Staff

Over the past 15 years, Block's work has consistently focused on the way in which questions about who is fit and who is not in American society are shaped by and reflect historical factors. Her first film, FIT: Episodes In The History Of The Body is a groundbreaking visual essay on the representation of the body. Block produced, with Jay Allison, the four-hour NPR radio documentary series, Beyond Affliction, winner of the 1999 Robert Kennedy Radio Journalism Social Justice Award. She also worked as a producer with Karen Brown on Trauma and Recovery: A Cambodian Refugee Experience, winner of the Daniel Schorr award. With Patricia Deegan and Bestor Cram, she produced a short film documentary called Remember My Name, about the restoration of the cemetery at Danvers State Hospital for the Mentally Ill by a group of ex-patients. Block has received fellowships for her work from the American Antiquarian Society and the National Library of Medicine.

John Crowley, Writer and Chief Editor, provides scriptwriting and editing skills to the organization and has long experience in developing teaching tools. He has co-written many documentary film scripts with Block, and has worked with numerous independent film and television producers. In addition to his film work he is a novelist, and teacher of fiction and screenwriting at Yale University. Crowley’s film work has won many awards including Academy Award nominations, presentation at the Berlin, New York Film Festival, and on PBS and HBO.

Graham Warder, Education Materials Development. Warder has worked with the Disability History Museum project since 2002. He began as its Library Cataloguer and Acquisitions Director and helped create and catalog a study collection of artifacts related to many aspects of disability cultural history in the United States. Warder is now taking on the lead role developing education materials for the Becoming Helen Keller project designed for use by secondary school and higher ed professionals and their students. Warder serves on the advisory board for the forthcoming reference work, The Encyclopedia of Disability History, to be published by Facts On File. Warder teaches American History at Keene State College in New Hampshire. His other research interests include temperance and commercial culture in antebellum America. Warder received a Ph.D in History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2000.

Julia Sandy-Bailey, Senior Researcher Coordinator (Becoming Helen Keller) and Library Cataloger (Disability History Museum). New to our company and very welcome, Sandy-Bailey’s research interests include twentieth century African-American history, consumer culture, and public history. She received a Ph.D in History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2006.

Mary Irwin, Production Assistant, provides marketing and development support to Straight Ahead Pictures and the Disability History Museum. Irwin has worked in corporate marketing and non-profit development in Europe and in North America. She received a B.A. from the National University of Ireland, and pursued graduate work at New York University. She is actively involved in local history projects and brings a great calm and sense of humor to any day.