Want to Know More?

Anderson, Julie. War, Disability and Rehabilitation in Britain. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2011.

Bourgeois-Doyle, Richard I. George J. Klein: The Great Inventor. Ottawa: National Research Council, 2004.

Gagan, David and Rosemary Gagan. For Patients of Moderate Means: A Social History of the Voluntary Public General Hospital in Canada, 1890-1950. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002.

Garland, Robert. The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Gerber, David A. “Disabled Veterans, the State, and the Experience of Disability in Western Societies, 1914-1950.” Journal of Social History 36, no. 4 (Summer 2003): 899-916.

Gleason, Mona. Small Matters: Canadian Children in Sickness and Health, 1900-1940. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013.

Gleeson, Brendan. Geographies of Disability. London: Routledge, 1999.

Hockenberry, John. Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence. New York: Hyperion, 1995.

Kamenetz, Herman L. “A Brief History of the Wheelchair.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 24, no. 2 (April 1969): 205-10.

Maloney, Carlie. “From ‘Incurables’ to Pioneers: The Welfare State, Paralysed Veterans, and the Creation of the Electric Wheelchair in Post-WWI Canada.” Paper presented for credit, University of Ottawa, 2011.

Metzler, Irina. Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c.1100-1400. London: Routledge, 2006.

Perreault, Stéphane. “Technological Developments in Disability Sport.” In Adapted Physical Activity. Edited by Robert D. Steadward, Garry D. Wheeler, and E. Jane Watkinson, 541-57. Edmonton, Alta.: University of Alberta Press, 2003.

Reaume, Geoffrey. Lyndhurst: Canada’s First Rehabilitation Centre for People with Spinal Cord Injuries, 1945-1998. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2007.
———“ Disability History In Canada: Present Work In The Field And Future Prospects.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies (Online) 1, No. 1 (2012): 35-75. http://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/20/4 (accessed October 9, 2013).

Scherer, Marcia J. Living in the State of Stuck: How Assistive Technology Impacts the Lives of People with Disabilities. Cambridge, Mass., Brookline Books, 2000.

Tremblay, Mary. “Going Back to Civvy Street: A Historical Account of the Impact of the Everest and Jennings Wheelchair for Canadian World War II Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury.” Disability & Society 11, No. 2 (1996): 149-170.
———“Lieutenant John Counsel and the Development of Medical Rehabilitation and Disability Policy in Canada.” In Disabled Veterans in History. Edited by David A. Gerber, 322-46. Rev. ed. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2012.

Tremblay, Mary, Audrey Campbell and Geoffrey L. Hudson. “When Elevators Were for Pianos: An Oral History Account of the Civilian Experience of Using Wheelchairs in Canadian Society. The First Twenty-five Years: 1945–1970.” Disability & Society 20, No. 2 (2005): 103-116.

Woods, Brian. “A Historical Sociology of the Wheelchair” 2005 ESRC Full Research Report, L218252007. Swindon: ESRC. http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/L218252007/outputs/Read/33eae29c-ee49-4130-a3f6-d625dee04434

 The Wheelchair in Art and as Artifact

The Fountain of Youth by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1546) http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/lucas-cranach-the-elder/the-fountain-of-youth-1546 (accessed March 23, 2014); shows the infirm elderly being carried in litters, carts, and wheelbarrows.

Kamenetz, Herman L. “A Brief History of the Wheelchair,” in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 24, no. 2 (April 1969); figures 3 and 4 show rolling chairs for invalids from 1595 and from 1655.

The Belton Conversation-Piece by Philippe Mercier from Belton House. (1725-1726) The Brownlow Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund by The National Trust in 1984), ©NTPL/John Hammond http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/436045 (accessed February 17, 2014); the invalid Viscountess Tryconnel is presented in an outdoor family portrait seated on a scooter-like device pushed by a young African boy dressed as an exotic servant.

The Comforts of Bath by Thomas Rowlandson (1798) http://condor.depaul.edu/cchaden/bath/comforts.html (accessed March 23, 2014); each painting shows a corpulent man enjoying different aspects of Bath society while being pushed in a chair with three wheels by an attendant.

BBC History of the World website: 4 Bath Chairs from various museums
Assembly Rooms in Bath (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/qcI7cMgiR0qmLnD_QPyIGQ; Royal Pump Room Display, Harrowgate (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/R_7U7tkkSfC15nELOkRqvQ); Bath Museums (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/popk2AxUQ5iEpgTQqnPiiQ) and Tenby Museum (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/5Wfs5HOZSaOexY_vaHpMRQ) (all accessed November 16, 2014)

Disability On-line

The Ward M. Canaday Centre. “From Institutions to Independence: A History of People with Disabilities in Northwest Ohio,” University of Toledo Library, http://libraryexhibits.utad.utoledo.edu/DVX/index.html

School for Disability Studies at Ryerson University. “Out from Under”, Ryerson University http://www.ryerson.ca/ofu/

The Disability History Museum. http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/

People Inc. “Museum of disABILITY History.” http://museumofdisability.org/virtual-museum/

Smithsonian. “The Disability Rights Movement”, http://americanhistory.si.edu/disabilityrights/welcome.html.

——— “Everybody: An Artifact History of Disability in America” http://everybody.si.edu/

University of Toronto Engineering News. Richard I. Bourgeois-Doyle, "The Maker: George Klein and the First Electric Wheelchair." January 2017. https://news.engineering.utoronto.ca/maker-george-klein-first-electric-wheelchair/ Accessed March 25, 2018.

“Walter Callow Wheelchair Bus: Serving Veterans & the Physically Challenged”. http://www.waltercallow.ca/