Disability Studies: Finding Primary Sources

Here are some useful websites and databases for finding Primary Sources on disability. 

• Disability in the Modern World (Duke NetID needed to access) - This database contains a range of primary sources, including archival documents, photographs, issues of influential disability rights publication The Disability Rag, and episodes of the disability-focused TV show No Limits. 
• Nineteenth-century Disability: Cultures and Contexts - Digital collection of primary texts and images about disability in the long nineteenth century (1780 to 1914). Each item is annotated by disability studies scholars.
• Disability History Museum Library - Digital library of textual and visual sources in disability history in the United States from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. 
• National Archives - Americans with Disabilities Act - Contains documents from the National Archives pertaining to American citizens with disabilities. Includes documents relating to disability rights in the United States and links to Presidential Library websites on disability. 
• It's Our Story - Answers from America's Disability Activists - Collection of oral history interviews with disability leaders and activists. Check out their YouTube page for an extensive collection of video. 
• Disability Voices - Collection of oral history interviews from the British Library that charts the experiences of people with disabilities.
• The Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement - Website from UC-Berkeley that contains primary sources on the disability rights movement from the 1960s to the present. 

You can access physical primary sources here at Duke at the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. I'd recommend consulting the library guide to the Rubenstein's History of Medicine Collections. 

Interested in researching disability history that occurred right here at Duke? Check out the University Archives research guide on Disability History at Duke.