History of Disabilities: Disabilities in Society, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century
Discover a resource providing historical evidence which demonstrates how society has interacted with and regarded individuals considered to have disabilities.
Disability is a definition imposed by society on people who may or may not agree to being characterized that way. It should also be noted that not all disabilities are visible. According to the World Health Organization, disability is part of being human. Almost everyone will temporarily or permanently experience disability at some point in their life. Disability results from the interaction between individuals with a health condition, such as cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, or depression, with personal and environmental factors including negative attitudes, inaccessible transportation and public buildings, and limited social support.
To optimize the accessibility of History of Disabilities, Gale employed a "double OCR, compare, and manual correct" method to ensure at least 98% accuracy in the English-language OCR text included in this archive. Find out more about History of Disabilities accessibility features here.