The resources here are organised by format in order to help you find the resources you need as easily and quickly as possible, but you can also navigate these resources by time period or by topic.
The format of a resource can indicate what the potential audience or purpose of the material might be as well as giving some indication as to its date of creation
Historical research often divides resources into 'Primary' and 'Secondary' sources.
Primary sources - are raw information, such as data, objects, or immediate first-hand accounts of events. These include resources like:
Secondary sources - provide second-hand information and often analyse or interpret other sources. These include resources like:
These resources could contain a mixture of both:
Disability History may require a different approach than you would normally take to primary and secondary resources. Disabled people have historically been denied a voice within society and as such whilst there are many primary resources relevant to the field of disability history, the number of those primary resources created by people with a disability is unfortunately minimal.
Therefore use of primary sources must be undertaken in context, with the knowledge that institutional or common understandings of disability in the past may have differed from the lived experienced of a person with a disability at the time.
