A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen

On February 5, 1963, in a 'Special Message to the Congress on Mental Illness and Mental Retardation,' he announced 'a bold new approach' to Intellectual disabilities. At a meeting with the president on October 16, 1962, they presented more than 100 recommendations for a comprehensive federal approach to intellectual disabilities and urged him to 'think and plan boldly.' President Kennedy used the panel's report as a blueprint to address those living with intellectual disabilities. They reconciled competing agendas and submitted their report ahead of deadline. The President's Panel on Mental Retardation spent a year busily gathering information, interpreting data, and debating solutions. About the Series Beacon Press’s ReVisioning History series consists of accessibly written books by notable scholars that reconstruct and reinterpret US history from diverse perspectives.How was Kennedy administration crucial to disability rights? The president charged panel members with submitting their report by the close of 1962. Engrossing and profound, A Disability History of the United States fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation’s past: from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all. Included are absorbing–at times horrific–narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington. Throughout the book, Nielsen deftly illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience–from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn’t to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell US history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy. In other ways, it is a radical repositioning of US history. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of disabled people at the center of the American narrative.

The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present Disability is not only the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may be rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation.

A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen