The History of Disability and the Archives

Most disability terms that we're familiar with are modern terms, and most records that would deal with anything looking like disability is from the twentieth century. It's really hard to say s this collection on this group of people, when that group of people would not have paired themselves together in any way. Ah, since disability can happen by birth, by age or by accident, you have so many different experiences, and these are often conflicting experiences as well. Even looking at the disabled population of early new england, well, they didn't consider themselves a population together. So you have to think about, what are these records showing as bodily differences? And how is that ganow expand an idea