Photo credit: Tari Hartman Squire. Used with Permission.
USING DISABILITY HISTORY TO ENSURE DISABILITY RIGHTS
The Western Pennsylvania Disability History and Action Consortium preserves and shares the historic struggle of Western Pennsylvanians with disabilities to attain human and civil rights.
We educate the public about disability history in order to improve community access, participation and equal opportunity, and to ensure disability rights through existing and new policies and laws. We join stakeholders across Pennsylvania to advocate on policies that ensure the civil rights of people with disabilities.
WPDHAC BY THE NUMBERS
12+
New collections & materials advanced to repositories.
11
Long-form oral histories recorded.
11
“Intersection of Race and Disability” stories
collected and told in 2022-2023.
FEATURED PROJECT: VOICES OF CHANGE
Paul O’Hanlon, Kathleen Peer Kleinmann, and Brenda Dare – disability rights advocates and childhood residents of the Memorial Home for Crippled Children
in an era when children with physical disabilities received care and therapy in residential facilities, such as Memorial Home for Crippled Children, located in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. In this interview, the three share their childhood memories of “the Home” in the 1950s through 1980s.
The Memorial Home for Crippled Children was founded in 1902. The organization was renamed The Children’s Institute in 1998, and continues to provide services to children with disabilities. It is no longer a residential facility.
