Exhibits, Collections, & Museums

Disability and Climate Change – a Public Archive Project: bears witness to the harms disabled people face amidst climate disruption—and it documents the wisdom disabled people bring to navigating this crisis.  The stories in the archive are fresh conversations with disability-identified activists, advocates, artists, first-responders, policy makers, and other communal leaders. 

Disability History Exhibit, State of Alaska Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education

Disability History Museum: a Library of virtual artifacts, Education curricula, and Museum exhibits. These programs are designed to foster research and study about the historical experiences of people with disabilities and their communities.

EveryBody: An Artifact History of Disability in America: Familiar concepts and events such as citizenship, work, and wars become more complicated, challenge our assumptions about what counts as history, and transform our connection with each other when viewed from the historical perspective of people with disabilities, America’s largest minority.

Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights: Discover a remarkable, overlooked moment in U.S. history when people with disabilities occupied a government building to demand their rights and won. 

Polio Oral History Project: From the University of Utah – documenting treatment, outcomes, and effects of polio.

Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer: An Exhibit on Queer/Disability History, Activism, and Culture. Kenny Fries is curating this exhibit at the Schwules Museum Berlin, opening September 2, 2022 – January 30, 2022.

The Robert Bogdan Disability Collection: Yale University’s Medical Historical Library acquired an important collection of ephemera, photographs, and rare books related to disability. Professor Robert Bogdan compiled an archive guided by the ideas of the field of Disability Studies, an approach that focuses on “disability” as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon. He started collecting disability ephemera in early 1980s in order to advance his research and writing.

Traverse City State Hospital in Michigan – transformed from  a state run asylum to a thriving and bustling community. Some of the original buildings have been kept and tours are available that discuss the history of the institution.