Interpreting and Archiving Mad People's History

The development of disability history as a field of study has involved people with disabilities in the recording, interpreting and archiving of this history. An essential field of history in its own right, which is developing alongside, and in collaboration with, disability history is mad people's history. Its purpose is to interpret and record the history of madness from the varied perspectives of mad people throughout history, or those who have been categorized as such. The challenges in finding sources to enable such perspectives to be told will form part of this presentation. What areas of mad people's history are better preserved and better known? Which areas of mad people's history are left unrecorded or under-represented and why? What needs to be done to make these sources accessible? In addressing these questions, the need to archive mad people's historical sources and to preserve sites that can help tell this history to a wider public, will form a major part of this presentation. Involving people who have lived this history in interpreting our collective past is an integral part of preserving documentary collections in the same way that the women's movement or gay and lesbian movements have preserved their history. Specific examples will be cited regarding the preservation of mad people's history through the Psychiatric Survivor Archives, Toronto, since 2001 and how this work can benefit the psychiatric consumer/ survivor community, public awareness of disability history and historical scholarship.