Disability Studies Guide

Like race and gender, disability history has recently become a critical field of study in examining our nation's heritage. Sparked by the disability rights movement of the late 20th century, disability history both expands and challenges the traditional American narrative of self-reliance, individualism, and opportunity and yields new understandings of such bedrock American values as community, family, and citizenship. From the asylum movement of the 19th century and the cover-up of Franklin Roosevelt's paralysis during his presidency to the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act and the impact of every war on veterans' physical and mental health, the experience of disability - and society's reaction to it - has changed markedly from one era to the next. The definitions of disability have also changed since the colonial era, revealing competing views, approaches, and attitudes. The Encyclopedia of American Disability History is the first encyclopedia to focus on this important topic in American history. By examining the issues, events, people, activism, laws, and personal experiences and social ramifications of disability throughout U.S. history, this comprehensive three-volume reference provides a new and broader, more inclusive approach to our nation's past.

Since the nineteenth century, Americans with disabilities have fought for a range of personal and civil rights. The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Disability Rights Movement chronicles this struggle during the last 150 years. It presents biographies of pivotal individuals and groups in the movement, including Justin Dart, Judy Heumann, Ed Roberts, Frank Bowe, and such organizations as the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities and Americans for Disabled Attendant Programs Today. Other entries, many of them illustrated, cover legislation, programs, litigation, historic events, and concepts.