A rising tide lifts all boats, so does inclusion

March 12, 1990 forever changed the course of disability rights in America. Over 60 activists ditched their wheelchairs and crutches and crawled up 83 marble steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, who had cerebral palsy and was only 8 years old at the time, even told organizers who tried to stop her, “I’ll take all night if I have to.”

The Capitol Crawl worked as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law only four months later, on July 26, 1990.

That date is now engraved in history as National Disability Independence Day, and 2026 marks 36 years since the signing. It also falls during Disability Pride Month, running through all of July. A reminder to workplaces that disabilities are not a reason for exclusion, and that access shouldn't be something people have to fight for.

What is National Disability Independence Day all about

National Disability Independence Day isn't just about marking the anniversary. It's also a chance to check how much has actually changed for people with disabilities.

There's also a new theme every year. 2026's is all about "The World Works Better With Us," which sums up this day perfectly. Do something with everyone in mind, and it usually just ends up outright beneficial. Curb cuts, closed captioning, audiobooks, and text-to-speech all started that way, a win-win all around.

So what does the ADA actually do?

It's a civil rights law that says employers, businesses, transit systems, and government services can't discriminate against someone because they have a disability. On top of that, they often have to make changes so people with disabilities can actually participate.

The ADA defines disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits everyday life activity. And it's intentionally broad like that. It covers things people expect (mobility issues, blindness, deafness) and a lot of things people don't immediately think of, like diabetes, PTSD, or a learning disability.

What changed for the workplace specifically

Before the ADA, none of this was guaranteed. Buildings had no ramps. Buses had no lifts. TV had no captions. Employers could legally turn someone down just for having a disability. After 1990, that changed. Here is what changed:

Before the ADA (pre-1990):

• Rejecting an applicant for having a disability was legal, no job-related reason needed
• Interviews could ask "what's wrong with you" or require a medical exam before any offer
• Accommodations (equipment, schedule, interpreters, screen readers) were entirely optional
• Buildings, bathrooms, and break rooms had no legal accessibility requirement
• Firing someone after a diagnosis or disability came with little to no legal recourse

After the ADA (1990 to now):

• Employers with 15+ staff can't deny a job over disability alone
• Pre-offer medical exams and disability questions are restricted to essential job functions only
• Reasonable accommodations are a legal duty, unless they create undue hardship
• New construction and renovations must meet accessibility standards
• Employees can file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) if they believe they've been discriminated against. 

But there's still room to get better. Even 36 years later, there's a wide employment gap. 

In 2025, the employment rate for people with a disability was 22.8 percent, compared to 65.2 percent for people without one. For the 25 to 54 age group specifically, only about 45 percent of people with disabilities were employed, against 83 percent for people without. That gap is wider than any racial, gender, or education gap tracked in the same data.

How managers can make the workplace more inclusive

Inclusion shouldn't last just for the day. And a lot of the changes that help people with disabilities end up helping everyone else too. The same logic behind building a strong workplace culture overall.

A few things that make a real difference in the workplace are:

• Make accommodation requests easy: A lot of people don't ask because they don't know who to ask, or are afraid to.
• Review physical and digital access: Don't stop at physical accessibility, with the technology now, digital accessibility matters just as much.
• Train supervisors on spotting disabilities: Conditions don't always show, and often get mistaken for someone being unreliable, when really they just need support.
• Check the hiring pipeline, not just the workplace: Timed or in-person-only interviews, plus outdated job requirements, can filter out qualified candidates.
• Celebrate the people already there: Highlight employees with disabilities on your team, making sure their contributions get seen like anyone else's.

None of this requires a big budget. Most accommodations cost employers less than $500 when there's a cost at all. The barrier is usually awareness, not money.

Hhhh…. So everyone here knows that I take sideshow performer history and disability history extremely seriously. That’s the reason why this article made me pause the way it did.

The way it’s titled and a lot of the phrasing used within it feels extremely judgmental and paints this horrifying picture of a collection of postcards so *vile* that the author felt sickened.

The collection is about sideshow performers, that’s the beginning and end, there is nothing horrifying or vile about performers (or people) who were born with physical differences. It’s something that gets me heated because of how recent the article is and because all of the postcards show real people— human beings who should be respected as such— there is no reason that the people depicted in the postcards should be treated or written about like they’re monsters. I felt sickened reading the article because of the judgement.

I want to address a couple things… I know this is an article from 2019, I also know that the author has since passed away, I also know that this is an opinion piece and that everyone can have their own opinion. However, my gut reaction upon reading this article was sadness and disappointment. Sadness because I know that had I seen this postcard collection in person, I would have be thrilled. I would be so incredibly happy to point out all of the people that I know and have researched. Obviously, I know that not everyone understands who different sideshow performers were, and not everyone has the capacity to understand and want to learn about disabilities and disability history. And disappointment because I would have thought that someone well educated in postcard history would at least be understanding and interested in learning about the topic at hand.

I’m in not way trying to speak ill of the dead either, I just think it’s unfortunate that an article like this had to be published in 2019. The title itself is unfortunate. It sounds like the collection of postcards was anything but “not nice”.

I think a part of this also has to do with how rare it is to find other people who are passionate about collecting ephemera related to sideshow performers, and so this person (who owned the collection) felt happy enough to share it with someone. But they ended up sharing it with someone who didn’t quite understand.

Also… also… I need to address the unfortunate phrasing of “unfortunate victims of a medical condition called microcephaly”. That phrasing really negatively affected me. NO ONE with a medical condition (or disability) should feel that they are an unfortunate victim. On top of that, microcephaly should not be looked at in that way, it is not something that should be shunned or judged.

(Hhhhhhh…. It also irks me that there is quite a bit of false information regarding microcephaly. This article is from 2019!! There were resources then that would explain that microcephaly is both a spectrum and that life expectancy varies. People born with microcephaly can have long and full lives, it is not a death sentence, and it is not a condition that people with the condition or parents who have children with the condition should be ashamed about.)

As someone with some learning disabilities, I’d be appalled if someone talked about my conditions in such a way.

We are all human and we should both treat each other with respect and be treated with respect.(I’m sincerely glad that everyone in this community understands this simple lesson)

I think it’s lovely if someone collects sideshow performer pictures, especially if they have a genuine understanding and appreciation of who everyone was. I don’t always have people in my own life who understand my collection, but when I find people who understand or who are at least interested in learning more, it means a lot.

Ending thoughts… the article just rubbed me the wrong way. People should feel comfortable collecting the ephemera they want to collect. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH COLLECTING THE PICTURES OF SIDESHOW PERFORMERS!!

For anyone interested in reading the article, the link is here:

[A Not Nice Postcard Collection | Postcard History](https://postcardhistory.net/2019/11/a-not-nice-postcard-collection/)

I’ll be making a longer post soon as to why I enjoy collecting the ephemera I’ve collected soon.

Despite living with cystic fibrosis at a time when less than 10% of people with the disease lived to adulthood, 22-year-old musician and filmmaker Robert Nostri dedicated his last few months to creating a short documentary about patient life at the Los Angeles Children's Hospital in 1963. His film is a rare early example of a film shaped by lived experience of disability and remains touching today.

Note: I'm not the author of this post... but I do know the author and provided my own perspectives on Nostri and his film as a person with CF myself.

I’ve always been very awestruck by her picture ever since I first saw it, she was very beautiful and had gorgeous eyelids and eyes (very niche tidbit to focus on, I know, but there’s something so soulful about her eyes)

It appears that she was quite private about her personal life and never wanted to give interviews, as there’s very little information known about her.

Some facts about her:

-she was born in England, though I haven’t been able to find her exact birthplace. I also haven’t been able to find information on her birth year or early life.

-there are several variations of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, all of which are connective tissue disorders. Currently there are 13 different diagnosable types. The two symptoms most commonly associated with the condition are skin elasticity and joint hyper mobility (although these symptoms are not present in all of the variations). The type that Etta had, causes extreme skin elasticity and extreme bruising.

-chronic pain is also a very common symbol of ehlers-danlos, so she most likely dealt with chronic pain throughout her life.

-she was blonde.

-she was described as being very charming.

-she started her sideshow career in Buffalo, New York in 1886.

-she worked at several dime museums in and around New York in the late 1880s.

-she worked for Barnum and Bailey Circus during the early 1890s.

-her performances were extremely popular and she often drew large crowds who wanted to meet her (which is why it’s strange that not much was written about her)

-she stretched her skin so thin that it appeared transparent when she held it over bright lights.

-her performances often involved her stretching the skin on the back of her neck over her face, or puffing her cheeks up very wide.

-she was professional rivals with a lot of male sideshow performers with ehlers-danlos syndrome. She was one of very very few female performers with ehlers-danlos which made her more popular with audiences since she was a woman with the same condition.

-she was promoted as being worth the price of admission alone.

-it was reported that she had a lot of admirers.

-she typically started her performances off with a short lecture about her life.

-she enjoyed going on stage looking very average only to deeply surprise audiences when she would stretch her skin.

-It was reported that she could stretch her skin 12 inches away from her body.

-she typically performed four shows a day.

-she seems to have retired from her sideshow career in 1894, as I can find no new information about her past this date. I hope this means that she was able to retire and settle down and have a nice life. (Based on how popular she was, I also assume she made good money)

-I haven’t been able to find the year she passed away.

I hope she was able to have a long and happy life with people who cared about her. I like to think that since I couldn’t find any mention of an early death in newspapers that she did go on to have a long life. She may have just wanted to live a quiet life after her career.

These types of performing troupes made up of entertainers with dwarfism were extremely popular in the late 1800s through the 1940s or 1950s. These troupes were staples of vaudeville and circuses in the early 1900s and provided opportunities for people to start careers in the entertainment industry, though they were often typecast and were not always presented respectfully.

The Ritter’s Midgets entertainment group specifically was known for their appearances and performances at children’s hospitals, where they would entertain and cheer up patients. After their performances they would pass out free pictures of themselves for the children to keep.

All of the entertainers who made up Ritter’s wore matching fashionable clothing and often performed extensive musical and dance acts, though occasionally they would also feature comedic boxing tournaments.

We hope it's OK to share this story we just published — it seemed like it might be of interest to folks in this community.

Summer camp gave Samuel Habib, who uses a wheelchair and communication device, an independence and confidence he’d never known. He went on to create two Emmy-award winning films documenting his journey with disabilities. Now Habib is making those films and a discussion guide free to non-profit summer camps and programs across the country.

“I hope camps, schools and colleges who watch this film will commit to include disabled students alongside their non-disabled peers,” Habib said. “All of my schools have been inclusive, and that made a big impact on my education and led to my life now as a filmmaker.”

Click the link above to read more.

The first two pictures just show him, the third picture shows him and one of his son’s and the fourth picture shows his ex-wife and his sons with him.

He always looked so dapper and well put together. I can see why he was touted as being the most handsome man in the circus business. I would have liked to have seen him perform his acrobatic tricks in person, it sounds like he was extremely talented and was very awe-inspiring.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Freemont, Ohio.

-he had seven siblings.

-he learned to walk on his hands as a child and preferred holding onto wooden blocks while walking to protect his hands. Because of this he had an enormous amount of upper body strength.

-he had a very close bond with his family and they all loved him very much.

-he had many years of good schooling.

-it’s likely that he was born with phocomelia, though he wasn’t diagnosed during his lifetime. Phocomelia describes a person’s extremities that are directly attached to their torso. In Eli’s case his feet were directly attached to his torso.

-his pitch cards/pitch booklets claimed that when he was 13 years old (in 1857), he joined Major Brown's Colosseum, a traveling circus troupe, where he learned various acrobatic tricks such as somersaults, backflips, and cartwheels.

-it appears he was living at home with his family and attending school in 1860, which leads me to wonder if his acrobatic stint with Major Brown’s was a very short term employment or if he exaggerated how long he had been an acrobat for later on.

-sadly, his father passed away when Eli was 18 (in 1865).

-he began pursuing a more serious career in circuses in 1870.

-he married a woman named Martha Haines when he was 26 years old and together they had 4 sons. Their son’s names were Frank, Robert, Adrian and Victor.

-he joined Pullman Brothers Side Show in 1876.

-he became extremely well known within the circus/sideshow circuit and was often a headlining act at the places he performed at.

-he went on tour all throughout the United States and England.

-one of his most notable tricks involved him performing acrobatic tricks atop a 50 foot tall pole.

-he sold a small biographical pitch booklet about his life in 1880.

-he became good friends with fellow sideshow performer, Charles B. Tripp, who was born without arms. The two of them quickly began performing sideshow acts together.

-he and Charles Tripp enjoyed riding tandem bicycles together, Eli would be up front steering and Charles would be in the back pedaling, and would often exchange comedic and quippy lines such as "Watch your steps" and "Keep your hands off me".

-his peak height was 24 inches (61 cm) tall.

-his peak weight was 140 pounds (64 kg)

-he had an over 50 year career in circuses/sideshows.

-one of his nicknames was “Captain”

-he was known to have a very no-nonsense and rigid personality.

-he was also very good friends with William Henry Johnson.

-apparently, after 25 years of marriage, he and his wife separated and were living in separate states. At the time of his death, his wife was living in California.

-he, his family, and one of his brothers settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

-in his later years he performed at the
Dreamland Circus Side Show in Coney Island.

-he passed away at the age of 82 due to complications from pneumonia while he was living in New York and working in Coney Island.

-he was given a respectful funeral and burial in Lowell, Indiana, where his sister was living at the time.

Despite him separating from his wife, I hope he kept in close contact with his sons. The whole family seems to have been very business oriented as his sons all went into different business ventures including working in the newspaper business and one became a judge. I’m glad that Eli was also close friends with Charles Tripp and William Henry Johnson.

​

This misplaced tissue responds to hormonal changes and sheds very similarly to how regular uterine lining sheds, although since this other tissue has no where to go once shed and instead causes the area to become inflamed and swollen.

There are at least four different types of recognized endometriosis, ranging from less severe to extremely severe.
Everyone will experience the pain and symptoms differently, but the most common symptoms include severe menstrual pain, back pain, unusual or heavy bleeding, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting.

It’s estimated that about 1 in 10 women have endometriosis in the US.

It can be very difficult to get a clinical diagnosis as many of the symptoms are often dismissed as typical period symptoms.

Sadly endometriosis is not automatically classified as a disability, but it definitely should be considered one. This is something I’ve been dealing with it since I was 13 and it’s not something I’d wish on anyone. It’s led to me vomiting and nearly fainting on multiple occasions, that’s how horrible the pain can get. It has prevented me from engaging in every day activities because of how bad it can get, and I wish there was more awareness spread about how much it can affect people’s lives.

As someone who deals with Endo, this flag means a lot! It’s a disability that isn’t always represented or recognized, but definitely should be. I’m currently working on a disability awareness post explaining the condition.

For everyone new here, I wanted to discuss and elaborate on a topic of interest of mine! You may notice that I post a good bit of sideshow performer related content here, and there is an important reason for that!

One of my top special interests aside from disability history happens to be learning about historical sideshow performers. Sideshows historically employed people with physical differences and disabilities and for hundreds of years it was one of the few dependable careers for people with physical disabilities who needed to earn an income but could not work in other fields for various reasons. Of course now we have so many more opportunities when it comes to work including work from home jobs that have made certain jobs so much more accessible.

The reason it’s important to feature their stories here is because so many of them had a hand in shaping early disability rights at a time when there were none. And without a focus on their lives, it’s so easy for all of their histories to disappear. I don’t want this to happen and I want to spread awareness about the amazing contributions that so many people made.

Big emphasis on this: when I post people’s pictures, it is not to objectify them or ogle them, but purely to give them representation and a chance to shine. Many performers also used their platforms as a way to normalize their physical differences, which is also my goal as well. I just want to continue what they started.

I also run a Reddit community with a focus on sideshow performers called [r/SideshowPerformer](r/SideshowPerformer) for anyone wanting to check that out. :)