Kim Nielsen, Ph.D.
Ability Center of Greater Toledo Endowed Chair of Disability Studies
Distinguished University Professor, U.S. Disability History, Disability Law, Eugenics
UH 4390B
419.530.7254
education
Ph.D. History, University of Iowa, 1996
M.A., University of Iowa, 1991
B.A., Macalester College, 1988
employment
2012 – present: Professor, The University of Toledo
2007 – 2012: Professor, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
2003 – 2007: Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
1998 – 2003: Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
research and teaching interests
United States disability history; disability law; gender; competency and citizenship; biography; madness; feminist theory; U.S. women’s history; U.S. legal history
publications
books
- Helen Keller: Collected Writings. New York: Library of America, 2024, contracted.
- Money, Marriage and Madness: The Life of Anna Ott. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2020.
- The Oxford Handbook of Disability History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. With Michael Rembis and Catherine J. Kudlick.
- Winner of the 2021 Rosen Prize of the American Association for the History of Medicine. Winner of the 2019 Disability History Association Book Award.
- A Disability History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012.
- Beyond the Miracle Worker: The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009.
- Helen Keller: Selected Writings. New York University Press, 2005.
- The Radical Lives of Helen Keller. New York University Press, 2004 (paperback 2009).
- Un-American Womanhood: Antiradicalism, Antifeminism and the First Red Scare. Ohio State University Press, 2001.
editorial work
- With Michael Rembis, co-editor of the series Disability Histories (University of Illinois Press). This book series explores the lived experiences of individuals and groups from a broad range of societies, cultures, periods, and geographic locations, who either identified as disabled or were considered by the dominant culture to be disabled.
- Editorial Board member, Journal of Civil Rights Studies (University of Illinois Press)
- Co-editor of Disability Studies Quarterly 2015-2018
selected articles/essays
- “Not Returning to Normalized Injustice: Reflections on Teaching and Learning While Living the Pandemic,” Ohio Under Covid (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming).
- “Dr. Anna B. Ott, Patient #1763: The Messiness of Authority, Diagnosis, Gender, and Insanity in Nineteenth-Century America,” Signs 45/1 (Spring 2019): 27-49.
- “Incompetent and Insane: Labor, Ability, and Citizenship in Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century United States,” Rethinking History 23/2 (2019): 175-188.
- “The Perils and Promises of Disability Biography,” in The Oxford Handbook of Disability History, eds. Michael Rembis, Catherine Kudlick, and Kim E. Nielsen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018): 21-40.
- With Susan Burch, “History,” in Keywords in Disability Studies, eds. Benjamin Reiss, Rachel Adams, David Serlin (New York: New York University Press, 2015): 95-98.
- “Disability and Labor Activism: The Pains and Joys of Coalitions,” in Dennis Deslippe, Eric Fure-Slocum, and John McKerley, eds., Civic Labors: Scholars, Teachers, Activists, and Working-Class History (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming October 2016): 237-245.
- “Property, Disability, and the Making of the Incompetent Citizen in the United States, 1880s–1940s,” ed. Susan Burch and Michael Rembis, Disability Histories (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2014): 308-320.
- “Historical Thinking and Disability History,” Disability Studies Quarterly 28/3 (July 2008).
- “The Southern Ties of Helen Keller,” Journal of Southern History LXXIII, No. 4 (November 2007): 783-806. Winner of the 2007 A. Elizabeth Taylor Prize of the Southern Association of Women Historians for the best article in the field of southern women’s history.
- “Was Helen Keller Deaf? Blindness, Deafness, and Multiple Identities,” in Susan Burch and Brenda Jo Brueggemann, eds., Double Visions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Women and Deafness (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press), 2006: 21-39.
- “Doing the ‘Right’ Right,” Journal of Women’s History 16/3 (Autumn 2004): 168-172.
- “What’s a Patriotic Man to do? Patriotic Masculinities of the Post-WWI Red Scare,” Men and Masculinities 6/3 (January 2004): 240-253.
- “Helen Keller and the Politics of Civic Fitness.” Paul Longmore and Lauri Umansky, eds., The New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 2001): 268-290.
- "Dangerous Iowa Women: Pacifism, Patriotism, and the Woman-Citizen in Sioux City, Iowa, 1920-1927," Annals of Iowa 56 (Winter/Spring 1997): 80-98.
- "'We All Leaguers by Our House': Women, Suffrage, and Red-Baiting in the National Nonpartisan League," Journal of Women's History (Winter 1994): 31-50.
- "Who Were These Farmer Radicals? The Douglas County Farm Holiday Association," Minnesota History 51/7 (Fall 1989): 270-280.
selected fellowships and awards
- 2022 Short-Term Visiting Fellowship, Harvard’s Houghton Library (originally 2020, postponed due to the pandemic)
- 2021 American Philosophical Society Franklin Research Grant
- 2021 University of Toledo Outstanding Faculty Research and Scholarship Award
- 2021 Deutsch Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia (originally 2020, postponed due to the pandemic)
- 2020 University of Toledo, University Research Fellowship Award
- 2019 Fulbright Specialist Award, University of Erfurt, Germany, May – July
- 2018 President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions in Scholarship and Creative Activity, University of Toledo
- 2018 Outstanding Teacher Award, University of Toledo
- 2016 Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library History of Medicine travel grant
- 2013 — Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries Research Grant-in-Aid recipient
- 2010–13 — Organization of American Historians, Distinguished Lecturer
- 2009 — Founders Association Award for Excellence in Scholarship
- 2007 — Winner of the Elizabeth Taylor Prize of the Southern Association of Women Historians for the best article in the field of southern women’s history.
- 2005 — Organization of American Historians/Japanese Association of American Studies Japanese Residency Award
- 2005 — National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Research Stipend
- 2005 — Founders Association Award for Teaching Excellence
- 2004 — UWGB Woman of the Year Award
- 1999 — Minnesota Historical Society Research Grant
- 1998 — Research Grant, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
- 1998 — Fulbright Scholars Award, University of Iceland
