Explores the history of disability activism, concentrating on the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped (AFPH), a national, cross-disability organization founded during World War II to address federal disability policy. Through extensive archival research, the author examines the history of the AFPH and its enduring legacy in the disability rights movement. Counter to most narratives that place the inception of disability activism in the 1970s, Jennings argues that the disability rights movement is firmly rooted in the politics of World War II. This volume extends the arc of the disability rights movement into the 1940s and traces how its terms of inclusion influenced the movement for decades after, leading up to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Introduction -- 1. Salvaging people: disability in a nation at war -- 2. From the depths of personal experience: disability activists demand a hearing -- 3. Toward a new freedom from fear: disability and postwar uncertainty -- 4. It's good business: disability and employment -- 5. Work or welfare: the limits of the body politic -- 6. Götterdämmerung: rehabilitating rights in the 1950s -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments.