May 14, 1999

Museums Have a Lot to Learn From the Field of Disability Studies

By SIMI LINTON

Curators at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History all have stories to tell of people who show up with a family heirloom to donate to the collection: great-aunt Millie's wedding dress, a sewing machine found in a country cabin, a hand-carved wooden leg, a glass eye. The guards are instructed to refuse such offerings. But on May 13, 1995, a security guard at the Castle, the Smithsonian's

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