Facts on File will be releasing the Encyclopedia of American Disability History in June 2009. The three-volume set is edited by Susan Burch, Ph.D., who is a historian of the deaf community. (Full disclosure: I wrote several entries for the encyclopedia.)Like race and gender, disability has recently become a critical field of study in examining our nation’s heritage. Sparked by the disability rights movement of the late 20th century, disability history both expands and challenges the traditional American narrative of self-reliance, individualism, and opportunity and yields new understandings of such bedrock American values as community, family, and citizenship. From the asylum movement of the 19th century and the cover-up of Franklin Roosevelt's paralysis during his presidency to the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (and amendment of 2008) and the impact of every war on veterans’ physical and mental health, the experience of disability—and society’s reaction to it—has changed markedly throughout American history. The definitions of disability have also changed from era to era, revealing competing views, approaches, and attitudes.
Encyclopedia of American Disability History is the first encyclopedia to focus on this important topic in American history. By examining the issues, events, people, ctivism, laws, and personal experiences and social ramifications of disability throughout U.S. history, this comprehensive three-volume reference provides a new and broader, more inclusive approach to our nation’s past. More than 300 historians, scholars, and experts contributed to the more than 750 articles in this impressive work. Arranged alphabetically, each signed article includes cross-references to related entries and suggestions for further reading. Ideal for the high school and college curriculum, this accessible new encyclopedia also includes a comprehensive chronology and dozens of original documents.
Entries include:
Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf
Amputees and amputation
Asperger's Syndrome
Blind Boys of Alabama
Buck v. Bell
Disability art and artistic expression
Down Syndrome
Eugenics
Thomas Gallaudet
The Glass Menagerie
Guide dogs
Impairment/impaired
Little People of America
Long-term care
Million Dollar Baby
Miss Deaf America
Reproductive rights
South
Park
Special Olympics
Ugly Laws
Workers' compensation
The Yellow
Wallpaper.
Susan Burch, Ph.D., is the author of Signs of Resistance: American Deaf Cultural History, 1900 to World War II; the co-editor of Double Visions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Women and Deafness; and the coauthor of Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson. She has written numerous articles and book chapters for The New Disability History; Sign Language Studies; Journal of Social History; Literacy and Deaf People: Contextual and Cultural Approaches; and The Public Historian: Special Issue on Disability History. She is co-founder and board member of the Disability History Association and has served on the Society for Disability Studies’ Board of Directors. Her work has been acknowledged with several awards, including a Mellon Seminar Fellowship and a Fulbright lecturing award. Burch has taught at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.; Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic; King’s College, University of Aberdeen, Scotland; and The Ohio State University. She currently works with the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
