History and Memorial

International News

Disability History Resources a guide to information for the study of disability history, signposting resources from ancient history up to contemporary history. (Jan, Bodleian Libraries Oxford)

'Disability and Labour in the Twentieth Century: Historical and Comparative Perspectives' a book review:

“In the epilogue, Monika Baar explains that the ideological divide that existed between socialist Eastern European and democratic Western countries in the postwar period was less structure forming than often assumed and that the different welfare state regimes had provoked similar development trajectories on the poor employment situation for people with disabilities” (2023, H-Disability)

The Mütter and More: Why We Need to be Critical of Medical Museums as Spaces for Disability Histories. (2023, Disability Visibility Project)

How the wheelchair opened up the world to millions of people Wheelchairs have existed since the invention of the wheel. But technological advances have revolutionized the way that people use them. (2023, National Geographic)

Disabled people were Holocaust victims, too: they were excluded from German society and murdered by Nazi programs. (2023, The Conversation)

Moments in Disability History a timeline with highlights over the past five thousand years. (2023, Disability Social History Project)

From the wheelchair-using Black Panther to the ‘cripple suffragette’ – 10 heroes of the disabled rights movement. (2022, the Guardian)

A new book on Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome. (2022, Cambridge University Press)

Reader's Block a book on the history of reading differences. (2022, Combined Academic Publishers)

Wheelchairs Through Time A visual history of the wheelchair: a look through thousands of years covering palanquins, tricycles, wheelbarrows, thrones, and much more. (2022, Wayland's Workshop)

50th Anniversary of the Independent Living Movement (2022, ENIL)

State of the Field: Disability History. An overview of many strengths of a growing field, and reflections on some of the gaps, which include:

“As impressive as disability scholarship on activism is, its lack of chronological depth obscures the full range of disabled people's political actions. Most studies focus on the last one hundred years, especially the period after the emergence of the modern DRM in the 1970s. This limits our understanding of disabled people's activism by implying that their engagement in meaningful political action is a relatively recent phenomenon, concerned primarily with the fight for disability rights. Yet, disabled people have a longer and richer history of activism than this. From factory reform to women's suffrage, they have fought for many causes, often taking up prominent roles in the process.” (2022, History)

Book review of Disease and Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Literature (2022, H-Disability)

Global Stamp Issues a book exploring postage stamps marking the United Nations International Year of Disabled People, 1981. (2022, Digital Disability) See a write up and samples on Disability Arts Online.

Review of Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History “a spell-binding book of research and stories” (2022, H-Disability)

Back to contents.

Egypt

Recognising inequality: ableism in Egyptological approaches to disability and bodily differences (2023, World Archaeology)

How ancient history resists our stereotypes Debrief discussion of Tutankhamun and disability in ancient Egypt. (2023, Disability Debrief)

Sheikh Rafaat: A Genius in Meaning-Based Recitation of Quran. One of the blind men among the brilliant qaris of Egypt (people who recite the Quran). (2022, International Quran News Agency)

Sheikh Imam: Voice of Dissent Profile on a blind oud player his music and politics from the 60s-80s and how they resonate through history and the Middle East today. (2022, KC Network)

Back to contents.

Kenya

Rest in Power Hon. Godliver Omondi, Former Senator and sitting Member of the County Assembly. (2023, Kenya Network of Women and Girls with Disabilities)

Back to contents.

Nigeria

Demise of Danlami Bashir “Danlami will be remembered as one of the great leaders of the disability movement in Africa and in his country of Nigeria, where he was promoting the rights of people with disabilities, especially focusing on blind and deaf communities.” (2023, IDA)

Back to contents.

Sierra Leone

Recaptive number 11,407: Poet Raymond Antrobus traces the lost story of a deaf man freed from slavery. (2022, BBC)

Back to contents.

South Africa

IPC mourns passing of pioneering South African athlete Zanele Situ At the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, she became the first black South African female athlete to win a Paralympic gold medal. (2023, International Paralympic Committee)

Back to contents.

Zimbabwe

Henry Maysa an advocate for rights of disabled people, passed away. (2023, Temba Mliswa)

Back to contents.

China

Maoism and mental illness: psychiatric institutionalization during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. (2022, History of Psychiatry)

Back to contents.

Japan

New film honors life and legacy of disability pioneer Mark Bookman “The American-born Bookman, who was a full-time Tokyo resident, passed away in December 2022 at 31 years of age, shortly after the filming of the documentary took place.” (Feb, The Japan Times)

Postwar Disability History of Japan key moments in the legislation of disability. (2023, Wei Yu Wayne Tan)

Shinya Tateiwa, Sociologist who Researched People with Disabilities Dies, Aged 62. (2023, Barrier Free Japan) See some of his articles on Arsvi.

Blind in Early Modern Japan: Disability, Medicine, and Identity a review of a book studying blindness in Japan from 1600 to 1868, including attention on a unique “guild” that created a social category of blind people:

“Tan reveals a dynamic environment in which some men were drawn in to the activities and influence of the guild (which continually attempted to assert its authority through innovative means, such as the making of “model” blind people and “ideal” behaviours, when membership numbers began to decline and new professions, such as acupuncture and massage, began to overtake Heike music as the dominant vocation), and the ways in which other men, and in many instances women who were excluded from the guild on account of their gender, developed their own groups that provided much-needed kinship-style support.” (2023, LSE)

Back to contents.

Jordan

Park in honour of disability activist Aya Agabi inaugurated in Abdali.

Back to contents.

Malaysia

Disabled activist Anthony Thanasayan passes away aged 63. (2023, The Star) Also celebrated on the Debrief.

Back to contents.

Palestine

Ahmed Yassin was a quadriplegic refugee who ran a charity. How did he end up founding Hamas? (2023, ABC News)

Back to contents.

Europe

Review of 'Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages: Un/suitable for Divine Service?' ‘In theory, to be an ordained priest, a man had to be deemed physically and mentally “perfect,” but in practice the attraction and retention of suitable people meant that what today we might call “reasonable adjustments” had to be made to allow some of these men to hold office.’ (2023, H-Disability)

Speech Impairment and Yiddish Literature, or: On the Obligation to Communicate and the Responsibility to Listen (2023, Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability)

Disabled Clerics in the Late Middle Ages Un/suitable for Divine Service? “The petitions received and the letters sent by the Papal Chancery during the Late Middle Ages attest to the recognition of disability at the highest levels of the medieval Church.” (2023, Amsterdam University Press)

We mourn the loss of Jolijn Santegoeds, disability activist and voice for people with psychosocial disabilities. (2023, EDF) Also from Mental Health Europe.

A book review of an interdisciplinary account of deaf history in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. (2022, H-Disability)

Back to contents.

Bulgaria

In Memoriam: Vanya Pandieva “Vanya was one of the pioneers of the independent living movement in Bulgaria.” (2023, ENIL)

Memorial to Kapka Panayotova – a great Independent Living activist (2021, Disability Defenders Network Newsletter)

Back to contents.

France

A series on disability and collective mobilizatons: a demonstration by young blind people in 1939, by the old and unwell in 1963, deaf people in 1993 and a blockage by Handi-social in 2018. (In French, 2023, Balises)

An Early Medieval Prosthetic Hand and what it might show us about violence, community and care. (2022, History Workshop)

Back to contents.

Germany

Book review of 'What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea' a collection of photographs of people with cognitive disabilities starting in 1980. (2023, H-Disability)

Uncovering a life deemed “unworthy of life”. “Why the Story of Hans Heinrich Festersen—Gay, Disabled, and Murdered by the Nazis—Matters” (2022, Zocalo Public Square)

Back to contents.

Iceland

Discussion of a research and community project that took Multidisciplinary Approaches to Disability from late 9th to early 20th Century:

“The project provides representation of people who lived with physical, mental, and/or sensory differences across Iceland’s history not simply as a homogenous group defined by one common experience but as individuals with their own unique lives and stories. Responsible historical disability representation affects both society as a whole and disability communities, with the latter having a valuable opportunity to see their experiences reflected in the past.” (2022, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Back to contents.

Ireland

A tribute to Selina Bonnie from ILMI “As a professional, academic and activist, Selina has been actively involved in the practical realisation of disabled people’s rights in Ireland and beyond.” (Jan, ILMI)

Maeve McCormack Nolan obituary: Celebrated artist and disability advocate. (2022, Irish Times)

Back to contents.

Italy

Book review of 'Disability and Tourism in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Italy' (2023, H-Disability)

Back to contents.

Netherlands

Shifting terminology and confusing representations An examination of intellectual disability terminology in Dutch newspapers from 1950 to 2020 (2023, Alter)

Back to contents.

Norway

An Agent-Based Simulation Model of Epidemic Spread in a Residential School. “An agent-based model of a school for deaf children was developed from Norwegian archival sources and 1918 influenza pandemic data to test impacts of non-pharmaceutical interventions. Results show differences in the timing and pattern of spread based on whether the first case is a student or staff member, while epidemics are smaller with more student bedrooms or a hospital ward.” (2023, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research)

Back to contents.

Poland

Polish Senator and Disability Rights Defender Marek Plura passed away. (2023, EDF)

Back to contents.

Russia

A book review of The Broken Years: Russia's Disabled War Veterans, 1904-1921. The book argues that the rights of disabled people as a minority were born out of the 1917 February revolution. (2022, H-Net)

Back to contents.

Sweden

Why did Sweden sterilise up to 30,000 people against their will? ‘Sweden set up a eugenics plan, grounded in the science of racial biology, between 1934 and 1976. “They wanted to get rid of a certain type of people: The weaker ones”.’ (2023, Euronews)

Back to contents.

United Kingdom

Review of 'Out of His Mind: Masculinity and Mental Illness in Victorian Britain' (Apr, H-Disability)

Book review of Literature and Intellectual Disability in Early Modern England: Folly, Law and Medicine, 1500–1640. (2023, H-Disability)

Disability Histories items in the National Museums of Scotland collection (2023, National Museums Scotland)

In loving memory of Alan Benson MBE. “Alan’s work has had a lasting impact not only on transport accessibility, but the entire disabled community.” (2023, Transport for All)

Rachel Heller obituary Artist whose vivid works were lauded by the likes of David Hockney and Maggi Hambling (2023, the Guardian)

Clare Gray, 1969-2023 “Clare was hugely well regarded for her advocacy work and involvement in the Disability Power 100 [...] it is accepted across the disability community and beyond that Clare was one of the most influential disabled advocates campaigning in the UK in the last decade.” (2023, Shaw Trust)

Lame Captains and Left-Handed Admirals Amputee Officers in Nelson's Navy (2023, University of Virginia Press) See also this discussion on New Books Network (no transcript).

Slow Workers: Labelling and Labouring in Britain, c. 1909–1955

“Intellectually disabled people adopted precarious strategies of ‘getting by’ and while they commonly experienced low wages, could also sustain degrees of community inclusion at the margins of the economy.” (2023, Social History of Medicine)

Tracing Disabled Children’s Lives in 19th-Century Scotland through Public and Institutional Records. (2023, Genealogy)

Lois Keith obituary “Writer, teacher and disability rights campaigner who challenged the barriers facing disabled women” (2023, the Guardian)

In his time, Benjamin Lay may have been the most radical person on the planet. ‘Benjamin Lay’s dwarf body shaped his radicalism. For someone “not much above four feet” tall, life was a struggle to be considered equal, even to be taken seriously in many situations. Benjamin had to fight.’ (2023, Verso)

Everywhere and Nowhere short film “spotlights 10 fascinating stories, objects and sites with connections to histories of disability from the National Trust’s buildings and landscapes, and collections and historical records.” (2023, University of Leicester Research Centre)

Disabled people’s activism on exhibition at the People's History Museum (2022, Disability Arts Online)

Ebooks of Paul Hunt's writings. “Paul Hunt was one of the founders of the Disabled People's Movement in Britain, and one of the first activists to argue for the social model of disability.” (2022, GMCDP)

A review of Beholding Disability in Renaissance England a book which argues that “by focusing on disability in Renaissance texts we can collapse barriers between us and the past, while at the same time gain new perspectives on both historical and contemporary perceptions of the disabled body.” (2022, H-Disability)

Book review of Those They Called Idiots: The Idea of the Disabled Mind from 1700 to the Present Day. “The conflation of race and intelligence is vividly documented in this volume. The long and complex history of ideas that have bound these concepts together helps us understand today’s deeply institutionalized racism as well as the entrenched we/they ableism of our educational and social service institutions.” (2022, Disability Studies Community)

Book review of Shakespeare and Disability Studies, a book which argues that a disability studies view should not focus just on disabled characters but rather ‘theater as a “social phenomenon” in which both disabled and nondisabled bodyminds engage with one another and the text.’ (2022, Disability Studies Community)

Dr Peter Scott-Morgan dies: Tributes to world's first 'cyborg' ‘And when I say “Cyborg”, I don’t just mean any old cyborg, you understand, but by far the most advanced human cybernetic organism ever created in 13.8 billion years.’ (2022, Metro.co.uk)

The Jewish Deaf Association launch new website: Jewish Deaf History (London) discussion of the history and website. (2022, Limping Chicken)

‘The lady without legs or arms’: how an artist shattered Victorian ideas about disability. (2022, the Guardian)

The 1921 census is a snapshot of a post-war Britain where disability suddenly became visible: "Poignant, defiant notes by men living with war wounds show the roots of the ongoing fight for disability rights taking hold". (2022, Inews)

Back to contents.

Canada

Beryl Potter Takes On Paratransit Much can be learned from the disability activist’s 1981 protest against Wheel-Trans. An excerpt from Dustin Galer's biography of her. (Jan, The Tyee)

Steven Estey: A fierce advocate and champion for disability rights, who “left an unparalleled mark on the course of human rights progress both domestically and globally.” (2023, Canadian Human Rights Commission) See also obituary on Arbor Memorial.

Former lieutenant-governor of Ontario David Onley dies at 72. “Onley, who used a motorized scooter after having polio as a child, was the first visibly disabled person to hold the position when appointed in 2007.” (2023, The Star)

Back to contents.

Haiti

Google Doodle Celebrating Mama Cax Haitian American model and disability rights advocate. (2023, Google) See more about her (Yahoo! News).

Back to contents.

Mexico

Review of 'Bedlam in the New World: A Mexican Madhouse in the Age of Enlightenment' “a social and micro-history of the Hospital de San Hipólito, the first hospital established in the Western Hemisphere to specialize in the care of those encountering mental disorders and madness.” (2023, H-Disability)

Back to contents.

United States

Review of 'Miriam Hearing Sister: A Memoir' the family of two deaf sisters before, during and after the second world war. (Mar, H-Disability)

Paul Alexander, polio survivor in iron lung for over 70 years, dies at 78 (Mar, NBC News)

Brooke Ellison, Prominent Disability Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 45 “Author, professor and powerful voice for disabled people.” (Feb, New York Times)

Disability History “Interpreting disability history is one way historians and their communities, public or academic, can practice access and inclusion.” (Jan, The Inclusive Historian's Handbook)

Mark Bookman: We Miss Knowing That You're There (2023, The Datekeepers)

Ady Barkan, Health Care Activist Spurred by His Illness, Dies at 39

‘“That’s the paradox of my situation,” he told The New York Times in 2019. “As my voice has gotten weaker, more people have heard my message. As I lost the ability to walk, more people have followed in my footsteps.”’ (2023, New York Times)

How Civil War Veterans Transformed Disability an online exhibit. (2023, Emerging America) See a discussion on the Debrief.

Book review of Disability Dialogues Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions. (2023, H-Disability)

How deaf education has changed in Minnesota over 160 years (2023, MPR News)

Book review of The Mark of Slavery Disability, Race, and Gender in Antebellum America. “The Mark of Slavery is an important development for histories of slavery and disability, importantly using analysis of gender to foreground disability in the history of slavery.” (2023, H-Net)

Gouverneur Morris, writer of Constitution’s ‘We the People,’ was disabled (2023, Washington Post)

Decades after state institutions shut down, their history could shape the country’s approach to prisons:

“Decarceration efforts led to the closure of psychiatric hospitals and large facilities that warehoused people with disabilities. Activists against mass incarceration can learn from the past.” (2023, 19th News)

$2.3m grant will fund Denver monument to historic disability rights protest “The Mile High City will create a new monument to a 1978 protest that was a landmark for the disability rights movement” (2023, The Art Newspaper)

Juneteenth and the legacy of disabled Black slaves “Finding firsthand accounts of disabled, enslaved African Americans proves to be a daunting task, but it is evident that many were unable to leave forced labor camps after the Civil War ended and remained within the institution of slavery (or its rebranding, sharecropping).” (2023, AWN)

Don Triplett, the first person diagnosed with autism, dead at 89. (2023, WLBT)

After 504: Training the Citizen-Enforcers of Disability Rights
| Disability Studies Quarterly (2023, Disabilities Studies Quarterly)

Why the 1932 Movie ‘Freaks’ Is a Touchstone for Disability Representation. “Though it has detractors, scholars and advocates have largely embraced this film for the way it shows people just living their lives while disabled.” (2023, New York Times)

The long history of staring in the disability community personal and illustrated exploration. (2023, Washington Post)

37 years and over 100 arrests: Longtime disability rights icon Anita Cameron is retiring from protests. (2023, the 19th)

Meet Zona Roberts: The grandmother of the disability movement turns 103. (2023, University of California)

Book review of 'Public Hostage, Public Ransom: Ending Institutional America' an autobiography by William Bronston. (2023, H-Disability)

Google Doodle Spotlights Kitty O'Neil, Deaf Stuntwoman and Daredevil, on her 77th birthday. (2023, CNET)

Book review of 'Money, Marriage, and Madness: The Life of Anna Ott' “Swiss immigrant Anna Barbara Blaser Miesse Ott (1819-93) became a woman of means and a practicing doctor, only to spend her last two decades in the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane.” (2023, H-Disability)

Deaf Printers Pages “preserves the last of many generations of Deaf people who learned printing in school and worked at local and national newspapers around the country. From the 1970s-2000 more than 125 Deaf people found employment at The Washington Post.” (2023)

‘Disability is not a tragedy’: the remarkable life of activist and rebel Hale Zukas. “Born in an era when disabled people were routinely institutionalized, Zukas fought for – and won – access to transportation and better urban design”. (2023, the Guardian)

'Revolutionary': Remembering John Boyer a pioneer for the deaf and blind in computer science. “He foresaw very, very early that the use of computers was a way for people with disabilities, who are vastly underrepresented in the job force, to be able to work,” (2023, Wisconsin State Journal)

Mary Pinotti Kaessinger “Revolutionary, disability justice and rights fighter, labor organizer – Rest in power!” (2023, Workers World)

An Accessible City For All: History of Disability Rights in New York:

“In 1935, a small group of activists calling themselves the League for the Physically Handicapped staged a “death watch” at the Works Progress Administration offices in Manhattan. Their demand was New Deal jobs for New Yorkers with disabilities–which they won.” (2023, Museum of the City of New York)

The Curious Case of Carson McCullers: Appropriation, Allyship, and the Problem of Speaking for Others. (2023, Disability Studies Quarterly)

Disability Dialogues a book on the “Advocacy, Science, and Prestige in Postwar Clinical Professions” (2022, Johns Hopkins University Press)

How should we reckon with history’s uncomfortable truths about disability? “My research found that eugenics, a theory popular from the late nineteenth century until World War II, had an early but profound influence on educational policy that lingers to this day in the rationale for, and funding of, educational provisions for students with disability.” (2022, Monash)

Landmark disability rights figure Lois Curtis dies. (2022, NPR) See more about her legacy on 19th News.

Disability Culture So Far: “A Movement in Milestones” – highlights from disability arts. (2022, Art in America)

Carl Croneberg, Explorer of Deaf Culture, Dies at 92. Croneberg “helped write the first comprehensive dictionary of American Sign Language and was the first to outline the idea of Deaf culture as a distinct part of society and one worth studying”. (2022, New York Times)

The upsetting online market for historic asylum patient records. “These files contained details such as physicians’ notes on diagnoses, test results, and therapy notes, in addition to accounts of violent treatments like electrotherapy and hydrotherapy” (2022, Slate)

A new book: Work Requirements: Race, Disability and the Print Culture of Social Welfare: “yoking the project of social welfare to the consolidation of a work society and powerfully revealing their shared entanglement in racialized fantasies about the ‘able’ body.” (2022, Duke University Press)

The Untold Origins of the Black & Blind Musician (Video feature, 2022, PBS Origins)

Life at a Distance: Archiving Disability Cultures of Remote Participation. “Autistic self-advocacy, for instance, famously emerged in the 1990s from internet discussion boards, which allowed autistic adults to connect and form communities without having to socialize in person (Sinclair 2010). Even earlier, in the 1940s and 50s, institutionalized disabled people used technologies such as sending quilt patches to their families (as forms of storytelling), while disabled people living at home with families shared tips and tricks in print newsletters for making houses more accessible” (2022, Just Tech)

Inside the Pentagon’s shameful effort to draft mentally disabled men to fight in Vietnam (2022, Task & Purpose)

Google Doodle Honors Disability Rights Activist Stacey Park Milbern (2022, CNET)

Crip/Mad Archive Dances: Arts-Based Methods in and out of the Archive (2022, Theatre)

The Helen Keller Exorcism. Brilliant rollercoaster-ride of an episode, remembering Helen Keller and her myths today. (complete with transcript, 2022, Radiolab) See also a feature on Helen Keller's Legacy (Teen Vogue).

Disabled Ancestry Should Be Embraced With Pride (2022, NYT)

Harriet Tubman’s Disability and Why it Matters (2022, Ms Magazine)

The letter that Helen Keller wrote after she visited the Empire State Building.

“I will concede that my guides saw a thousand things that escaped me from the top of the Empire Building, but I am not envious. For imagination creates distances and horizons that reach to the end of the world. It is as easy for the mind to think in stars as in cobble-stones.” (2022, Letters of Note)

Darby Penney, Who Crusaded for Better Psychiatric Care, Dies at 68 (2021, NYT)

Neil Marcus, Whose Art Illuminated Disability, Dies at 67 See more about Neil in the introduction and the last newsletter. (2021, NYT)

Back to contents.

Australia

Remembering Stella Young a statue of Stella in her hometown, Stawell. “I am not a snowflake. I am not a sweet, infantilising symbol of fragility and life. I am a strong, fierce, flawed adult woman. I plan to remain that way, in life and in death.” (2023, Northern Grampians Shire Council)

Remembering Stella Young a webpage dedicated to her life and memory. (2023)

Back to contents.

Fiji

Deepest condolences to the family and colleagues of Angeline Chand (Mar, Disability Rights Fund)

Back to contents.

New Zealand

The horrors of Kimberley “For over 50 years, the Kimberley Centre in Levin billed itself as a home away from home for hundreds of vulnerable New Zealanders. Behind the facade was a site of unspeakable abuse.” (2023, The Spinoff)

Why doesn’t every New Zealander know about Eve Rimmer? “She had a glittering international sports career and became a brave advocate for paraplegic rights, but Eve Rimmer is still largely unknown to the country she represented.” (2022, The Spinoff)

Back to contents.

Brazil

Persons with Disabilities and the Quota legislation from 1960 to 2020. A huge personal archive from Romeu Sassaki. (In Portuguese, 2023, Sociedade Inclusiva)

Romeu Sassaki died at 84 years old a vital figure working on inclusion in Brazil. (Links in Portuguese, 2022) See also an online meeting with tributes.

Back to contents.