Disability history
Disability history studies how disabled people have lived and how societies have defined, treated, and represented disability across time.
Institutionalization of people with disabilities: The placement of disabled people in residential institutions, often separating them from families and communities. Institutions concentrated care and control, shaping daily life for generations.
Disability studies: An interdisciplinary field examining disability as a social, cultural, political, and embodied phenomenon. Disability history developed alongside this wider field of scholarship.
Ed Roberts: An American disability rights activist who helped establish the independent living movement. His organizing challenged assumptions that disabled people required institutional care.
504 sit-in: A 1977 occupation of federal offices by disability activists demanding enforcement of Section 504 regulations. The protest showed how sustained direct action could secure disability civil rights.
Independent living movement: A movement led by disabled people seeking control over services, housing, and community life. It recast independence as self-determination rather than doing everything without assistance.
Eugenics: A movement that sought to improve populations through selective reproduction and restrictions on reproduction. Eugenic policies targeted disabled people through segregation, sterilization, and exclusion.
Michael Oliver: A British sociologist whose work developed the social model of disability. His framework helped historians question accounts centered only on individual impairment.
Judith Heumann: An American disability rights activist who organized for education, access, and civil rights. Her campaigns made disabled people’s political agency central to public history.
Capitol Crawl: A 1990 protest in which disabled activists left their wheelchairs and crawled up the United States Capitol steps. The action dramatized architectural barriers during debate over the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act: A 1973 United States law barring disability discrimination in federally funded programs and activities. Its delayed enforcement galvanized activists and influenced later civil rights protections.