ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses some of the American disability experiences by providing an insight into the rise of the disability rights movement in the United States. Colonial America's law and tradition, including those affecting individuals with disabilities, often continued European precedents, particularly from England and the Netherlands, two countries that colonized the eastern portion of what became the United States of America. The national bloodletting unleashed during the American Civil War, despite its widespread nation-building impact, had minimal positive consequences on the day-to-day lives of Americans with disabilities. For the most part there was greater public empathy for disabled Civil War veterans than there was for others who may have become disabled as a result of a work-related injury, and Americans, in and out of government, recognized a need to assist those injured in battle. The independent living centre model seemed to be a mechanism to achieve the goals of disabled people: equal social, political, economic, educational, and cultural options.
