Disability History Museum
The Disability History Museum -- www.disabilitymuseum.org -- continues to
add primary documents and images to its online Library collection. During
the upcoming semester break, check out what's up. There are more than one
thousand artifacts to choose from. Here are some of the highlights, and a
sense of where we are going in the next six months.
We began by concentrating on the 1810-1860 period, and our holdings have a
number of new documents on insane asylums, including selected articles from
The Opal, a literary journal published in the 1850s by patients at the New
York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica,
http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/docs/1240card.htm for example. We also
have a number of reports from the New York State Asylum for Idiots under
Hervey Wilbur, http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/docs/1359card.htm for
example, as well as other documents on the education of people with
cognitive disabilities. You can expect more reports from the New York State
Asylum in the next six months; we anticipate posting this institution's
entire annual report history. Another highlight is the entire text of
Edward Seguin's classic Idiocy: And Its Treatment By The Physiological
Method, http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/docs/1531card.htm, as well as
several articles form the Journal of Psycho-Asthenics.
We also have added many articles and images from The Toomeyville Gazette of
the 1950s and 1960s. Published by polio survivors, The Toomeyville Gazette
traces efforts in self-help, assistive technologies, accessibility,
advocacy, and the building of a disability community. These documents bring
forward many of the issues raised by The Polio Chronicle of Warm Springs,
Georgia, (1931-1934) but with a focus on a new generation.
Our next step is to concentrate on the period between 1931 and 1960. We are
especially interested in the records of many diagnosis groups -- from the
ARC to March of Dimes to the League Of The Hearing Impaired -- just some
examples. We will continue developing and broadening our focus on assistive
technology, and include materials about veterans, Social Security debates,
and the President's Committee On Employment Of The Handicapped. If you have
good leads about records of interest to your students or yourself as a
researcher, drop us a line.
Please visit our site as we develop this exciting and valuable resource,
and please consider using our holdings in your teaching.
Graham Warder, Ph.D.
Disability History Musuem
Straight Ahead Pictures, Inc.
P.O. Box 395
Conway, MA 01035
phone: 413.369.4372
fax: 413.369.4784
Sandy Sufian, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Medical Humanities and History
Department of Medical Education, MC 591
University of Illinois-Chicago Medical School
808 South Wood Street, 9th Floor
Chicago, IL 60612
312-413-0113
sufians@uic.edu
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