Disability Rights and American Public History: Representing Disability in the Nation’s Capital

I plan to discuss my research examining the influence of the disability rights movement on the presentation of disability at three of the nation’s most popular sites for the consumption of public history, including exhibitions related to the history of disability at the Smithsonian Institution, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and a statue of Helen Keller at the U.S. Capitol. I argue that public, activists, and scholarly engagement is essential to the production of public histories of disability that broaden, rather than constrain, historical understanding. My research and analysis shows how movements for social justice and equality such as those for disability rights can subtly, but profoundly, shape the production of public history and demonstrates how contests and controversies over the presentation of disability at these sites reveal what is potentially at stake in the presentation of disability in American cultural memory and public history-spurring salient questions about who and what continues to count as “American” while showcasing visual and material renderings of U.S. historical figures and events as critical spaces for meaning-making about disability.