Paul S. Kahn Papers

Background on Paul S. Kahn

Paul Stanley Kahn was born on November 6, 1945 to David and Bernice Kahn in a second-generation family of Jewish immigrants in Auburndale, Massachusetts. Early in life, Kahn was confined to a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy. Kahn pursued an artistic, academic, and activist life. He rebelled against the perceived “powerlessness” and the lack of choice given to him for being born with a neuromuscular disorder. Kahn actively challenged the beliefs that society held regarding people with disabilities in general, advocating for a better understanding of disabilities and the people who suffered from them. Kahn earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts at Boston University (1967) and a MA in counseling at Northeastern (1982). Kahn won many distinctions as an artist and became an activist in the independent living movement and a pioneer in advocating for personal care assistance. Living independently from 1979, he worked as staff therapist at the Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, as leader of a support group for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and as a member of the Massachusetts Governor’s Advisory Commission on Disability Policy. In 1980, Kahn met Ruth Stern. She became his frequent collaborator and wife of 21 years after they married in 1988. After Kahn’s physical condition had weakened and he became dependent upon a ventilator in 1987, his creative focus shifted increasingly from art to writing and editing. The last two decades of his life were remarkably productive, resulting in over twenty plays and dozens of published essays and poems, and he was the long-time editor of the newsletter Disability Issues. Kahn died on January 1, 2010 at the age of 64.