Free to Use and Reuse: Disability Awareness

This Free to Use set features people with disabilities throughout U.S. history—at work, at play, at school, and advocating for change. Note that these items were created during many different eras. Historical terminology on older collection items can include words considered offensive, but the original terminology also helps in understanding the context for the items’ creation. Browse more content that is free to use and reuse

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  Helen Keller advocated for disability rights through lectures and books and was herself deafblind. Shown here in 1956.

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  Students performing "The Star Spangled Banner" in sign language at the St. Rita School for the Deaf, 1918.

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  Representative Barbara Jordan was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis while serving in the U.S. Congress in the 1970s.

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  In this song from 1919, a World War I soldier accepts rejection by one woman because "your crippled soldier loves a lass across the sea" who saw past his injuries.

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  The Library of Congress opened a reading room for blind persons in 1897, shown here around 1920.

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  The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled was established in 1931 at the Library of Congress to provide braille and recorded materials to people who cannot see or handle print materials.

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  Harriet Tubman lived with a brain injury and seizures caused by an overseer who hit her in the head before she escaped enslavement. 1870s.

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  John Louis Clarke, a noted Blackfeet wood carver, became deaf from scarlet fever. 1920s.

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  "Preservation of the Sign Language." Educational film, 1913.

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  Tony Young, a disability rights advocate with quadriplegia, at the U.S. Capitol in 1999.

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  An artificial limb recipient ice skating near the Washington Monument, around 1890.

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  Bowling at the Lighthouse, an institution for the blind, in 1944.

• "Left-hand penmanship by Civil War veterans who lost their right arms," 1866-1867.

• Sergeant William A. MacNulty, 10th New York Infantry, with amputated right arm, in1864.

• Disabled Civil War soldiers, 1860s.

• Soldiers who have amputated limbs are at Walter Reed Hospital in 1918.

• In this World War I poster "Uncle Sam offers training to every man disabled in the service."

• Lt. Commander John McCain, shown here during a 1973 interview about his prisoner of war experience in Vietnam, received a disabled veteran designation.

• Thomas Edison, who described himself as deaf, is shown standing close to a reporter during an interview in 1906.

• Alumni reunion, Indiana State School for the Deaf in 1908.

• Gallaudet University athletes in 1923.

• College Hall, Gallaudet University in 2010.

• Laura Bridgman, considered the first deaf-blind child with language education in the United States, is shown with Oliver Caswell reading embossed letters in a book. 1844.

• Population of blind persons in the 1870 U.S. census. Chart in the "Statistical Atlas of the United States," 1874.

• Braille text being read by a woman in an office setting, around 1931

• Thomas Wiggins, a musical prodigy composer and piano player, was blind at birth. 1880.

• "Autumn," poem by Helen Keller, 27 October 1893.

• Playing cards in a rooftop garden that opened for blind persons in 1915.

• William Samuel McTier became well known as Blind Willie McTell--a blues singer and guitarist. 1940.

• Elevator buttons with braille numerals to assist blind persons. 1981.

• Lavinia Warren, a theatrical performer with dwarfism, was one of the most famous people in the U.S. at the height of her career. 1855-1865.

• Robert Hudson, a little person, made valuable contributions to World War II by processing parts for airplane motor assemblies in 1942.

• Disability advocate Justin Dart., Jr., and Jesse Jackson during a 1989 hearing for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

• Franklin Roosevelt's wheelchair at the "Little White House," Warm Springs, Georgia in 2017.

• Metro station, Washington, DC, with wheelchair access in 1977.

• Wheelchair ramp at Minneapolis Federal Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2012.

• The Hospital for the Insane of the Army and Navy and the District of Columbia, 1860-1861, known later as St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

• J.E. Hanger Co. promoted the success of its artificial limbs in such photos as this portrait of an unidentified African American man. Around 1905.

• Judge Quentin D. Corley, Sr., playing croquet with a prosthetic arm in the 1910s.