  That's really cool. Yeah. And and so, yeah.
• 5:09
  We just talked about the Copper Age and early Bronze Age, which was around 3300 to 2200 BCE.
• 5:18
  The oldest surviving example of a pottery wheel was found in Ur, which is in present-day Iraq.
• 5:26
  You know, I want to mention that none of the wheels that we've spoken about thus far are spoked like many wheelchair wheels that are used today.
• 5:35
  Yeah. So that was much, much flat. They're like they're like solid disks.
• 5:41
  Yeah. You know, either wood or stone or, you know, whatever material they would use at the time.
• 5:55
  All right. And then the oldest kind of indirect evidence of wheeled vehicles are miniature clay wheels found north of the Black Sea before 4000 BCE.
• 6:07
  So like, you know, up, you know, in Asia near like Georgia and like, you know, up in that region over there.
• 6:18
  Yeah, yeah. Very like very far western Asia. And then there's European evidence from the mid fourth millennium BCE onward.
• 6:27
  So like toy cars, artistic depictions and ruts. The oldest wheel like that was really kind of found was in northern Germany dating back to approximately 3400 BCE.
• 6:47
  And in Mesopotamia, there were depictions of wheeled wagons on clay tablets around 3500 to 3350 BCE in the Eanna district of Uruk in the Sumerian civilization.
• 7:06
  And then, you know, around 2000 BCE in the Sintashta culture near Kazakhstan was the first evidence of spoked wheels.
• 7:21
  Cool. So they made out of wood? They were wooden. Cool. Very cool. Yeah.
• 7:27
  And then, you know, you go up several thousand years, about 1500 years, and between the sixth and fifth century BCE, we start seeing the first depictions of wheeled furniture in art.
• 7:43
  So there was a stone slate in China from around that time. And there was also a Greek vase that had a frieze with a child's bed that had wheels on the posts.
• 7:57
  And the Sanskrit grammarian Panini in his Astadyayi 4.4.10, sometime in the fifth century BCE, talks about a parpa, which translates to wheelchair.
• 8:16
  Okay. So hopefully I didn't butcher that too badly.
• 8:22
  So wait, what was that year again?
• 8:25
  The fifth century BCE. So like, you know, 600 to 500 BCE.
• 8:31
  Wow. Yeah.
• 8:34
  And then between the third and second century BCE in China, there were the first records of wheeled seats to transport disabled people.
• 8:43
  I believe it was mostly emperors and like, you know, nobles, royalty. Of course, of course. Anything that's rolling is going to immediately just go towards the people in power.
• 8:55
  Right. Well, and those are the wheeled seats.
• 8:58
  They also used early wheelbarrows to transport people and heavy objects. So, you know, maybe people who were peasants or a little bit, you know, more working class or poor would be wheeled around by people using wheelbarrows.
• 9:17
  I don't imagine that would be very comfortable.
• 9:20
  No, but I mean, if it's the only way to get around.
• 9:22
  That's what they had. Yeah.
• 9:24
  Unfortunately.
• 9:28
  And then there was a distinction between the two functions made around AD 525. So that's like about a thousand years.
• 9:36
  Of like kind of this, you know, change between the different objects and like making distinct things to transport humans and to transport objects. Yeah. So, because we had to get moving.
• 9:55
  Like that's wheels are useful for that. Right. And so now we're going to kind of jump ahead to the first like European wheelchair.
• 10:07
  It's about a thousand years in the future. Okay. We're time traveling now. Yeah.
• 10:13
  And the first European wheelchair was created for King Philip II of Spain in 1595. It had arm and leg rests. It was a very opulent chair.
• 10:28
  But it required assistance to propel. Like he was not able to push himself using it. Okay. And he probably wouldn't want to push himself. Oh, of course not. He's got servants for that. He's a king.
• 10:42
  And then you move ahead about 60 years to 1655.
• 10:51
  And the first self propelling chair was created by Stephan Farffler.
• 10:56
  He was a paraplegic watchmaker in Germany.
• 11:01
  It was also an early tricycle. So it was a three wheeled chair and it was a hand cranked front wheel.
• 11:10
  Oh, cool. Yeah. So it wasn't like you're pushing on the wheels. No. You crank something to move it. Right. Wow. I did not know that.
• 11:19
  Yeah. And it was, you know, because he was a watchmaker, it was all like gears and cogs and everything. Oh my god. Yes. I had no idea. It's like very steampunk.
• 11:27
  I love that a disabled person created like that first kind of wheelchair.
• 11:35
  Yeah. And one of the first people to use one, one of the first notable people to use one was Sir Thomas Fairfax.
• 11:43
  He was the parliamentarian commander in chief in England during the first English or during the English Civil War, excuse me, not the first English Civil War.
• 11:53
  What happened to him?
• 11:55
  So he he had, you know, various different injuries from fighting on the front lines.
• 12:05
  You know, I'm sure that someone else could document them a little bit better than I did. But my kind of quick and dirty research into it was, you know, he, he may have had an amputation.
• 12:21
  Somewhere, but he was injured during the war and he used a self-propelled wheelchair later on in his life.
• 12:30
  The wheelchair is still on display at the National Civil War Center in Newark-on-Trent.
• 12:36
  Where is that? In England. Oh, Newark on Trent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you can go see a wheelchair in England. Yeah. That's pretty cool.
• 12:46
  I'll put that on my bucket list. Yeah. And I believe he was prime minister in the later years of his life as well.
• 12:53
  So that's a big reason why that wheelchair is preserved in the way that it is.
• 13:01
  And then you get a little bit later on in time.
• 13:06
  And the bath chair was created.
• 13:10
  It's very similar to like a modern day stroller.
• 13:16
  You know, it was propelled by hand or animal.
• 13:19
  Later versions are, were a lot more like the modern day, like medical wheelchair. So like, or hospital style wheelchair. So like, like that standard size. Yeah, the standard like it just folds up and like
• 13:37
  It required an attendant to propel. And it was often seen at spa-resorts in the late 19th-century. Two noticeable places were Buxton and Tunbridge Wells, I believe in the U.K., don't quote me on that.
• 13:58
  And some incorporated a steering device that was operated by the wheelchair user.
• 14:00
  So maybe there was like a steering wheel
• 14:02
  or like, you know, a series of levers
• 14:05
  that kind of turned the wheels.
• 14:06
  Okay, okay.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:11
  Here in the U.S.,
• 14:14
  wheelchairs were first introduced to the boardwalk
• 14:17
  in 1877 in Atlantic City.
• 14:20
  Oh, really?
• 14:20
  Yeah, not that far from Philly.
• 14:22
  Right down the shore.
• 14:24
  Yeah, exactly.
• 14:25
  They were initially intended for sick and disabled tourists
• 14:30
  to enjoy the boardwalk.
• 14:34
  Of course, at some point,
• 14:37
  it no longer became exclusively
• 14:40
  something that disabled people would use,
• 14:43
  but, you know, many non-disabled people,
• 14:48
  mostly rich people, would rent the rolling chairs
• 14:52
  and they would have their servants push them around
• 14:55
  in the chairs, of course.
• 14:57
  Oh my God, I cannot imagine that.
• 15:00
  Oh my God.
• 15:01
  So they were for tourists and then for rich people alike.
• 15:07
  Like the tourists were the rich people.
• 15:08
  Well, tourists were the rich people,
• 15:10
  but it was intended initially for only those
• 15:15
  who were disabled or sick.
• 15:18
  And then of course, any rich person is like, well,
• 15:20
  "Why would I have to walk?"
• 15:22
  "Why would I expend energy walking?"
• 15:28
  But yeah, and then, you know,
• 15:31
  you go up about 60 years
• 15:35
  and the modern style wheelchair first was invented.
• 15:39
  Harry C. Jennings Sr. and Herbert Everest
• 15:41
  were mechanical engineers
• 15:45
  and they invented the first lightweight,
• 15:47
  steel folding portable wheelchair in 1932.
• 15:53
  And then the year later founded Everest and Jennings,
• 15:56
  which was like one of, if not the sole
• 16:02
  wheelchair manufacturer in the US
• 16:06
  for a very long time, like several decades.
• 16:12
  Like they had cornered the market.
• 16:13
  They cornered the market.
• 16:15
  So Everest had previously broken his back
• 16:22
  in a mining accident many years before.
• 16:25
  And I believe became paralyzed from the waist down.
• 16:30
  So he needed a way to get around.
• 16:33
  He needed a way to get around.
• 16:35
  And they were the first mass market manufacturer
• 16:38
  of wheelchairs with the X-brace design.
• 16:40
  So this is like the very first
• 16:42
  like real modern wheelchair development
• 16:46
  that like really occurred.
• 16:48
  And I mean, people still use wheelchairs with X-braces.
• 16:52
  Yeah, that's true.
• 16:53
  Yeah.
• 16:54
  And they were inspired by folding camp chairs.
• 16:59
  So like, you know, whenever you go to like
• 17:04
  something in the park,
• 17:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:06
  You see people with those folding chairs.
• 17:07
  Oh my gosh, those are so dangerous
• 17:09
  for me to try to sit in though.
• 17:11
  Well, yeah, sure.
• 17:12
  But that's what that-
• 17:14
  So similar design.
• 17:16
  Like a folding design. Design was inspired by,
• 17:17
  which is really interesting to me.
• 17:21
  That is really interesting.
• 17:23
  And then in 1952, Canadian inventor,
• 17:27
  engineer and designer, George Klein
• 17:32
  was working on a project from Canadian Veterans Affairs
• 17:35
  to develop the first electric wheelchair
• 17:37
  to help paralyzed World War II veterans restore mobility.
• 17:42
  Okay.
• 17:43
  So, you know, this is like the first electric wheelchair.
• 17:49
  You know.
• 17:50
  Yeah, I'm sure they were very like DIY looking
• 17:55
  and quite, I don't know.
• 17:58
  You know, it's interesting.
• 18:00
  I gotta look up what they look like.
• 18:01
  I can't confirm or deny that.
• 18:03
  But what I can say is the chair started to be marketed
• 18:05
  by Everett Jennings four years later in 1956.
• 18:09
  So it hit the market four years later.
• 18:12
  Okay.
• 18:13
  So the company that cornered the market
• 18:15
  also cornered the market on electric wheelchairs.
• 18:18
  Well, of course.
• 18:19
  Yeah.
• 18:20
  I mean-
• 18:21
  I mean, it's not that's unsimilar from what it is right now.
• 18:25
  Right, right.
• 18:28
  And, you know, it is interesting too,
• 18:33
  because like when you first like start reading
• 18:36
  some of this stuff about like the first kind
• 18:38
  of modern wheelchairs, some of the advertising copy
• 18:42
  is definitely something that would be considered
• 18:44
  insensitive today.
• 18:47
  You know, I mean, using words that are just completely
• 18:51
  fallen out of favor.
• 18:52
  Yeah.
• 18:53
  Like we-
• 18:54
  This is history.
• 18:55
  And we know disability history is full of this.
• 18:58
  I definitely saw one that,
• 19:00
  and I don't know why this is sticking in my mind,
• 19:03
  but it talked about the invalid chair.
• 19:06
  Oh God.
• 19:06
  Which is like, why?
• 19:09
  No.
• 19:11
  I mean, I know that was a very common term.
• 19:14
  And then back then too, there were like laws.
• 19:17
  And I honestly don't, I don't know exactly
• 19:20
  when these laws were enacted,
• 19:22
  but there were something called the ugly laws.
• 19:25
  Oh gosh, yeah.
• 19:26
  They tried to hide, you know, people with disabilities,
• 19:29
  put them in jail, put them in institutions.
• 19:32
  So I imagine that's co-occurring
• 19:34
  during some of this like wheelchair development.
• 19:38
  Oh, for sure, for sure.
• 19:40
  And like some of those ugly laws too,
• 19:42
  I mean, they discriminated against women
• 19:43
  that have mustaches and stuff too.
• 19:45
  It's like very kind of broad like strokes
• 19:51
  that were being brushed with a lot of those laws.
• 19:54
  But anyways, I just thought I'd mentioned that,
• 19:57
  you know, because like now we have marketing
• 19:59
  that's very different surrounding wheelchairs, but.
• 20:03
  I still think there's some pretty
• 20:04
  terrible wheelchair marketing.
• 20:06
  Oh, I'm not saying that it's-
• 20:07
  But I can't give any examples right now.
• 20:09
  I'm not saying it's necessarily like-
• 20:11
  But I'm like, oh my gosh, like, I don't know.
• 20:14
  I see the wheelchair as like freedom.
• 20:17
  And at this point in history,
• 20:19
  you know, there are disabled people using the wheelchairs.
• 20:22
  Right.
• 20:23
  So they're getting at least some freedom
• 20:27
  even amongst, even during that time.
• 20:31
  Right.
• 20:32
  All right, well, so if we jump forward
• 20:34
  about 33 years to 1979,
• 20:38
  that's when the Quickie wheelchair was introduced
• 20:40
  by Marilyn Hamilton, Jim Okamoto, and Don Helman.
• 20:45
  This was like a time when these designers
• 20:51
  were looking at the wheelchair and they were like,
• 20:53
  "How can I make this better?
• 20:54
  How can I help improve the design of it?"
• 20:58
  You know, using different materials,
• 21:00
  aluminum, titanium, make it lighter.
• 21:04
  Improving the aesthetics, so the lines of it
• 21:07
  and the way the frame was designed was better.
• 21:12
  And this is also the first time that you could actually
• 21:14
  choose to have a custom color for your wheelchair.
• 21:18
  It wasn't just like some standard, you know,
• 21:21
  metallic color or black or gray or whatever,
• 21:26
  you know, whatever they had for you.
• 21:28
  So it seems like there's more individuation,
• 21:30
  like more customization, more ability for disabled people
• 21:35
  to express themselves through their wheelchair.
• 21:37
  Right, exactly.
• 21:38
  And you know, the emphasis on the lighter weight body
• 21:41
  is just such a huge development.
• 21:43
  I mean, that's something that allowed way more people
• 21:46
  to be able to use a wheelchair
• 21:49
  that wasn't like super cumbersome in an independent manner.
• 21:53
  So just like you just said.
• 21:55
  So like, that was probably one of the biggest...
• 22:00
  So they were probably listening to disabled people now,
• 22:04
  maybe, like these designers.
• 22:07
  I imagine, I would hope, were like listening
• 22:10
  to disabled people and going, oh, well,
• 22:12
  disabled people are looking for more colors,
• 22:14
  better design, better performance handling.
• 22:18
  Yeah, I like to think that that's what was happening.
• 22:21
  Yeah, I think so.
• 22:26
  I have to admit, I didn't look too deeply
• 22:28
  into Marilyn, Jim or Don, but you know,
• 22:32
  one or more of them may have been disabled themselves.
• 22:35
  They may have had disabled people in their life
• 22:37
  that they were talking to about this issue.
• 22:41
  But you know, I mean, this is something that like,
• 22:44
  I see constantly new examples of wheelchair designs
• 22:48
  being put forth by people who study engineering
• 22:53
  at places like MIT.
• 22:56
  So like, there are people who are constantly looking
• 23:00
  at this stuff, trying to figure out like,
• 23:02
  "How can I put together these wheelchairs
• 23:04
  that are good for people who are living in rural areas
• 23:07
  of the world that they don't have access to..."
• 23:10
  There's a lot of innovation.
• 23:11
  "...Bike shops and stuff like that, you know?
• 23:13
  Like, how can I improve these things?"
• 23:15
  So I imagine that, you know, I mean,
• 23:19
  this is the late 20th century.
• 23:21
  You know, this was a time when all sorts
• 23:24
  of different technologies were being developed
• 23:27
  at a very rapid rate.
• 23:31
  And wheelchairs were no different.
• 23:33
  So as we move forward from, you know, 1979,
• 23:39
  and we start looking at the like the 1980s,
• 23:41
  there's a lot more improved aesthetics and design.
• 23:45
  You know, one notable designer of wheelchairs is Bob Hall.
• 23:50
  He had polio as a kid,
• 23:52
  and he designed several wheelchairs in the 80s,
• 23:56
  one being the Hallmark in 1984.
• 23:58
  And he also designed a wheelchair for himself
• 24:02
  to race in the Boston Marathon in, I believe, the late 70s.
• 24:08
  And that wheelchair that he designed for himself
• 24:11
  to race with was on display at the Museum of Modern Art
• 24:15
  in New York City in 1986.
• 24:18
  Very cool.
• 24:19
  Yeah.
• 24:20
  And you can actually go on the MoMA website
• 24:24
  and look at the picture and like they discuss,
• 24:28
  they have the little thing that they put on the card
• 24:31
  or the plaque or whatever on the wall.
• 24:34
  And they really kind of, you know, you look at it
• 24:39
  and you see this wheelchair that looks like
• 24:45
  it would be no different or not out of place
• 24:48
  at the modern Paralympics.
• 24:49
  Like it's, you know, it's like those two wheels,
• 24:53
  you know, with the really high camber.
• 24:58
  Yeah.
• 24:59
  I'm not sure.
• 25:00
  The camber is the angle of the wheels.
• 25:03
  So they're a little bit wider maybe.
• 25:05
  Yeah.
• 25:07
  Yeah. I'm not an expert in racing wheelchairs.
• 25:09
  I have to admit, I don't know how to refer to it, but, it's a very wide base.
• 25:13
  I'm glad that it was in an art museum.
• 25:15
  That's pretty cool.
• 25:16
  Cause wheelchairs are art.
• 25:18
  Right. Yeah.
• 25:19
  And you know, like a lot of racing wheelchairs today,
• 25:23
  they're kneeling type wheelchairs
• 25:25
  and this one had a kneeling design as well.
• 25:27
  Right, right.
• 25:27
  So, you know, all your momentum, all your weight is forward.
• 25:31
  Helping propel you.
• 25:32
  Your momentum is right there.
• 25:34
  So, and that of course helps with traction
• 25:38
  and stability as well.
• 25:40
  Yeah, of course.
• 25:41
  So as we move on to the 21st century,
• 25:45
  there were a lot of advances.
• 25:47
  There were a lot of niche manufacturers
• 25:49
  of one-off wheelchair designs.
• 25:53
  You know, an introduction of lighter materials,
• 25:56
  things like titanium, magnesium, carbon fiber, you know,
• 26:00
  metals that are even lighter, more durable,
• 26:03
  those kinds of things.
• 26:05
  And like a lot of accessories and designs that allow
• 26:09
  for even more people to be able to utilize wheelchairs
• 26:13
  to get around by themselves.
• 26:16
  You know, things like power-assist technologies, you know,
• 26:19
  the Smart Drive is probably one of the more.
• 26:23
  That's one of the more well-known.
• 26:24
  Well-known ones.
• 26:26
  Self-balancing chairs.
• 26:28
  So like, you know, chairs that have a design
• 26:32
  that allow for, you know, it to not topple over
• 26:37
  even if you put like a heavy load on the back
• 26:39
  and there's nothing on the front.
• 26:42
  Track chairs.
• 26:43
  So like, you know, similar to like a backhoe
• 26:51
  or like power equipment.
• 26:53
  So like the outdoor chairs.
• 26:54
  Yeah, so like you could do off-roading and stuff
• 26:57
  with those types of wheelchairs.
• 27:00
  And then. That's what I'm all about.
• 27:01
  Improved sports chairs.
• 27:03
  So like, you know, like we were saying,
• 27:05
  the racing wheelchair, that's like very,
• 27:08
  like specifically developed for that.
• 27:10
  Like basketball chair.
• 27:12
  Basketball chairs.
• 27:13
  Wheelchair rugby chairs. All kinds of things
• 27:15
  Right, exactly.
• 27:17
  And you know, each of those are super niche too,
• 27:21
  because like for wheelchair rugby or football,
• 27:25
  you might want something that's a little more sturdy,
• 27:30
  right, because people are constantly bumping into each other
• 27:34
  while they're playing those types of sports.
• 27:36
  Racing chairs, that's probably not as big of an issue
• 27:39
  because hopefully you're in your own lane.
• 27:42
  Yeah, and if you're listening right now and you're like,
• 27:45
  I wanna know, I wanna learn more about wheelchair sports.
• 27:48
  You can listen to the episode of the podcast
• 27:51
  from season one, where we had our board member, Matt,
• 27:53
  on to talk about his experience doing wheelchair sports.
• 27:57
  Yeah, yeah.
• 27:59
  And so, yeah, I mean, that's like a very basic
• 28:05
  kind of overview of the history of the design
• 28:09
  of the modern wheelchair to today.
• 28:13
  Do you have any final thoughts, Izzy?
• 28:16
  I have many.
• 28:17
  Yeah?
• 28:18
  I have many.
• 28:20
  Well, I'm thinking about right now something that,
• 28:24
  so I work at the Institute on Disabilities
• 28:26
  at Temple University, and for the first few years
• 28:29
  I worked there, I was on the TechOWL team
• 28:31
  for the assistive technology program for PA.
• 28:34
  And I would constantly see,
• 28:37
  like through my social media feeds,
• 28:40
  like some wheelchair that can go downstairs, go upstairs,
• 28:46
  you know, like, or a wheelchair where somebody can like move
• 28:52
  it with just their hips and they don't have to use
• 28:54
  their hands at all.
• 28:55
  Like there's so many cool designs,
• 28:58
  but I think what bothers me about it is that real people
• 29:02
  can't get access to these designs.
• 29:05
  Like some of these more like usable designs,
• 29:09
  I honestly think, I'm like, "What is going on?"
• 29:11
  So I've seen like so many different wheelchairs lately
• 29:14
  and listeners probably have seen this too.
• 29:18
  There's wheelchair, there's a wheelchair now,
• 29:21
  which is not like a wheelchair wheelchair
• 29:23
  for like people with disabilities,
• 29:25
  but it's a wheelchair for performers to sit in.
• 29:28
  So it can like move and it can turn 360 really easily.
• 29:33
  So it's really for anyone, for any performer.
• 29:36
  It could be for disabled performers
• 29:38
  or non-disabled performers, which I think is kind of cool.
• 29:42
  But I'm like, why do all these innovations happen
• 29:46
  for, you know, for people who are not necessarily disabled?
• 29:51
  Or like, I don't know, I guess I honestly feel like,
• 29:54
  wheelchair, the coolest wheelchair designs
• 29:58
  that are out right now should be available
• 30:02
  for everyone to take advantage of, or at least to try.
• 30:07
  Right, yeah, like the lack of access to them
• 30:10
  is a real problem. Yeah, I think that's what we saw.
• 30:12
  I mean, what I've experienced just trying
• 30:14
  to get my own wheelchairs, it's hard enough
• 30:17
  just to get a regular like manual wheelchair
• 30:20
  that's kind of sporty.
• 30:22
  Right. And then like,
• 30:24
  I see these videos of these really fancy wheelchairs
• 30:27
  and it's like, I see so many people in our communities
• 30:30
  who could use them.
• 30:32
  Well, yeah, I mean, that is one thing.
• 30:34
  I mean, you're very well aware of how hard it is
• 30:36
  to get a titanium wheelchair covered by insurance, right?
• 30:39
  I mean, yes, they don't.
• 30:42
  Which, you know, I have an aluminum wheelchair
• 30:44
  because titanium is not covered under insurance.
• 30:47
  Well, and I find that wild just because it's like, you know,
• 30:52
  like having a lighter material would reduce strain
• 30:55
  on people's arms and shoulders.
• 30:58
  We're getting there though, maybe.
• 31:01
  And, you know, might prevent, you know,
• 31:03
  expensive surgery down the line.
• 31:06
  I can talk about this for literally days.
• 31:09
  It's a soap box.
• 31:11
  Yeah, you know, when did we forget as a society
• 31:16
  to look past the next quarter for profits?
• 31:19
  Right, right.
• 31:20
  Why are we so focused on that
• 31:23
  rather than the overall health and well-being?
• 31:25
  Just functionality for real people.
• 31:27
  And saving money, but that's neither here nor there.
• 31:30
  Yeah.
• 31:31
  Like, you start getting into dangerous waters
• 31:35
  talking about that.
• 31:36
  Yeah, but I appreciate you walking me
• 31:38
  through this short timeline.
• 31:40
  And I think now that I know a little bit,
• 31:42
  I can look up some more and dig into it even further.
• 31:45
  Yeah, of course.
• 31:47
  You know, that was kind of the whole point of this,
• 31:50
  you know, series is to like,
• 31:52
  start really looking at some of these devices
• 31:54
  that people, you know, kind of just go about their day.
• 31:58
  Don't think about too much.
• 32:00
  Like the only time that you think about your wheelchair
• 32:03
  is when, you know, either something's going wrong with it
• 32:06
  or you don't have the ability to access a place because,
• 32:11
  you know.
• 32:12
  Yeah, not always.
• 32:13
  I love my wheelchair too.
• 32:15
  I think about how much I love it.
• 32:17
  No, no, no, but I'm just saying,
• 32:19
  it's like one of those things that like,
• 32:20
  you don't necessarily think about it
• 32:22
  because it's an extension of your body.
• 32:23
  Yes.
• 32:24
  In a lot of ways. Right, right, right, right.
• 32:25
  That's really what I'm trying to say.
• 32:27
  So, and like just to kind of, you know,
• 32:32
  get to be a little more intimate with that aspect of things,
• 32:35
  like knowing more about the design,
• 32:37
  knowing more about the history.
• 32:39
  Yeah, I think I appreciate wheelchairs a lot
• 32:42
  and I'll keep appreciating them even more
• 32:44
  the more I learn about them.
• 32:47
  Yeah.
• 32:49
  Well, that's it for today.
• 32:52
  I hope you enjoyed our discussion of the history
• 32:56
  of the development of the wheelchair.
• 32:59
  At some point in the near future,
• 33:01
  there will be a part two of this
• 33:03
  where we talk a little bit more
• 33:04
  about the different types of wheelchairs,
• 33:06
  go a little more in depth about designs
• 33:09
  and like different options that now exist,
• 33:13
  even if they're not easy to access for people.
• 33:18
  Again, I'm your host, Phill Rosen.
• 33:22
  My guest was Izzy Kaufman.
• 33:24
  Thank you for having me.
• 33:25
  Yeah, thanks for coming on.
• 33:28
  All right, folks, until next time.
• 33:31
  Please visit our accessible website at www.disabilitypridepa.org. You can find us on social media @DisabilityPridePA on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.