From Institutionalization to Inclusion: Disability Activism in the Syracuse University Libraries' Special Collections

Poster with Freedom Now in red text with the words GROUP, SPECIAL, and SHELTERED in white crossed our adjacent to home, school and work in red on background of clouds

This digital exhibition was created by graduate students in SPE 644 Significant Disabilities: Shifts in Paradigms & Practices, Spring 2024.

Various definitions and conceptualizations of “significant disability” call for different approaches to teaching and learning for individuals so identified. This course explored beliefs and ideas related to “significant disabilities” or “complex support needs,” while examining ways that learners with a wide range of abilities/disabilities are supported in schools.

This course examined historical developments in special and inclusive education, as well as the rise (and fall) of institutions and asylums for individuals with intellectual disabilities through primary source documents and artifacts held by the SU Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center. We explored disability as a cultural construction. Course readings and activities made visible both the representational uses of disability, the pervasive discrimination people with disabilities encounter in their everyday lives by highlighting aspects of American history and experiences—such as eugenics, racial stereotypes, gender roles, and progress, and importantly, resistance to this oppression—from multiple perspectives, including the perspectives of those labeled with disabilities and allies. 

Learn more about the exhibition contributors.

A note about the materials represented in this exhibition: Historical records are evidence of the time in which they were created and may contain language and images that are racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist, or otherwise derogatory and insensitive. These materials are presented for their historic and research value. Viewers may find some content objectionable.