Accessible America A History of Disability and Design by Bess Williamson is an interesting look at the issue of accessibility as it relates to the built environment. It focuses on; the physical barriers that disabled people encounter every day, the political movements that sought to demolish these barriers; and the law that emerged as a result of their struggle. It is an informative, well written, introduction to the subject.

“Accessible America”, despite covering what could be considered a somewhat dry subject, is both an informative and engaging look at the history of accessibility efforts in the United States for individuals with disabilities, from the time just after WWII up through the present.
Today it’s easy to forget (or to perhaps to have never known) that sidewalk curbs used to not be wheelchair friendly, that parking spaces for persons with disabilities used to not exist, and that most homes and businesses were at one time highly unaccommodating to those with mobility limitations. Even as recently as the 1980’s a great many perfectly-abled people in the majority were known to gripe about the government spending money to better accommodate those with disabilities. My own grandfather used to refer to disabled parking spaces, often sitting empty in an era of unaccomodating vehicles, as a waste of a perfectly good parking space. A stroke that left him partially paralyzed changed his mind on that topic, but there are some people who even today retain his earlier cynical outlook.
It was interesting to me to read of events I was otherwise unaware of, such as the years-ahead activity in the city of Berkeley to expand accessibility, as well as modern commercial products purposely incorporating more accessible design features.
I was provided with an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. As someone who myself has some mobility limitations, I went into reading the book ready to call it out if anything rang false, uniformative, or poorly researched. But in the end it has no such flaws, and is a rather good, well-written, enjoyable book. Recommended.

If you were born in the 1970s or later, you probably have little memory of a world without curb cuts, parking spots designated for disabled people, and other accommodations the world makes for people with disabilities. In Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design, Bess Williamson writes about the huge changes in architecture, design, and consumer goods that have made life easier for people with disabilities--and the rest of us.



Williamson attributes the earliest public accommodations in public spaces to the return of veterans with disabilities after WW2. During this era, development of prosthetic limbs, adaptive automobiles, and other innovations took off, by both large companies and the consumers themselves. Polio victims also took an active role in growing mobility.



Institutionally, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was an early leader in rehabilitation, installing ramps around campus and assisting veterans and others to learn skills toward independence. On the other side of the country, activists at the University of California at Berkeley, embracing the activism rampant on campus, developed a community of disabled students, taking strides toward full integration into campus life.



One theme that runs throughout the book and discussions of design for disability is that when we design things to be more accessible to people with disabilities, they become more accessible to all. One designer, who dressed as a older woman, making observations around her community, talked about designing with disabled or marginalized people in mind. She said "by designing with the needs of older consumers in mind, we will find that the inevitable result is better products for all of us." Examples provided include lever-style door knobs and kitchen appliances and tools with easy-to-grip handles or large buttons. I would add, in the same vein, that curb cuts are certainly a benefit to kids on bikes and parents pushing baby strollers.



Willliamson presents an interesting perspective on the history of disability. Disabled and "temporarily able-bodied" alike can appreciate the great strides architecture and design have taken over the last century.





Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

This book provides a very good history on the history of disability and design primarily since World War II. While the focus is on artificial limbs, the author does delve into the evolving changes in society in regards to how we view and interact with the disabled. The book is well written and researched and makes an excellent teaching guide on the history of disability and design.

I recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in the history of the development of artificial limbs.

I received a free Kindle copy of Accessible America by Bess Williamson courtesy of Net Galley  and NYU Press, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as the description sounded interesting and it was a subject that I had not read about. This is the first book by the author that I have read.

Accessible America is an incredibly informative history of accessibility design in the United States. Williamson's history begins around World War II and ends in modern times. I must note here that her book is largely focused on those who are either paralyzed or missing limbs. Whether this is because disability discourse discluded other disabilities or whether Williamson herself chose to only focus on this subset of disabilities is not clearly explained. That said, the history seems rather thorough. Another reviewer noted that Willamson uses "disabled people" and "people with disabilities" interchangeably. This is true; it's up for you to decide how much you champion people-first language. A note on personal taste- Accessible America is a very dry book. This is pretty much to be expected from NYU Press, but I thought I'd point it out. Overall, it's a good book, but I'd reserve it for those who have a vested interest in the subject. Those who only want to gain general knowledge may want to steer clear of this one.
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Thank you, NetGalley and NYU Press for the advanced reader copy.

As a handicapped person myself, I was very interested in this book. As a history, it's pretty good, but, ultimately disappointing.

I had hoped for more stories about individuals and how they created accessibility. When Williamson did this, the book was very good indeed. Instead the author tended to emphasize government and corporate solutions. Unhappily doing this tended to make for long and rather boring paragraphs, not showing much of the diversity of the disabled community she seems to applaud.

This is even true in her chapter about accessibility in Berkeley, where I made my home for many years. Here, where there is a clear story and hundreds of people whose lives were changed by what was done there, we read about idiosyncratic solutions and about what CIL did (and does) but we see few concrete examples. Instead we should have seen examples of the people who could lead independent lives because of the training they got there.

Writing that was more creative and less academic would tell the story better.

I think her emphasis on government and corporate (including hospitals and higher ed) is there because of the larger political point she wants to make, that these solutions don't always work and, importantly, don't work for many segments of the population, namely those who are not middle-class,

I'm irritated with that because I think she is ignoring several important things. First that technology to assist the handicapped is growing and becoming more innovative. Although she highlights a few businesses and people doing this, they are in a chapter that also gives weight to art installations. These days whenever I look for solutions, I find a greater variety and products that are more useful for "independence" than I saw even 2 years ago.

Second, she doesn't seem to like that companies that create products that help the disabled don't market themselves that way. I have a news flash for her -- the handicapped market is small. But the market for many of these innovations can be large. To take an example that she does not use in her book touches faucets. No doubt you've seen ads for them, they show dirty hands from cooking or gardening and someone holding a baby. Folks can sympathize with these situations and say "This looks useful." and buy it. But this is a product very useful for folks in wheelchairs or with limited reach. Would you buy it if the commercial showed someone in a wheelchair washing hands and nothing else? You'd probably think "That's just for the handicapped." and not think beyond or buy it. Can we blame businesses for looking at and expanding the usefulness of their products? I can't but Williamson seems to.

Third, she rarely considers, although she mentions it from time to time, the importance of having handicapped users input into products designed for them. I relay on lots of technology to live my life. Many of the products I use are made by companies that don't do that enough. For them they strive for the product to be "good enough." But for their customers a failure in a transport chair might mean a trip to the hospital. A delay to replace it makes their customer house-bound. Technology made with better input for their users just works better. The best piece of technology I own is a wheelchair made by a company run by a wheelchair-bound woman. Williamson does not give this its due.

Finally, she often ignores simple solutions and hacks that folks do. In her early chapters before there were bigger solutions she talks about the DIY approach but only in the context of a wider social trend of the 1950's. I have another newsflash for her, crips still do this and do it in spades. Although she says she is concerned about marginalization for the poor and handicapped, she never looks at what can be done easily and cheaply.

If we are truly going to create an Accessible America, we need to look at these things and not look to government and other big entities as the solution. If she really wanted to look at this subject completely she should have looked there.

An intricately researched and incredibly engaging history of accessible design in America. Williamson’s writing is easy to follow and shows a genuine fascination with the subject, and the text is supported by the larger history of accessible design, with images. Highly recommended!

The book traces the history of design for accessibility since the early 20th century—here moving from prostheses and designs that enabled people to drive cars to building/built environment design and finally back to wheelchairs and other objects (like OXO Good-Grips), now under the aegis of “universal design.” Williamson argues that a key issue has always been American individualism and bias against shared resources—was accessibility a way of enabling individual citizens to fulfill their productive potential, or was it coddling/harming others in order to benefit a minority? Appealing to the former conception helped disabled advocates and their allies, but also accepted the individualist premise. Likewise, using polio survivors and disabled war veterans as paradigmatic representatives of disabled populations allowed appeals to normative white masculinity and femininity—accessibility helped otherwise middle-class white people fulfill their appropriate roles—but didn’t challenge the normativity of those depictions. Radical interventions in the 1960s and beyond have tried to frame access as enabling individuals to choose how they want to live in the world, and to discuss inaccessibility as both literally and more-than-literally structural replication of disadvantage, but the simultaneous rise of “universal design” also made it easy for disability as a particular way of life to disappear, since designers are now supposedly designing for everyone.

I was drawn to this book because of the title and intriguing front cover.

Sadly, I was not impressed with the book's usage of "disabled people" versus "people with disabilities." Granted the vernacular isn't that different at first glance, but for a book describing accessibility I think they would strive to make the distinction. Disabled people suggests that a person is their disability, whereas people with disabilities implores that the person comes first and their disability is secondary. Again, a seemingly small difference in phrasing, but one that I will fight for changing.

This book had heavy focus on WW2 vets and explained that it was that incident that really awoke the country to the need for accessibility for all. Granted, we have come a long way since ADA was inacted, but we still have a long way to go.

For me, the most interesting part was learning about how the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was ahead of its time with accessability for post WW2 vets.

Thanks to #NetGalley, I had an advanced PDF to read and review.
*All opinions are my own and I was not require to post a positive review. *
#AccessibleAmerica #NetGalley

This notable work provides valuable perspective on the history and public discussion on disability. This could be an important resource for anyone working in a public-facing institution (higher ed, social service, nonprofits) as well as large or small business owners. I work in a large urban community college system, and my work as a faculty Reference and Instruction Librarian involves teaching.. Although our faculty have already had training in Universal Design, I often wonder about students' larger campus experience. This book can help form a deeper understanding of context for public spaces, and help people without disabilities think about how to put empathy into action.

An accessible (ha!), interesting and overall great book.

Accessible America, as the title promises, tackles the topic of accessible design in the US: its history, its most important dimensions (industrial design, architecture, legislation, activism…), crucial events, personalities, developments etc.

The book is quite thesis-driven, but balanced, informative and pleasant nonetheless. The author shares historical facts and general info within a framework of tracking changing attitudes towards disability in the US over the decades, making a compelling argument. It is evident a wealth of research has gone into the book, and Bess Williamson is able to maintain an easy-going, even tone that only comes with mastery of the subject matter. Many facts she shares are truly fascinating, resources cited - valuable, and the illustrations are simply fantastic. I found myself not wanting the book to end.
There is a lot more to be told and learned about history of disability design in the US (and elsewhere), I do hope Bess writes more about it!
One thing I wish received more focus is the history of disabled people within minority populations in the US. I realize resources on disability history are scarce as is, and are borderline non-existent for minority groups, but if there anything the book could benefit from highlighting more - it is this.

Anyway, a recommended read for anyone, design professionals or not, disabled or able-bodied, American or from elsewhere.

Most would look at a book about the history of design in America as strictly an academic text for research or design courses. And this book is an excellent resource for both research and teaching. I am neither a researcher in disability design nor a student of industrial design. Though I am not a member of the apparent intended audience, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

A am an American with a disability that requires that I use a wheelchair. I have benefited and continue to benefit from the history of accessibility in the United States. It may be due to my imposed passion for accessibility that this book was so impactful and meaningful to me. This book educated me about those who paved the curb-cut and reasonable sloped road that I now get to travel down. These individuals are no longer unknown to me but are people I am now thankful.