National Council on Public History

The Americans with Disabilities Act in 20 feet, 15 Objects, 500 Words

The most recent National Museum of American History project related to disability was last summer’s 3-day festival of disability culture. The events marked the 25^th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act and included a range activities, including a film series, a symposium on Latin@’s and disability, a performance by Mat Fraser, StoryCorps recordings, a special United States Post Office ADA stamp cancellation, a dozen blogs, hands-on technology, discussion stages, arts demonstrations, the Legacy Bus and traveling museum, lots of social media, and more.

The focus of this case study is a showcase that NMAH mounted that was intended to provide historical context and be a destination point for visitors. The museum has rich and varied collections that could have supported a multitude of disability stories and events. This presented the dilemma of how to tell the complex and intense ADA history in a small space. Mindful of the many ways disabled people identify themselves, we wanted to be as community-inclusive as possible and also not be didactic or preachy about the ADA. Given that visitors spend perhaps 30 seconds in front of a showcase, seldom read the label text, and are taking in information in a public, often busy, loud location, while on vacation, we spent a lot of time on the message and the objects that would carry it. Because we believed that people from various disability communities would seek out the exhibition without prompting, our target audience for attraction was the general visitor who has little direct interest in disability.

The learning objective was that people understand the ADA as a landmark in civil rights legislation. Politics and legislation are not engaging exhibit topics, even for Washington, D.C. Although the history of the legislative efforts behind the ADA and the incremental laws leading up to it are important, those topics work better as a book than in a gallery. We also wanted to do justice to the passion, commitment, and struggle of people with disabilities as well as show discrimination and prejudice and correct misinformation about disability.

A team of about ten people worked on the approach and framing of the showcase. The team decided to use biographies of four people as the strategy for capturing the importance and impact of the ADA. Justin Dart, Jr. exemplified both the government’s perspective and activism from within. Dart was head of the Rehabilitation Services Administration and then the President’s Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities and a co-founder of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Junius Wilson’s life demonstrated the dangers and abuse people routinely experienced before the ADA. Wilson, an African American deaf man in North Carolina, was wrongly imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital as a teenager. He was castrated following the 1927 Buck v. Bell Supreme Court decision that legalized sterilization of institutionalized people. The state basically warehoused him for decades, making no effort to provide interpreters for him or adequate case workers. He was finally freed at the age of 89. Lois Curtis’s case illustrated that the ADA brought legal protections for people. Curtis was one of two litigants in the Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead decision. That was the case that broke the strangle hold of nursing homes on people. Cindy Jones demonstrated the prevalence of stigma and low expectations for disabled people. Jones contracted polio as a child in the 1950s when stigmatizing language (“handicapped,” “lame,” “spaz,” “retarded,” etc.) and images were common and unquestioned. She became an activist at age 5-6 when she saw herself on a March of Dimes Poster.

The language in the labels was important because we wanted visitors to easily understand the points being made. Consequently, “culminating” decades of activism became “capping;” “legislative efforts” became “legal change,” and “institutionalization” became “locked up.” The complicated cultural term “disability” was problematic for younger people but we could not come up with a simple and clear alternative.

Because of the nature of my work, I must constantly make assumptions about other people’s experiences, cultural beliefs, and values. I am constantly faced with objects and information that I am supposed to make sense of, despite my own limitations and with little to go on—I am typically abled and white. Community members, colleagues, and friends play a large role in my capacity to interpret the history of disability and I am ever mindful of huge ethical issues around interpreting and speaking for others. All scholars deal with this on some level and it is especially relevant in intersectional work. In addition, museums are founded upon the objectification of others.

~ Katherine Ott, National Museum of American History

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