Oxford LibGuides: Disability History Resources: Audio and Video

Key resources

Oral histories are an important source of historical knowledge, particularly when the participants are otherwise hindered in recording their lived experience (for example if they cannot write). Below are a select few oral history projects which touch on disability history.

Diabetes Stories
100 audio interviews with people with diabetes, members of their families, and healthcare professionals.
Disability Voices
The complete oral recordings and transcripts of 98 interviews that chart the experiences of disabled people have been made freely available through British Library Sounds.
Dyslexia Archive
A series of oral histories of key figures in the development of dyslexia, including advocates, scientists, educationalist and practitioners.
How Was School?
The ‘How Was School?’ project looks at Disabled People’s experiences of education over the last 100 years through the telling and recording of personal memories and histories of school.
Imperial War Museum Sound Collections
The sound collection is an online database of oral history recordings from veterans from the First World War into the present day and includes discussions of the impact of war on daily life, the experience of war and injury and adaption to post war life.
Leonard Cheshire Sound Archive
The Sound archive contains taped speeches and interviews of Leonard Cheshire and Sue Ryder, interviews with people who used Leonard Cheshire Disability and Ryder-Cheshire services around the world, volunteers, members of staff and other supporters of both charities.
The Listening Project
An audio archive of conversations recorded by the BBC. People are invited to share an intimate conversation with a close friend or relative, to be recorded and broadcast by the BBC and curated and archived in full by the British Library. Contains many conversations on the subject of health regarding disabilities.
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Project
MD Anderson’s Oral History Collection presents the collective memory of the people who helped shape the hospital. Started in the late nineties to preserve the institution’s history and collect some of the background that historian James Olsen, PhD needed to write 'Making Cancer History'.
National Paralympic Heritage Trust - Oral History
A collection of memories from individuals who have Paralympic stories to share either as an athlete, volunteer, Games maker, spectator, or perhaps even family member of someone connected to the games. The interviews cover the beginnings of the games at Stoke Mandeville through to the present day.
Perkins School for the Blind - Oral Histories
Links to oral histories related to Perkins, including alumni, staff, relatives, trustees and members of the Teacher Training Program and the Educational Leadership Program. The interviewees include alumni who attended as early as the 1930s to Staff who recently retired.
The Wellcome Collection - Thalidomide: An Oral History
A collection of recorded interviews with people given Thalidomide. Conducted by Swansea University and hosted by the Wellcome Collection. There is also an in-depth blog series exploring some of the interviews.
Medical Sciences Video Archive
This is a collection from the Royal College of Physicians and Oxford Brookes University of video recordings of biographical interviews with over 130 important figures in clinical medicine and science from the United Kingdom and Australia.

Podcasts and Radio

The podcasts and radio shows below involve academics and people with disabilities discussing elements of disability history.

5 Minute History - Disability History in the United States
5 Minute History’s 92nd episode, “Disability History in the United States”, provides a brief overview on how organizations and activist groups have dealt with stigma and fought for disability rights.
Backdoor Broadcasting Company
The Internet Archive listing for The Backdoor Broadcasting Company, a mobile audio webcasting service, which concentrated on recording academic research.
British Library Oral History [temporarily unavailable]
Contains the collection Disability Voices which 'explores cerebral palsy, disability athletics, education, hearing loss and polio. The interviews come from a number of important collections, including Unheard Voices: interviews with deafened people.
Centre for the History of the Emotions Podcast
Podcasts from the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. Many focus on themes of mental and emotional health.
Disability: A New History
Hosted by broadcast journalist Peter White, who has been blind since birth, "A New History" draws on modern research to present information about disability in the 18th and 19th centuries, across 10 short-form episodes.
The Disability History Association Podcast
The Disability History Association Podcast features students, researchers, teachers, curators, elders, and activists who have disability history stories to share.
Factually! - The Extraordinary History of the Disability Rights Movement with Judy Heumann
This Episode of Adam Connover's "Factually!" discusses the mentality shift and history of disability rights, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Medical Humanities Podcast
Medical Humanities is a leading international journal that reflects the whole field of medical humanities. This is its associated podcast which includes episodes on a variety of topics relating to disability.
Yarn Season 4 - Disability: A Parallel History
The 4th season of Yarn, “Disability: A Parallel History” is presented in three parts by John Roche, who has cerebral palsy, and sheds light on the darker parts of disability history.
You're Dead to Me - Disability in the Ancient World
Author and historian Greg Jenner’s "You’re Dead to Me" features famed disabled comedian Rosie Jones and historian Dr. Jane Draycott on the episode “Disability in the Ancient World”, covering over 1,000 years of disability history

Audio archives

Disabled People's Archive - Audio
Music and poetry, created by and for disabled people mostly from the 1990s.

Archival film

Film footage can be an incredibly useful primary resource rich with information about the subjects it captures. Below are some film archives with material related to disability history.

British Pathé Film Archive
With archive material from 1896 to 1970, here you can view items from the 85,000 film collection, searches for 'disability' lead to some user curated collections and many other related videos including a strong collection of footage of war veterans.
Disabled People's Archive - Video
A few short clips of home-made films made by disabled people and a link to some short films of some highlights of disabled people’s.
Leonard Cheshire Film Archive
A collection of films that have been digitised from the Leonard Cheshire Archive, including those films created by the Le Court Film Unit, and films about the people who have used Leonard Cheshire Services.

Documentaries and Lectures

The videos below contain documentaries or lectures on the subject of disability history.

Everywhere and Nowhere
A film created through a collaboration between the University of Leicester and the National Trust which spotlights 10 stories, objects and sites with connections to histories of disability from across the Trust.
Gresham College Lectures
Gresham College was founded in 1597 and has been providing free lectures in the City of London for over 400 years. A brief search will uncover lectures on the history of mental health and other medical conditions.
Royal College of Nursing Lectures and Talks
The Royal College of Nursing offers a series of free public events such as lectures and talks and keeps recordings on YouTube. Many touch on patients with disabilities.

What we have done : an oral history of the disability rights movement by Fred Pelka
ISBN: 1558499180
Publication Date: 2012-02-01
The cinema of isolation : a history of physical disability in the movies by Martin Norden
ISBN: 0813521033
Publication Date: 1994-09-01

Links to pages

Help with Oral History Research

Oral History: Guide to Resources - Oxford
A research guide providing an introduction to the use and conduct of oral history for the purposes of historical research. Including links to British and Irish, English-language oral history projects and resources available online.

Disability History Resources: Audio and Video

Introduction