All Blog Posts
The Niagara County Almshouse Cemetery
June 22, 2012
By David Mack-Hardiman, Contributor Surrounded by a thorny thicket of nearly impenetrable foliage, the Niagara County Almshouse Cemetery sits on a remote hill in Lockport, NY. Here lie the remains of approximately 1,400 people who lived and died at the almshouse from 1830 until 1916. As one walks up the path to approach the cemetery, songbirds chatter in the treetops. Densely overgrown bristly shrubs sit to the left of the path while an open grassy field is on the right. The taller treed area …
Teaching American History through Cemeteries
June 14, 2012
By Reid Dunlavey, Contributor On June 4, 2012, I had the opportunity to give a presentation to 25 elementary teachers at Forest Lawn Cemetery. There were five presenters and we all had to use the cemetery as a teaching tool in our presentations. This was not an easy task. My first thought was how or even why would an elementary teacher use death and a cemetery to teach history? After thinking about whom of significance was buried there and if any of those people had any impact on children and …
The World as it Could Be – Part One
May 10, 2012
By Brie Kishel, Contributor It is a topic that is hard to ignore. Not only because it has been prominent on television and in the newspaper, but because of the vast influence of social networking sites within the past decade. Bullying has escalated from being a social injustice that took place mainly on the playground or in graffiti written on the bathroom stall to cyber bullying, a new form of attack which provides an arena for a bully to publicly humiliate their victim to thousands of bystan…
The Underground Railroad in Niagara Falls
May 4, 2012
By Bradford Watts, Contributor The Underground Railroad occupies a central place in American history and folklore. The “railroad” refers to the routes followed by brave African American individuals who escaped from slavery during the mid-nineteenth century, as well as the people, networks, places and structures that collectively provided for and supported their efforts to gain their freedom. Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area The Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area …
The Find
March 16, 2012
By Douglas Platt, Museum Curator One aspect of building and overseeing the collection for the Museum of disABILITY History is what I call “The Find.” It is the moment when you realize that a recent acquisition has expanded the breadth and depth of the collection exponentially. My most recent “Find” arrived in a photograph album. The Museum recently acquired a dark brown photo album, bound with a brown shoe-lace. Upon opening the album, the first two photos were 7 x10 inch photographs of a con…
Dr. Platt H. Skinner - Early Educator, Advocate, and Abolitionist
February 2, 2012
By Reid Dunlavey, Contributor Dr. Platt Henry Skinner. Photo courtesy of Gallaudet University
Conducting research on forgotten events and people that have impacted disability history can be difficult and at the same time very rewarding. This is the case in regards to a little known educator named Platt H. Skinner. In 1858 Skinner opened his “School for the Instruction of the Colored Deaf, Dumb and Blind” in what is today Niagara Falls, New York near the Suspension Bridge that crossed the b…
Early State Schools of New York
November 16, 2011
By Thomas Stearns, Contributor Our publications department at the Museum of disABILITY History is currently in the midst of several fascinating projects. One of which is a book that explores the history behind the first publicly funded institutions of New York State that provided care and education for people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities. *During the era when these institutions were established (1851 – 1912), people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities were generically…