Disability History through Primary Sources

*These resources have been curated from various other organizations and link to external sources.

As our friends from Engaging America state, “Primary sources … can provide entry points and deepen exploration into historical events. Primary sources add immediacy, such as the faces in a photograph, the emotional tone of a drawing or song, or the complex look of a handwritten document. Documents from multiple points of view can illuminate conflicting ideas and events. Varied media, including maps, oral histories, published reports, and graphs offer many options for connection and investigation”.

We share these collections of primary sources as tools to continue introducing disability into the conversation from natural perspectives, using disabled people to tell their own stories whenever possible.

This entry links to the resources that are owned by the creators and listed here for easier access within our database of lessons and resources.

ADAPT Online History Museum

This collection of articles, videos, music, artifacts, ephemera and more represents over 30 years of history of a grassroots disability rights organization that is still going strong. Use the drop down menu labeled “Albums” or the “Keywords” link in the dropdown menu under “Explore” to find information and documents related to the subject you are interested in.

It’s Our Story

It’s Our Story is a mixed-media digital history archive that houses the most comprehensive collection of video, photos and documents regarding life with disability in America. The It’s Our Story repository and its contents are testaments to America’s most fundamental values of freedom, autonomy, and independence. The national initiative that has developed from the archive has united hundreds of grassroots advocates, scholars, educators and civic leaders from nearly every state in the United States.

Smithsonian Disability Online

Many stories and events related to people with disabilities never make it into the history books or shared public memories. Familiar concepts and events such as citizenship, work, and wars become more complicated, challenge our assumptions about what counts as history, and transform our connection with each other when viewed from the historical perspective of people with disabilities, America’s largest minority.

Emerging America - Disability History through Primary Sources

Primary source sets on Disability History: 

Disability History Musuem

Their collections - Documents and Visual Stills - are associated with the cultural and social history of people with disabilities across the lifespan and diagnosis categories. The records here illuminate everyday practices, dominant ideologies, and alternative perspectives. You will find individual voices as well as the opinions and rhetoric of groups. Sometimes you will discover items that are simply unique. Medical history finds a place when the subject is relevant to our Education programs. Most, but not all, of the Collections' records were produced in the United States from 1800 to the present.

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Disability and Disability Arts Vision Loss - Disability Empowerment “Disability Looks Like You and Me”

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