A Disability History of the United States

A Disability History of the United States is a 2012 nonfiction book by author Kim E. Nielsen, a professor of disability studies and women’s studies at the University of Toledo. Nielsen’s work is the first to cover the entirety of disability history in the United States, from the pre-Columbian era of Indigenous North America to the present day. Nielsen provides a comprehensive overview of how disability has been defined, understood, treated, and—using personal narratives—experienced in America. A Disability History of the United States highlights the role that disability has played in shaping American history and the ways in which disability has intersected with issues of race, gender, and class. The book is structured with eight chapters covering chronological eras in American history. Throughout the work, three primary themes emerge: The Changing Definitions and Perceptions of Disability, The Impact of Legislation and Policy on Individuals With Disabilities, and The Intersectionality of Disability With Race, Gender, and Class.

This study guide refers to the first edition, published by Beacon Press.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain discussions about ableism, racism, enslavement, and mental illness. Additionally, the source text uses outdated and offensive terms for some people with disabilities. This guide replicates those terms only in quotations to reflect the author’s usage.

Summary

Nielsen begins the text with a discussion of disability within Indigenous communities. While most Indigenous communities had no word or concept for “disability,” Nielsen says, people with disabilities were common in Indigenous North America. Stigma, however, was not associated with disability as long as one’s body, mind, and spirit were in harmony. The arrival of European settlers in North America in the late 15th century would forever alter Indigenous lives, cultures, and understandings of disability. Conflicts with the European colonizers brought disability and death to Indigenous peoples, but diseases carried by the Europeans decimated their bodies and communities. Throughout the colonial period, little attention was paid to physical disabilities unless it resulted in the inability to labor, but substantial attention was given to cognitive and mental disabilities. Families provided care for people with disabilities first and foremost, but communities took responsibility when families would not or could not.

Nielsen explains that in the late colonial period, almshouses and similar institutions began to be used for those with mental disabilities, but confinement was used only when necessary for safety. As slavery began to be built into the legal frameworks of the colonies, disability took on new meanings. Enslavers argued that Africans brought to North America were by definition disabled because of their supposed mental inferiority. Nielsen notes that the slave trade itself existed to make money, so enslaved people with physical, cognitive, or mental disabilities were extremely vulnerable. In the decades following the American Revolution, demarcating categories began to develop that distinguished good citizens from bad citizens, and civic competency was determined not only by race, gender, and class but also by disability. The professionalization of medicine coupled with an increased awareness of disability as soldiers returned home led to an expansion in institutions for people with mental illness and schools for deaf and blind people.

Nielsen explains that, just as the Revolutionary War had done, the Civil War made disability more visible while at the same time leaving many veterans with disabilities without employment. Expansion of the veterans’ pension provided help, but the medical determination of disability became more regulated. In the decades after the Civil War, industrialization and urbanization led to population explosions in major cities and a substantial expansion in the number and types of institutions for people with disabilities. During the Progressive Era, at the turn of the 20th century, disability intersected with race, class, and gender as new concerns grew about the nature of America’s citizens. Nielsen notes that this concern led to restrictive immigration policies that deemed some bodies “defective” and others “undesirable.” At the same time, the widespread support of eugenics, the belief that societies can be improved through better breeding practices so that “defective” bodies and “undesirable” types do not reproduce, led to forced sterilization statutes in 37 states.

Nielsen’s examination of disability following the Great Depression and World War II focuses on the ways in which policies and legislation impacted people with disabilities and how the groundwork was laid for the activist era that would follow. As was the case with most Americans during the Depression, employment was the primary issue for people with disabilities, and that issue gave rise to some of the earliest examples of disability activism. World War II, on the other hand, created new opportunities for people with disabilities as they became needed in the workforce. Nielsen then turns to the disability rights movement, which grew out of earlier activism and began in the late 1960s. The disability rights movement not only intersected with other social movements such as the feminist and Black civil rights movement, but it also borrowed from them as disability activists took on new tactics and demanded to be heard. In 1990, when the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed, it impacted an estimated 43 million people.