Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design

by Bess Williamson

Overview

A history of design that is often overlooked—until we need it

Have you ever hit the big blue button to activate automatic doors? Have you ever used an ergonomic kitchen tool? Have you ever used curb cuts to roll a stroller across an intersection? If you have, then you’ve benefited from accessible design—design for people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities. These ubiquitous touchstones of modern life were once anything but. Disability advocates fought tirelessly to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities became a standard part of public design thinking. That fight took many forms worldwide, but in the United States it became a civil rights issue; activists used design to make an argument about the place of people with disabilities in public life.

In the aftermath of World War II, with injured veterans returning home and the polio epidemic reaching the Oval Office, the needs of people with disabilities came forcibly into the public eye as they never had before. The US became the first country to enact federal accessibility laws, beginning with the Architectural Barriers Act in 1968 and continuing through the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, bringing about a wholesale rethinking of our built environment. This progression wasn’t straightforward or easy. Early legislation and design efforts were often haphazard or poorly implemented, with decidedly mixed results. Political resistance to accommodating the needs of people with disabilities was strong; so, too, was resistance among architectural and industrial designers, for whom accessible design wasn’t “real” design.

Bess Williamson provides an extraordinary look at everyday design, marrying accessibility with aesthetic, to provide an insight into a world in which we are all active participants, but often passive onlookers. Richly detailed, with stories of politics and innovation, Williamson’s Accessible America takes us through this important history, showing how American ideas of individualism and rights came to shape the material world, often with unexpected consequences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479894093
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2019
Series:	Crip Series , #2
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Bess Williamson is Associate Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Disability, Design, and Rights in the Twentieth Century 1

1 Progress through Prosthetics: Limbs, Cars, Houses, and the American Dream 17

2 Disability in the Century of the Gadget: Rehabilitation and Access in Postwar America 43

3 Electric Moms and Quad Drivers: Do-It-Yourself Access at Home in Postwar America 69

4 Berkeley, California: An Independent Style of Access 96

5 Kneeling to the Disabled: Access and Backlash 129

6 From Accessible to Universal: Design in the Late Twentieth Century 147

7 Beyond Ramps: Cripping Design 185

Conclusion: Design for All? 209

Acknowledgments 215

Notes 217

Bibliography 247

Index 267

About the Author 279

Editorial Reviews

11/12/2018
This illuminating and thoughtful overview of the evolution of accessible design in the U.S. between the end of WWII and the late 1990s is a strong introduction to the topic. Focusing on physical disability concerns, particularly for wheelchair and prosthetic limb users, design historian Williamson traces shifts in cultural norms and expectations surrounding disability and their effects on design. In the aftermath of WWII, the goal for disabled veterans was “rehabilitation,” the restoration of prior function through individual effort. Disabled people were considered responsible for “navigating and negotiating the inaccessible society,” and efforts to design for them centered around prosthetics and other tools that could render a person “independent.” In the 1970s and ’80s, designers made stylish “Universal Design” objects, like the Cuisinart and OXO Good Grips kitchen tools, that smuggled features for people with disabilities into general-market products without mentioning disability. Meanwhile, the nascent rights-based concept that people with disabilities were entitled to public accommodations sometimes led to pushback against, for example, requirements to replace aging public transit vehicles with accessible models. Last, she discusses a recent shift away from as-invisible-as-possible mobility aids toward colorful, stylish, and luxurious choices that cater to the self-expression of the user. Williamson skillfully connects design concepts to changing social narratives; this work should reward readers interested in either topic. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Accessible America is handsomely produced and will appeal to readers interested in design, disability studies, and social history."

CHOICE

"The contents of this book are a win for historians of disability as well as for historians of technology, architecture, and design."

H-Net Reviews

"Accessible America offers an important history of how and why design for disability has evolved and needs to evolve."

Curbed.com

"Williamson reveals the hidden history of how the Disability Rights Movement's struggle for inclusion rebuilt the world. Reaching back to activist veterans returning from World War II, through the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, to ergonomics, universal design, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, Williamson shows us the transformed America that gives us the tools and pathways we all use every day to make our lives work better, and that the emergence of inclusive design and the world it makes is a tool for justice."

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

"Beautifully and engagingly written, Williamson's approach to the history of accessibility as a history of design is brilliant. Accessible America shows how disability advocates harnessed technological design in their quest for access and equality, paying particular attention to the connection between prosthetic devices and the 'universal' design that followed, illuminating both histories. Highly recommended."

Douglas C. Baynton

"Accessible America is handsomely produced and will appeal to readers interested in design, disability studies, and social history."

Choice

"By unearthing, situating, and interpreting artifacts of accessible designfrom World War II to the rise of the Independent Living Movement to the post-ADA eraWilliamson's book offers a much-needed contribution to disability history as we know it while also reshaping it for the next generation of disability historians, designers, and activists."

David Serlin

"Bess Williamson's engaging history of accessible design points the way to design as a tool for empowerment, critique, and self-expression that celebrates the diversity of human bodies. Disability is a culture, not a lack."

Ellen Lupton

"Beautifully and engagingly written, Williamson's approach to the history of accessibility as a history of design is brilliant. Accessible America shows how disability advocates harnessed technological design in their quest for access and equality, paying particular attention to the connection between prosthetic devices and the 'universal' design that followed, illuminating both histories. Highly recommended."

"Bess Williamson's engaging history of accessible design points the way to design as a tool for empowerment, critique, and self-expression that celebrates the diversity of human bodies. Disability is a culture, not a lack."

"Accessible America offers an important history of how and why design for disability has evolved and needs to evolve."

"Accessible America is handsomely produced and will appeal to readers interested in design, disability studies, and social history."

"Williamson reveals the hidden history of how the Disability Rights Movement's struggle for inclusion rebuilt the world. Reaching back to activist veterans returning from World War II, through the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, to ergonomics, universal design, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, Williamson shows us the transformed America that gives us the tools and pathways we all use every day to make our lives work better, and that the emergence of inclusive design and the world it makes is a tool for justice."

From the Publisher

★ 11/15/2018

Williamson (design history, Sch. of the Art Inst. of Chicago) tells the story of the growth of accessibility design in America since World War II, from the design of artificial limbs, gadgets, and doorknobs to the fully legal architectural accessibility of public buildings outlined in the historic Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. The author's emphasis lies in social and political concerns rather than aesthetic and technological matters. Disability has grown enormously with warfare, from World War II through the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, and has been augmented tremendously by the physical sustainability of our aging and increasing senior citizens population. Williamson keenly emphasizes that the United States has led the world globally toward physical access and accessibility as acceptable and admirable natural and civil rights rather than annoying physical encumbrances that stand in the way. The black-and-white illustrations are small, but the bibliography and footnotes are excellent. VERDICT All public library systems should purchase this book, because reading it can change lives.—Peter S. Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr.,MA

Library Journal

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