The Right to Design Disability and Access in the United States, 1945-1990

ISBN-10
1267217596
ISBN-13
9781267217592
Category
Barrier-free design
Language
English
Published
2012
Author
Sara Elizabeth Williamson

Description

In the second half of the twentieth century, Americans with disabilities were increasingly likely to find physical accommodation in architecture and design, ranging from wheelchair ramps and accessible public buses to large-handled can openers and enlarged product labels. These artifacts of "accessible" design reflect a shift in American perceptions of disability during this period. Whereas mid-century policymakers, social workers, and medical professionals emphasized the need for people with disabilities to "overcome" physical barriers alone, over time they came to accept that integration would require changes in the built environment and everyday technologies. With the influence of the American Disability Rights Movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, accessible measures became matters of civil rights, not just convenience. While disability is a lesser-known issue in the history of civil rights, evidence of this movement surrounds us, integrated into design standards and public services, and debated in forums of public planning and design. This dissertation traces the processes through which Americans established a "right to design," or the expectation that physical spaces and consumer objects would provide for a diverse public. With a growing, increasingly active population of people with disabilities, including those caused by wars, automobile and industrial accidents, and disabling diseases such as polio, the everyday built environment of stairs, doorways, bathrooms, housewares, and appliances posed technical difficulties. Throughout the mid to late twentieth century, various groups and figures proposed that technological change would bring about inclusion for this population. Initially, policymakers and medical professionals proposed individual technologies of adaptation, from personal automobiles to tactics of home renovation. As an emerging rights movement pointed out, however, these measures were insufficient to allow people with disabilities truly to move about on their own accord and participate in society. In a series of legislative efforts, culminating in the Americans with Disabilities Act, the federal government made physical access a public priority, mandating that public sites and services provide "reasonable accommodations" for people with disabilities. "The Right to Design" refers to the ways in which the mandate of physical access shaped not only legal codes and requirements, but cultural production. In what Lizabeth Cohen calls the "Consumer's Republic" of mid to late twentieth century America, access to consumer amenities stood as a proxy for citizenship in the most powerful capitalist economy in the world. Equal participation in consumer culture became a goal for many under-represented groups, including people with disabilities. As physical accessibility became more common in government services and public sites, designers and consumers also sought ways to make the "Consumer's Republic" accessible as well. Through experimental means and mass-market products, participants in this effort forged new meanings for access, calling for social inclusion in American material culture.

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