Disability History Calendar

About

I began working on this Disability History Calendar in 2022, compiling figures and events for each of the 366 days of the year. I intentionally sought to highlight folks with a variety of disabilities from across the globe representing diverse talents and disciplines/careers, and I continue to update this calendar.

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All calendar images include alt text, which you can hear with screen readers. Because Wix prohibits right-clicking images, you can't visually check for alt text through the Inspect method. Instead, use the ANDI tool.

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Describing people in alt text without their explicit confirmation of correct gender pronouns, race/ethnicity, and other identities is difficult and can lead to misidentification. I have tried to avoid making assumptions about how people identify, but I welcome feedback for improving alt text in this project.

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A few caveats:

• Some individuals celebrated in this calendar may not identify as disabled. Many folks who are culturally Deaf do not considered themselves disabled, for example.

• Some individuals recognized in this calendar are controversial. Paralympian and Olympian Oscar Pistorius, for instance, was convicted of murder but remains an important figure in disability history.

• We don't always know how someone identifies (or would have identified), and retroactive diagnoses are problematic. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, was "prone to melancholy" and, were he alive today, might be diagnosed with clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. 

• Given my background in U.S. history and my linguistic limitations, this calendar currently skews Western and primarily American. My background in Deaf history also privileges Deaf figures.

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Suggest an individual or event (or an update/edit) here!