Mission

The Disability History Museum's mission is to promote understanding about the historical experience of people with disabilities by recovering, chronicling, and interpreting their stories. Our goal is to help foster a deeper understanding of disability and to dispel lingering myths, assumptions, and stereotypes by examining these cultural legacies.


What We Do

The Disability History Museum is home to a searchable theme-based digital collection of documents and images related to disability history in the United States. These artifacts are drawn from public and private collections around the country. They exist as primary source materials in the Library, and may be interpreted in Museum exhibitions and Education resources.

The staff of the Disability History Museum works closely with a Board of Advisors and the site's Partners to identify goals, methods, and content. This collaboration is key to maintaining an interdisciplinary approach to interpreting, preserving, and disseminating resources related to the history of people with disabilities.


Need

Few of us realize that people with disabilities have a rich and dramatic history that is relevant to all Americans. Disability can happen to any of us at any point in our lives regardless of race, class, or gender. Nearly all of us know someone with a disability, and this has always been the case. Despite changes in the past 25 years that have radically expanded the opportunities available to people with disabilities, traditional stereotypes about disability continue to be taken for granted as do the limited expectations that go with them. These attitudes affect the kinds of jobs people with disabilities get, where they live, and their social experiences. The Civil Rights movement taught us that laws alone don't change attitudes--awareness must be raised and assumptions challenged. The Disability History Museum provides tools that help all Americans, people with and without disabilities, develop a deeper understanding of human differences and how vital to our common life the historical experiences of people with disabilities have been.


Sponsor

The Disability History Museum is sponsored by Straight Ahead Pictures, Inc., a 501-C-3 organization whose mission is to create innovative media projects and educational forums that use archival materials and oral history to foster community dialog about contemporary social issues.