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Watch FDR on Lying: Hiding a Disability on PBS. See more from American Experience.

• WGBH American Experience : PBS video Alistair Cooke interviews Hugh Gallagher about FDR on Lying: Hiding a Disability
  Hugh Gallagher, “Biographer: The country just simply didn’t perceive Roosevelt as being handicapped, and they would look and they just would not see what they were seeing. People wanted him to be president, he wanted to be president. There was this little matter of being crippled in the way. The President was always performing. He was performing before crowds, before visitors of state, the Congress and so forth, but also for his family and everyone else. When he met Orson Welles, he said, “Orson, you and I are the two best actors in America,” and he was right, you know. He was right.”
• Social Security History
  Disability Policy & History
  Statement before the Subcommittee on Social Security
  of the Committee on Ways and Means
  July 13, 2000
  Edward D. Berkowitz
  George Washington University
  “Although Social Security Disability Insurance did not become law until July, 1956, a long period of discussion both in the executive agencies and in Congress preceded its passage. Planners in the Social Security Administration began their consideration of this measure in 1936. They devised a program that they felt could withstand the pressures of the depression. In particular, they wrote a tough definition of disability into their proposals so as to distinguish sharply between unemployment and disability. Instead of adopting a definition similar to the ones in the existing workers’ compensation and veterans pension laws, they chose to define disability as “an impairment of mind or body which continuously renders it impossible for the disabled person to follow any substantial gainful occupation,” and was likely to last for “the rest of a person’s life.” | “Even with this tough definition, which is similar to the one in the present law, many doubted the ability of federal officials to administer a disability program. As an actuary who served on the 1938 Social Security Advisory Council put it, “You will have workers like those in the dust bowl area, people who have migrated to California and elsewhere, who perhaps have not worked in a year or two, who will imagine they are disabled.” The actuary warned that unless a highly qualified medical staff examined each applicant, the cost of the program would be higher than “anything that can be forecast.”
• Disability rights movement – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  In 1948, a watershed for the movement was the proof of the existence of physical and program barriers. The proof was provided as a specification for barrier free usable facilities for the handicap. The specifications provided the minimum requirements for barrier free physical and program access. An example of barriers are; providing only steps to enter buildings; lack of maintenance of walkways; locations not connected with public transit; lack of visual and hearing communications ends up segregating individuals with disabilities from independent, participation, and opportunities. The ANSI – Barrier Free Standard (phrase coined by Dr. Timothy J. Nugent, the lead investigator) called “ANSI A117.1, Making Buildings Accessible to and Usable by the Physically Handicapped”, provides the indisputable proof that the barriers exist. It is based on disability ergonomic research conducted at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign campus from 1946 to 1986. The research was codified in the ANSI A117.1 standard in 1961, 1971, 1980, and 1986. The standard is the outcome of physical therapists, bio-mechanical engineers, and individuals with disabilities who developed and participated in over 40 years of research. Easter Seals Education Committee Chairman Harold Wilke was tasked with assembling that diverse group in 1959. The standard provides the criteria for modifying programs and the physical site to provide independence. Applying the researched standards criteria presents reliable access and non-hazardous conditions. In October 2011 the standard turned 50 years old. The standard has been emulated globally since its introduction in Europe, Asia, Japan, Australia, and Canada, in the early 1960s. [8]
• SPSSI – Journal of Social Issues – Vol. 44 No. 1 1988 – Moving Disability Beyond “Stigma”
  The Journal of Social Issues
  Vol. 44 No. 1 1988
  Moving Disability Beyond “Stigma”
  Issue Editors: Adrienne Asch and Michelle Fine
• Jesse Jackson full 1984 Convention Speech (starts at 12:55) #occupy1984 leaked draft – YouTube
  Speech starts at 12:55. See the FDR quote beginning at 31:10: “The Rainbow includes disabled veterans. The color scheme fits in the Rainbow. The disabled have their handicap revealed and their genius concealed; while the able-bodied have their genius revealed and their disability concealed. But ultimately, we must judge people by their values and their contribution. Don’t leave anybody out. I would rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan on a horse.”
• American Rhetoric: Jesse Jackson — 1984 Democratic National Convention Speech (“The  Rainbow Coalition”)
  Jesse Jackson: “The Rainbow includes disabled veterans. The color scheme fits in the Rainbow. The disabled have their handicap revealed and their genius concealed; while the able-bodied have their genius revealed and their disability concealed. But ultimately, we must judge people by their values and their contribution. Don’t leave anybody out. I would rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan on a horse.”
• Why The Candidates Still Use FDR As Their Measure | American History Lives at American Heritage Feb 1988
  “When the American people got their first look at the entries in the 1988 presidential race, they sensed immediately that not one of the contenders measured up to their highest expectations. The Republican heir apparent was dismissed as a “wimp,” and the original Democratic field as the “seven dwarfs.” Asked whom in either party they preferred, a huge proportion of respondents replied, “None of the above.” And if inquirers had gone on to ask what sort of nominee voters had in mind, not a few would have answered without hesitation, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” That sentiment cut across party lines. Predictably more than one Democrat sought to associate himself with his party’s four-time winner. At the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, Jesse Jackson had drawn a roar of approval when he said that FDR in a wheelchair was better than Ronald Reagan on a horse, and in the 1988 contest Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois offered any number of New Deal solutions to contemporary problems. More surprisingly, Franklin Roosevelt has attracted no little favorable comment from Republicans, most conspicuously President Reagan. In his 1980 acceptance address Reagan spoke so warmly of FDR that the New York Times editorial the next morning was entitled “Franklin Delano Reagan,” and thereafter he rarely missed an opportunity to laud the idol of his opponents. Indeed, so powerful an impression has FDR left on the office that in the most recent survey of historians, he moved past George Washington to be ranked as the second greatest President in our history, excelled only by the legendary Abraham Lincoln.”