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This document compiles a list—by no means complete—of entities that have played an active role in documenting disability in history. Many of the resources and descriptions listed were adapted from The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper. Others have been identified by members of the A&D Section. This document is not an endorsement by either the A&D Section or the SAA.
The ADA Archive is a digital archive of ADA-related government documents.
The American Foundation for the Blind historical collections include the organization’s institutional records, amassed since its creation in 1921; the Helen Keller Archival Collection, a collection of over 80,000 items about this iconic American woman, including correspondence, speeches, scrapbooks, artifacts, photographic materials, architectural drawings, audio and audiovisual recordings; the Talking Book Archive, documenting the pioneering work that began in the 1930s to make information accessible through sound recordings; and AFB’s M. C. Migel Rare Book collection, which focuses on the social implications of blindness and spans from 1611 until the middle of the twentieth century.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The American Printing House for the Blind was founded in 1858 to produced accessible books for readers who were blind or visually impaired. Over the years it has expanded into the largest maker of educational and daily living aids for blind users in the world. APH opened its museum in 1994 and thousands of visitors tour its factory and museum tour every year. The Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind promotes understanding of the history of literacy and learning for people with visual impairments for the benefit of the blindness community and the broader world.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The American School for the Deaf at Hartford is the oldest “permanent” school for the Deaf in America. In 2017, we will celebrate our bicentennial (200 years old). In our archives, we have hundreds of correspondence letters, over 25,000 photos identified, manuscripts, deeds, a federal land grant, paintings, deaf artists work, books dating from 1644, personal collections from Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc, furniture made at the Asylum, a host of daughter school postcards and items, ribbons and badges from the New England Gallaudet Association, items related to the Paris School for the Deaf, currency related to deaf, printing letters and photos, Sophia Fowler’s wedding dress and items related to all the school buildings.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Barnum Museum is the leading authority on P.T. Barnum’s life and work, and contains more than 60,000 artifacts relating to Barnum, Bridgeport and 19th century America. More information is in Meghan R. Rinn’s paper "Nineteenth-Century Depictions of Disabilities and Modern Metadata: A Consideration of Material in the P. T. Barnum Digital Collection" in the Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies.
Founded in 1870 in Petersburg, Virginia, Central State Hospital (CSH) – formerly Central State Lunatic Asylum for Colored Insane – was the first mental health care facility for African Americans in the country. The collection contains over 100 years of records related to the historic institution; these are the most complete archival records of blacks and mental illness in the United States. Items include board minutes, annual reports, procedural manuals, financial reports, patient registers, photos, newsletters, and monographs.
Source: Central State Hospital Digital Library & Archives Project
The Library and Archives of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia document the history of medicine from their earliest book (1244) to current historical texts. While the topic of disabilities is not the focus of the collection, it is present in 15th-19th century books on teratology, 20th century books on the evolution of the modern concept of disabilities, and a small number of specific manuscript collections, which highlight the treatment of mental and physical disabilities in adults and children. The Library also houses the first longitudinal study in the history of medicine, which observed the impact of amputation on Civil War soldiers. The Library also houses the “Historical Medical Photograph” collection, which documents amputees, conjoined twins, abnormal human development, and other topics.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives is the unit of Catherwood Library that collects, preserves, and makes accessible special collections pertaining to the history of the workplace and labor relations. For more information, please visit: https://catherwood.library.cornell.edu/kheel
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Deaf Catholic Archives are located in the Special Collections of Dinand Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The archive began as a box of old materials about Deaf Catholics given by Mary Garland to Rev. Joseph Bruce, S.J. in 1974. Father Bruce continued to collect and organize materials received from pastoral workers and religious assigned to Deaf ministry. As of 2014, the collection contains over 90 boxes of items including, but not limited to, newsletters, magazines, scrapbooks, religious education materials, yearbooks from Catholic schools for the Deaf, and sign language items. This finding aid also provides a brief timeline of the Deaf Catholic Archive as well as highlights of Deaf Catholic history.
Source: College of the Holy Cross Deaf Catholic Archives Finding Aid
The Disability History Museum was founded in 2000. Its mission is to foster a deeper understanding about how changing cultural values, notions of identity, laws and policies have shaped and influenced the experience of people with disabilities, their families and their communities over time. The Disability History Museum is a born digital project, with 2,500 plus primary sources available to the public. For more than 8 years, they've teamed up with regional partners to conduct a wide variety of professional development efforts targeting grades 9-14 faculty. These efforts help them introduce and integrate topics in disability history within US History, Government, and Civics coursework. The site has on average, 12,500 unique visitors monthly. This work is sponsored by Straight Ahead Pictures, a non-profit media company with the mission of fostering dialogue about social issues using the archives and historical scholarship. Since its founding in 1987, Straight Ahead’s work has concentrated on questions of who is fit and who is not and how these categories have changed over time. We’ve produced a number of award winning projects in film, radio, and for the web. Our current effort is Becoming Helen Keller, a two-hour biography for the PBS series, American Masters.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Drake University Archives and Special Collections provides the opportunity for students and researchers to engage in primary research on topics related to government, law, politics, and cultural concerns through several notable collections, including the Political Papers Collection and the new Iowa Caucus Collection. The unit also provides internships and student work experiences related to museum and archival practice and the opportunity to work on digitization and digital projects. The Archives is also home to the papers of former U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, a champion for persons with disabilities and the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Gallaudet University, founded in 1864, is the oldest and largest university for the deaf in America and a leading force in deaf education and culture. The Gallaudet University Archives is also the world’s largest collection on deaf culture and history, including rare books, photographs, personal and organizational papers, artifacts, and more.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The George Bush Presidential Library has the records of the Executive Office of the President regarding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Lex Frieden, considered the grandfather of the ADA, donated his extensive collection on disability-related activism and services to the Bush Library in 2013.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Founded in 1866, the Missouri Historical Society includes the Missouri History Museum, the Library and Research Center, and Soldier’s Memorial. Disability-related collections include the Starkloff Family Papers along with many photos and artifacts collected for an exhibit celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ADA. The Action for Access website was launched alongside this exhibit.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
"Records Relating to Disabilities in NARA Holdings" provides an overview of records in NARA's holdings written by Frank H. Serene, author of Making Archives Accessible for People with Disabilities.
The Jacobus tenBroek Library at the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) in Baltimore, Maryland, welcomes all researchers interested in the non-medical aspects of blindness. Their collections cover areas including the education of blind children, disability law and policy, the history of attitudes toward the blind, literary works by blind authors, and the development of the organized blind movement. The tenBroek Library looks after the history of blind people in many ways, including collecting NFB literature, maintaining the Federation’s archives, recording oral history interviews, and building our collections of archival papers and published works. Our archival collections include those of NFB founder Jacobus tenBroek, past NFB president Kenneth Jernigan, Dr. Abraham Nemeth (creator of the Nemeth Braille Code), and Dr. Isabelle Grant, as well as several smaller collections. The tenBroek Library also holds extensive collections of archival photographs, sound recordings, and audiovisual materials.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Perkins Archives include collections related to the history of the education of the blind and deafblind, institutional archives, and correspondence of significant figures in the school’s history, such as Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, and Samuel Gridley Howe. The collections are in a variety of formats, including original manuscripts, ledgers, scrapbooks, clippings notebooks, photographs, postcards, paintings and prints, reel-to-reel audio and film, museum objects that include reading and writing apparatus and appliances, as well as an extensive embossed book collection.
The Samuel P. Hayes Research Library is one of the largest non-medical collections about blindness and blindness education in the world. Our materials include educational materials (both current and historical), history of blindness education, history of deafblindness education, the history of Perkins and various people associated with the school (Samuel Gridley Howe and our other directors, Laura Bridgman, Anne Sullivan, and Helen Keller, among others). We have many additional materials from other schools for the blind, blindness organizations, and related groups, including pamphlets, booklets, books, journals, and newsletters.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Rochester Institute of Technology/National Technical Institute for the Deaf: Deaf Studies Archive (RIT/NTID DSA) has grown from its founding in 2006 to over 100 collections. NTID was established with the passing of the 1965 bill signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Holdings include documents, texts, photographs and artifacts that document the central role of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (one of nine colleges at RIT) in educating people who are deaf and hard of hearing and highlights the many remarkable contributions of individuals affiliated with NITD. Strengths of the collection include Deaf education, Deaf theater, De’Via Art, and technologies for the deaf.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Designed by Franklin Roosevelt and dedicated on June 30, 1941, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum is the nation’s first presidential library and the only one used by a sitting president.
The FDR Library maintains over 17 million pages of documents in its archives. Among these materials are the personal papers of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as those of various individuals and organizations associated with their life and times. Materials related to disability can be found throughout the collection, most prominently within FDR’s personal and presidential papers. These primary sources document FDR’s personal experience with paralytic illness, his adapted environment, his leadership, relationship with the media, fundraising to fight polio, and more. Both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s papers contain personal and political correspondence with advocacy groups, citizens with disabilities, and leaders like Helen Keller of the American Foundation for the Blind and Basil O’Connor, co-founder of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, later called March of Dimes. A comprehensive reference guide to these primary source materials is now in development, with an expected completion date of Fall 2016.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Temple University Libraries' Special Collections Research Center is the principal repository for and steward of the Libraries’ rare books, manuscripts, archives and University records. The Urban Archives, documents the urban experience in the Philadelphia region, and includes disability rights collections created by individuals and organizations active in the movement--most particularly around the closure of Pennhurst. We collect, preserve, and make accessible primary resources and rare or unique materials, to stimulate, enrich, and support research, teaching, learning, and administration at Temple University. SCRC makes these resources available to a broad constituency as part of the University's engagement with the larger community of scholars and independent researchers.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Collections in the Texas State Library and Archives relating to disabilities include records of the Texas State Board of Control (agency with oversight of the state schools and hospitals, and schools for the deaf and blind from 1920-1949); records of the Board for State Hospitals and Special Schools; records of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, including the Lelsz litigation case; records of Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services; records of the legislature, to include bill files, committee records and records of legislators, some of which concern disability topics; records of most Texas Governors; Ruiz litigation case (Texas. Dept. of Criminal Justice) that include some issues relating to disabilities of inmates; records of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, School for the Deaf; Texas Commissions for the Blind and the Deaf; and the papers of Josephine Lamb, head of psychiatric nursing in the state hospitals in the 1950s.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Texas Disability History Collection emphasizes the pioneering role played by a racially and ethnically diverse cast of Texan disability rights activists, many of whom attended or have worked at UT Arlington, in fighting for equal access to education, work, union membership, public transit, and sports.
Source: Texas Disability History Collection: About this website
The Bancroft houses one of the largest collections of disability materials in the country, including oral histories, personal papers and organizational records, books, audio-visual.
Berkeley’s disability studies minor has a small library of its own, which includes an up-to-date collection of disability studies books published in the last twenty years and a small collection of archives (1970-2000) from Berkeley-based disability organizations (mostly World Institute on Disability, Center for Independent Living, and Disability Rights Education Defense Fund), as well as a deep collection of books, papers and ephemera given to us by Elias Katz, related to the National Institute on art and Disability (NIAD), Creative Growth, and other disability arts organizations and projects.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
In 2013 the University of Georgia Institute on Human Development & Disability and the Shepherd Center in Atlanta jointly founded the statewide Georgia Disability History Alliance (GDHA). The goal of GDHA is to bring together Georgians interested in protecting and preserving the State’s disability history. Over 100 advocates, self-advocates, organizational leaders, researchers and many other partners have joined the Alliance. Shortly after GDHA was established, the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia became a key partner, agreeing to collect, house, catalog, and preserve the Georgia Disability History Archive. Professional archivists oversee the collection.
The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies is a component of the University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries. Although the Russell Library’s original mission was to collectand preserve materials documenting the life and career of U.S. Senator Richard B. Russell, current collection development and programming focus on the dynamic relationship of politics, policy, and culture. The breadth and depth of the Russell Library’s collections provide an interconnected framework of perspectives and experiences for understanding the increasingly diverse people, events, and ideas shaping Georgia’s political and cultural landscape. In 2013, the Russell Library became a partner in the Georgia Disability History Alliance (GDHA), a coalition of organizations and individuals throughout Georgia dedicated to preserving the state’s disability history. That same year, they established the Georgia Disability History Archive.
To date, the Georgia Disability History Archive consists of over 25 collections from both individuals and organizations. Major subject areas documented in these collections include activism and social justice, disability policy and law, housing and visitability, citizen advocacy, independent and community living, mental health recovery and support, self-advocacy, education, and recreation and sports. We also are developing an oral history project as an effort to capture stories and experiences that may not otherwise be documented.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Beginning in 1948, the University of Illinois developed the nation's first comprehensive program and set of services for students with disabilities. The Guide to Disability Research Resources provides access to the archives of this ground-breaking program and to the papers of its founder, Tim Nugent.
The programs documented in the archives helped empower people with disabilities and had a profound effect on public attitudes, policy, and the law. The records available in the University Archives were arranged, described, and digitized with support from the University President's Office, and they include over 100 boxes of correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, films, and other materials.
Source: University of Illinois Archives Guide to Disability Research Resources
Senator Dole devoted much of his political career to fighting for people with disabilities. As such, the history of disability rights legislation, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, can be easily traced in his congressional papers at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics. They also hold the records of the Dole Foundation for Employment of Persons with Disabilities. From 1983-1998, the Dole Foundation helped disabled Americans through job creation, training, and placement. Last August the Dole Archives opened a year-long exhibit, “Celebrating Opportunity for People with Disabilities: 70 Years of Dole Leadership.” There is a digital form of the exhibit, along with lesson plans and 12,000 pages relating to disabilities.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
One steadily growing area of focus in the Social Change collections at the UMass Amherst Special Collections and University Archives are the organizational records and collections of personal papers documenting the history of disability and disability rights in the United States, especially mental health and psychiatric survivors. Collections range from the records of the International Center for the Disabled, records of the Belchertown State School Friends Association, reports from the Northampton (MA) State Hospital, records from the Clarke School for the Deaf to the papers of disability activists Judi Chamberlin, Lucy Gwin, Cynthia Miller, Denise Karuth and Fred Pelka, and Paul Kahn.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Social Welfare History Archives (SWHA) is part of the Migration and Social Services Collections in the Archives and Special Collections department of the University of Minnesota Libraries. SWHA collects the records of private-sector social service organizations and the personal papers of individual leaders in the field of social welfare. Sources in the Archives document the history of social service and social reform, focused on the late nineteenth and twentieth century United States. Disability-related collections in SWHA document programs and services for and attitudes regarding individuals with physical and developmental disabilities. Topics include institutional care, community-based programs, social services, and rehabilitation or recreational therapy services. SWHA collections reflect how ideas about health, sexuality, gender, mental and physical ability, reproduction and eugenics impacted individuals with disabilities.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Florida Mental Health Institute Research Library serves the Florida Mental Health Institute, the USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, and the greater University of South Florida community. The Library’s strong focus on behavioral and mental health provides students, faculty and researchers with direct and immediate access to the materials and resources needed to succeed in the fields of behavioral healthcare, applied behavioral analysis, social work, rehabilitation, and mental health counseling. The FMHI Research Library maintains a small collection of FMHI institutional records as well as archives focused on significant endeavors and collaborations in which FMHI staff have engaged. Of these, the papers of the Multiagency Service Network for Severely Emotionally Disabled Students (SEDNET) stands out for its coverage of network development to provide services to children diagnosed with severe emotional disorders.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
Since 2013, students in the Disability Studies Minor and the Department of History’s graduate public history program, as well as Minor staff, have collected and transcribed seventy oral histories with disability rights activists, leaders in adapted sports, and alumna, faculty, and staff of UT Arlington.
UTA has been at the forefront of providing accommodations for students with disabilities, as documented in personal papers and University archives. While we are actively collecting new materials (personal papers and organizational records) related to disability history, we looked at our existing collections with new eyes and found a wealth of information in our manuscript, political and labor collections, our oldest map (1490s), and the Fort Worth Star- Telegram morgue of clippings, photographic prints and negatives. Digital Creation, Special Collections, and the Disability Studies Minor are currently collaborating on a beta website of the digitized Texas Disability History Collection, which will launch in August 2016. The Texas Disability History Collection emphasizes the pioneering role played by a racially and ethnically diverse cast of Texan disability rights activists, many of whom attended or have worked at UT Arlington, in fighting for equal access to education, work, union membership, public transit, and sports.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Texas Center for Disability Studies works to create a better world through research, education, practice, and policy.
Source: Texas Center for Disability Studies Mission Statement
The Ward M. Canaday Center was formally founded in 1979 to be the home of special collections, archives, and rare books at the University of Toledo. Highlights of the center’s manuscript collections include the history of the glass industry as well as disability rights. Noteworthy disability collections include papers of Hugh Gregory Gallagher and Lee Lawrence, the records of the Toledo Ability Center, the Toledo Sight Center, and Assistance Dogs of America, among others. Also home to the photographs of Tom Olin, who documented key events of the disability rights movement of the late 21st century (including the signing of the ADA).
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
A rough search of the catalog of the U.S. Holocaust Museum under the term “disability” shows around 200 books, and approximately 40 archival collections, which range from small document collections of individuals whose disabilities made them the targets of Nazi persecution, as well as veterans of World War I who were disabled as a result of wounds suffered during that war. Archival holdings also include collections of copied materials from other repositories that document how Nazi policies toward the disabled, including the infamous “T-4” euthanasia program, were developed and implemented.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The ASL & Deaf Studies Program in connection with the George Sutherland Archives at Utah Valley University hosts a small collection of Deaf related historical items. This collection contributes to The National Deaf Studies Library and Archive Consortium. The goal of the consortium is to unite all of the Deaf schools, universities, organizations, communities, and individuals with a wealth of knowledge and resources pertaining to Deaf experiences and provide them with the training and tools needed to collect and digitize the information, preserving everything in one central space online to share with the public.
Source: The Disability History/Archives Consortium: A Portal to Disability History Collections White Paper
The Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium was established in 2015. The Consortium serves as a clearinghouse for Western Pennsylvania disability history records and collections; it also creates and preserves multimedia oral histories. Several items and collections have been preserved through partnership with the Senator John Heniz History Center.
